Itasca to Acarai with a little bit of Placencia in between
Paisley Park and the 3rd Avenue Bridge are both reasonable places to ask for once you touch down in the twin cities in Minnesota. Of course only after numerous questions about the bike lanes and metro. Coming from Tampa, Florida, anywhere that offers mobility options gets my attention these days, some from envy and some from pure respect and curiosity.
I was invited by the Clean Water and Sustainable Ecosystems Working Group at the University of Minnesota (UNM) to give a keynote at a “New Technologies to Detect Water Pollutants” symposium. The title of my talk was, “#Infrastructurality and the Awakening of Human Sensors for Water Source Protection.”
As that human sensor, I made the talk personal and told a story that connected Minnesota to Guyana, the country of my birth. I had travelled to Guyana, Chicago, Iowa, Jamaica, and Washington DC within six weeks prior to the talk and this informed what was heavy on my mind. This piece recaps that 45 minute presentation.
At the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) 2011 conference, an event that I co-chaired at the University of South Florida, we interviewed some in our field who received their PhDs by 1975. I used a video clip of them in my talk to emphasize that the common good must motivate environmental engineers. Patrick Brezonik, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota set the stage.
“The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published in fall of 1962. I read that book and it made a profound impact on me. It really made me to start to think about the impacts that humans were having particularly on aquatic environments but on the environment in general. The book was of course about the effects of persistent pesticides on ecosystems. And that book got me thinking about trying to do something in my career that involved using my science background, my chemistry background rather than going off and learning how to do chemistry, to make a new perfume or new detergent or something like that, use chemistry to understand the environmental effects.” Prof. Patrick Brezonik, 2011.
Recognizing that research/work agendas and funding are set by institutions like the National Academy of Engineering (14 Grand Engineering challenges set in 2008, the National Science Foundation (10 Big Ideas released in 2016) and the United Nations (17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2015), I focused on themes of access to clean water, urban infrastructure, managing the nitrogen cycle, convergent research, and life under the ocean.
Minnesota, the fourth largest agricultural exporting state in the US, is far north of the coastal areas where I work. Its’ runoff, however, high in nutrients from fertilizers and animal waste, makes its way in the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists track the impact the nutrient loads have on that marine environment — say dead zone and we environmental engineers think of this patch of sea that cannot support aquatic life at certain times during the year (the nutrients from fertilizer feed algae, the algae grow and as they die microbes consume oxygen to break them down, this reduces oxygen dissolved in the water making it difficult for aquatic life like fish to survive there). Known as hypoxic zones, they pose major challenges around many coastal communities.
Tom Moore, the Coral Reef Restoration Program Manager and Natural Resource Damage Assessment Expert with NOAA, once said in a public forum that what happens in the Caribbean sea affects the US as the Gulf Stream brings it up and around Florida. Similarly in 2015 during a “sargassum invasion” that freaked out the Caribbean region, some theories included the high nutrient loads feeding the sargassum as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill having remnant effects of breaking up sargassum mats, and high nutrient loads from Brazil’s agricultural sector in the Amazon feeding the sargassum in the Atlantic. The sargassum has returned in full force this year and research still needs to be done to understand the reason for the levels that are higher than collective human memory recalls.
The interconnectivity of our waters, begs the question on how to do so with actual human beings. How to do so with the tourists and residents of our coastal areas lured by the promises of sand and sea and sold a denuded, engineered and altered concept of a coastline. How to do so with persons like Annette Arjoon (pictured above in Guyana), who founded the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society in 2000 and is a sustainability champion inspiring others to value what is Guyanese, what “is we own”.
In June 2014 I met Lisa Carne, the Founder and CEO of Fragments of Hope (FoH), an NGO based in Placencia, Belize. Along with two other members of her organization she presented their coral restoration work to a colleague and students from USF in our hotel room. She even brought the projector. We were starting research on resource recovery from wastewater grant funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Partners for International Research and Education (PIRE) grant. My dad recommended I meet her since I was in Placencia, but coral restoration was not our radar. Since that presentation I have had the privilege of joining FoH on multiple restoration trips and meeting a wider network of coral restorers from around the Caribbean and world. At their meetings I am usually the only environmental engineer. In 2015 I spent more time in Placencia and interviewed Mariko Wallen, a tour guide and coral restorer. Filmed at Little Water Caye at the end of a week of seaweed harvesting with the Placencia Seaweed Farmers, she spoke of the excitement from recently witnessing Acropora palmata and cerviconas spawn — that is, the ones that were out planted by FoH.
It was the last night at sea back in August 2015 when the team saw the nursery grown corals spawn. This usually happens a few days after the August full moon and to be able to witness their joy, was truly motivating. Here was an organization that witnessed complete devastation of the reefs around Laughing Bird Caye National Park, a marine protected area managed by the Southern Environment Association, following hurricane Iris in 2001. Joining a small group of coral restorers around the world, they increased reef cover through coral gardening. The hope of many in the restoration community is to strategically select reef sites for out planting that are located in areas that could seed growth on other parts of degraded or destroyed reefs through spawning.
Tiffany Talbot Oliver, an IB Biology teacher at Robinson High school and currently a Florida state finalist for the “Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching”, introduced her students to FoH after a spring break trip to Belize in March 2017 as a part of a Research Experience for Teachers supplement from the PIRE grant. Dr. David Vaughan from Mote Marine Laboratory also visited FoH for the first time then, bringing with him a diamond blade saw to micro fragment corals. Tiffany later explained that her students hear about the doom and gloom of the corals, and she would use her experience in Belize to bring some hope into the Tampa Bay classroom.
To further cement their commitment to their barrier reef, on December 31, 2017 Belize passed a law to indefinitely prohibit offshore oil exploration and drilling. On June 26, 2018 the World Heritage Sites removed the Belize Barrier Reef from the endangered sites list. Their fight to sustainably manage their natural resources is one that others in the Caribbean region and around the world can admire, learn from, and support.
Coral restorers from the Oracabessa Fish Sanctuary and Sandals Boscobel Fish Sanctuary in Jamaica visited Belize in March 2018 and FoH visited Jamaica as a part of a Fragments of Hope knowledge exchange program funded a GEF-SGP grant awarded to FoH. Jamaica’s Discovery Bay, home to a bauxite industry, is also a place where many marine scientists trained on reef ecosystems. Today along Jamaica’s coastline, it is acknowledged that coral degradation reduces fish stock. Similarly, catching the fish critical for reef health, leads to coral degradation. More Coral = More Fish is the FoH slogan, but when livelihoods are at stake, many stakeholders must agree. With 19 fish sanctuaries in Jamaica, Oracabessa is hailed as one of the templates to follow where fishermen are paid as rangers and coral restorers and where partnership with the local fishing association are critical.
Hearing Jamaican fisherman Ian Layne scream out, “MARLIN MARLIN” while snorkeling for the first time in the Silk Caye Marine Reserve in Belize, was the first indication that this was a beautiful connection. Two months later when the FoH team visited Jamaica, they heard the rangers speak of the difference their sanctuary has made to their fishing livelihoods, helped out plant corals using cement, and helped remove orange footed snails that decimate the corals. They also learned about a TNC produced documentary Massa God Fish Can Done which did a fisherfolk exchange about 10 years prior where the Belizeans expressed how their experience with dwindling fish stocks helped them change habits to bring the fish back.
Same way the nutrients from agricultural runoff impact the Gulf of Mexico, is the same way they along with sediment and other land based pollutants can impact water quality around reefs and this could be devastating for those ecosystems and livelihoods. With a population ~7.6 times that of Belize and 1/2 the landmass, Jamaica’s reefs are also right next to the heavily populated and developed coasts. A blessing that you can simply swim out from shore, a curse given the development. Although Belize’s barrier reef is a few miles from the mainland, the cayes, of which they are ~450, are like microcosms of island nations with limited water, food, and energy supplies, and challenges associated with solid waste, wastewater, tourism, and natural disaster.
Exposed to this underwater world and the diverse people who guide my experience there, I am cognizant of the role engineers can play to add to their success, especially environmental engineers. I also believe that working with communities improves design and function of our infrastructure. Following up on this, my colleagues at USF and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) now have a new NSF National Traineeship Grant to engage with coastal communities and partners to apply systems thinking for sustainable solutions for food energy water systems (#strongcoasts). Through this grant we plan to build on our existing partnerships and provide place based ridge to reef case studies for Florida, the Virgin Islands, Barbados, and Belize.
While this new grant focuses mainly on the training of graduate students, the New Harmony High School in New Orleans proposes an exciting K-12 approach committed to the belief that school is everywhere. Their $10 million dollar XQ Super Schools pitch to rethink the American High School is one that sits on a barge and focuses on how to save their city of New Orleans in Louisiana. Imagine if they, as human sensors, travel up the Mississippi river to its headwaters in Minnesota at Itasca and meet the farmers and septic tank owners downstream whose nutrients affect their coasts. Learn like I did when I visited the University of Iowa on April 27th, that some residents there are trying to reduce nitrate concentrations in their drinking water based on studies showing potential links to bladder cancer. Learn like I did in Chicago at a coastal resilience workshop on April 20th, that retention of sediment by Missouri farmers coupled with engineered infrastructure, reduces sediment loads to the Delta making it even more vulnerable to sea level rise. Learn that ExxonMobil’s operations in Louisiana sit on some of the highest ground, and explore what our dependence on oil means for rising sea levels. One hopes that New Harmony students bring agency to their community & awaken our sense of responsibility to this planet we call home.
Reflecting back on my own youth in Guyana, I see many linkages with the Mississippi river watershed. Parts of Guyana drain to the amazon river, the largest river in the world with a discharge rate ~13 times that of the Mississippi river. The countries small and medium scale gold mines have clear cut virgin forests and from above the mined out pits somewhat resemble the large farms one views flying over the midwest. In 2006 I had the privilege of being a part of Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program of the Kanashen region, home to the Wai Wai Indigenous peoples in southern Guyana. The Acarai river is pretty much the headwater for the Essequibo river that runs through the length of Guyana. Compared to other rivers in the world, it’s the 178th longest one and along its path is the world’s second highest straight drop waterfall, Kaieteur. As I learned about Minnesota in preparing for my talk, I was taken aback by an old picture of St. Anthony’s Falls and the twin cities and wondered whether population growth, and our current lifestyles meant Kaieteur would one day look like the engineered dam under the 3rd Avenue Bridge.
The coastal region of Guyana is home to the majority of the country’s population, and like New Orleans it sits below mean sea level. Like New Orleans it also supports the oil industry with the first offshore wells projected to start pumping in 2020. A small country made world famous by Jim Jones and the mass murder of the People’s Temple members, it is once again in the headlines. This time it’s ExxonMobil and their 500 million barrels of oil find as of today. A company currently facing lawsuits for its role in climate change brings the promise of prosperity to a nation where 90% of the population live on a coastal stretch most vulnerable to sea level rise. If one imagined the coastal plain of Guyana as New Orleans, the Rupununi Savannah would be kind of like Minnesota with the introduction of large scale agriculture supported by companies like agricultural giant Cargill. As these southern agricultural belts emerge, the nutrient runoff loads are already being linked by some to increased nutrient levels in the Atlantic that then feed the sargassum mats. The cycle repeats itself.
Coral reefs are recognized as the most vulnerable ecosystem to climate change. As someone who started diving really only 4 years ago, I hear from many what the Caribbean reefs used to look like. Land use patterns, overfishing, untreated wastewater, bad stormwater management — we devastated ours before the climate debates started. Even in their not so great state, however, they provide such beauty and things to marvel at and study as an engineer. I hope that in sharing my experiences with the coral restoration community to date, more environmental engineers and scientists would join them in the battle to save our coral reefs. I hope that all of this formalized talk of the “blue economy”, a space that coastal communities have long depended upon, does not become exploited like we did our lands. I hope that more people who look like me will access this research space. While the majority in the Caribbean look like me, they do not fill the academic and research spaces of marine sciences and to a lesser extent engineering and that is a missed opportunity to innovate and activate social networks needed to contribute solutions to these challenges we face.
At an NSF Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) workshop held May 16–18 in Washington DC, I learned about upcoming funding for “convergence incubators.” As souls driven by funding opportunities, I’d say saving our coral reef ecosystems is surely a pressing societal need worthy of bringing together diverse perspectives and skill sets that pull together #fragmentsofhope from around the world for one common good that we can feel mighty proud of.
The National Science Foundation had a call for Engineering Research Center Planning grants and this was something I planned to pursue when I gave the talk. That 6 pager was never submitted and rather than share some of the ideas and needs I proposed, let’s just say that there was positive feedback from persons at UNM on how their work would lend to such a coral reef inspired project, whether towards improved sensors for monitoring marine ecosystems or better microbial based processes for saltwater based/exposed wastewater treatment. The subsequent talks that day zoned in on the cutting edge research underway in the biological sciences for water quality monitoring. The schedule is below along with links to presenters.
Session 1: Clean water: the global crisis
9:00–10:00 Randomized Controlled Trials of WASH Interventions to Reduce Environmental Exposures by Christine George, Johns- Hopkins Water Institute
10:00–11:00 #Infrastructurality and the Awakening of Human Sensors for Water Source Protection, by Maya Trotz, University of South Florida
Session 2: Assessing water quality: new biosensor technologies
11:15–12:15 Electro-Fluidic Micro- and Nanotechnologies for Environmental Monitoring by Mehdi Javanmard, Rutgers University
1:15–1:45 Bio-Detection of Toxicants in Food and Water by Larry Wacket, University of Minnesota
1:45–2:15 Sensing aquatic pollutants using electric microbes by Jeff Gralnick, University of Minnesota
2:15–3:15 Sensors for Continuous Monitoring of Organic Chemicals in Water by Ken Reardon, Colorado State University, Founder of Opti- Enz biosensor company
Session 3: Reporting sensor output
3:30–4:00 Fluorescent Aptamers: Rapidly Developed Sensors for Arbitrary Analytes of Interest by Aaron Engelhardt, University of Minnesota
4:00–5:00 Designing Highly Specific Protein-based Small Molecule Biosensors” Srivatsan Raman, University of Wisconsin — Madison
The symposium was held in a building sponsored by Cargill, headquartered in Minnesota. As our NRT gets going, my hope is that our trainees have opportunities to link our four study sites to people in far away places and build the synergies needed to address nutrient pollution. Incidentally, a colleague from biological sciences described a hole in the ground with some wood chips at the bottom that farmers are digging to capture runoff from their land. I was relieved to hear that as I was overwhelmed by the size and number of the farms seen from the sky, and wondered how the research we do on bioretention cells in urban areas (more or less a hole in the ground with some wood chips at the bottom) would scale.
The last question after my talk asked whether we should be dealing with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving water quality instead of, or before restoring corals. I reason that while we know how to treat wastewater to reduce its impact on the marine environment, the majority of the Caribbean region does not have any centralized treatment and few do anything to reduce nutrient loads. There is no doubt this will happen, but the motivation needs to be there for the funding to happen and for people to want to pay for the solutions. To this end, I wish more of our engineering students get under water to see the reefs, and be inspired by the reef restoration community to better solve runoff, wastewater, and solid waste problems, and understand why civic engagement for reduced greenhouse gas emissions back in their coal powered and car culture city, is important to not only their health, but that of the reefs.
After the talk, Dr. Kelly Aukema mentioned that their incoming class at Minnesota does an intensive retreat at Itasca where students learn sampling and analytical techniques and get to experience the headwaters of the world’s 4th largest river in the world.
A big thank you to Professors Jeff Gralnick, Larry Wackett, Aaron Engelhart, and the rest of their colleagues at UNM for being such gracious hosts.
