From the Hamilton Spectator
____________________________
Burlington Post
By Tim Whitnell
There is a floating laboratory that calls Burlington waters home.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Limnos is moored at the pier at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), the large federal aquatic research facility located beneath the Skyway Bridge on Burlington Bay.
For 47 years the Limnos has ventured onto the Great Lakes to conduct scientific sampling and research, predominantly in the realm of water quality.
The Coast Guard vessel hits the water each spring and summer enabling researchers and scientists, mainly affiliated with Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to study areas of interest and possible concern such as climate change, toxic chemical and nutrient levels, the impact of invasive species, the health of fish and nearshore runoff/pollution.
A major role of the ship is to help uphold the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, an American-Canadian pact that was first signed in 1972 and updated in 2012.
Being a Coast Guard ship, when need be, the Limnos is also a search and rescue vessel.
The Limnos went on a ‘shakedown cruise’ the second week of April, a short-distance trip that is used to test a variety of ship equipment.
Shortly after that it went out on the water to set up research equipment on Lake Ontario.
The vessel’s maiden voyage of the 2015 touring season is this week as it is on Lake Erie in support of the Great Lakes Surveillance Program.
It heads out to Lake Erie again next week where it will conduct moorings in support of Great Lakes science programs. Moorings are structures placed at various points in a body of water that allow scientists to position instruments, collect samples and take long-term measurements.
The Limnos concentrated its research in 2014 on Lake Erie. This spring and summer it will be on Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Huron.
There is generally a five-year cycle of intensive research and monitoring of the Great Lakes by the Limnos. It doesn’t venture onto Lake Michigan as it is the only one of the five Great Lakes completely within the United States.
The Limnos is on the water about 26-28 weeks each season, depending on weather conditions. Individual research sojourns usually last 1-2 weeks — up to three weeks on the distant Lake Superior — often with a different complement of researchers on board each time out, depending on the nature of the experiments.
The boat can accommodate 14 officers/crew members and up to 16 scientific personnel. Blaine Morton is in his first year as its captain. There is lab equipment on the ship to conduct some experiments.
The 45-metre (146-foot) long vessel has a shallow draft.
“It allows us to get in to near shore areas for science,” Bob Rowsell, manager of research support with Environment Canada, said during a recent media tour of the Limnos prior to its spring tour launch.
Among the equipment aboard the Limnos that is deployed for scientific experiments includes the Rosette sampler. It is a multi-bottle array with temperature and depth sensors. Water samples are collected in individual metal tubes via remote control in the ship’s laboratory.
Other testing equipment on the Limnos includes a large box corer, a clamshell bucket that can dredge up to a half metre of mud from a lake bottom.
A piston corer can sample 6-10 metres deep in the lake bed.
Some water and sediment samples are analyzed onboard the Limnos with further testing sometimes done at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters.
Testing of sealed water and sediment samples is often done in the ship’s lab within minutes of them being brought onboard in order to avoid possible contamination by air or other substances.
Among the items researchers are looking for in the samples are organic and inorganic contaminants, and invasive species.
Environmental scientist Alice Dove said levels of the neurotoxin mercury “appear to be going down but in some fish it is going up” in the Great Lakes. Normally, the larger the fish the more mercury it might retain.
Methylmercury, the organic compound form that can be found in some fish, can have severe effects on the brain and body of people whose diet includes large quantities of fish.
“We do have fish monitoring. We are tracking long-term trends in fish,” Dove noted.
The data the Limnos’ researchers collect, in all areas, is often published in scientific journals, she added.
“We analyze, interpret and disseminate the results.”
Overall, Dove said water quality, in general and for drinking, throughout the Great Lakes is getting better.
Sue Watson, a watershed hydrology research scientist, was on the Limnos for the pre-season media tour.
Her specialty is studying freshwater algae and the green moss-like mass (algal bloom) that sometimes gathers around a shoreline. It is the product of excess phosphorus, mainly, and nitrogen, sometimes caused by the runoff from fertilizers applied to land.
Blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) can smell foul when it decays and may also give off toxins. The process reduces oxygen in the water and is harmful to fish.
“If we can understand where most of these nutrients are coming from,” an action plan to prevent or minimize their growth can be devised, said Watson.
She said that, biologically, algae are “close to being animals.”
Watson said Burlington’s drinking water, before it is treated, comes from a deep area on the ‘lake side’ of Lake Ontario.
“It’s very, very pure when it comes out” of the tap, she said.
As for the water on the other side of the Skyway Bridge, in Burlington Bay, Watson said, “I would swim in it but I wouldn’t want to swallow it.”
As for invasive species in the Great Lakes, such as past problems with zebra mussels, which clog water intake pipes, Dove said it’s not as much of an issue as in the past.
“The rate of invasive species is low because of (ship) ballast water regulations.”
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5590481-burlington-based-coast-guard-ship-a-floating-laboratory/
____________________________
Burlington Post
By Tim Whitnell
There is a floating laboratory that calls Burlington waters home.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Limnos is moored at the pier at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), the large federal aquatic research facility located beneath the Skyway Bridge on Burlington Bay.
For 47 years the Limnos has ventured onto the Great Lakes to conduct scientific sampling and research, predominantly in the realm of water quality.
The Coast Guard vessel hits the water each spring and summer enabling researchers and scientists, mainly affiliated with Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to study areas of interest and possible concern such as climate change, toxic chemical and nutrient levels, the impact of invasive species, the health of fish and nearshore runoff/pollution.
A major role of the ship is to help uphold the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, an American-Canadian pact that was first signed in 1972 and updated in 2012.
Being a Coast Guard ship, when need be, the Limnos is also a search and rescue vessel.
The Limnos went on a ‘shakedown cruise’ the second week of April, a short-distance trip that is used to test a variety of ship equipment.
Shortly after that it went out on the water to set up research equipment on Lake Ontario.
The vessel’s maiden voyage of the 2015 touring season is this week as it is on Lake Erie in support of the Great Lakes Surveillance Program.
It heads out to Lake Erie again next week where it will conduct moorings in support of Great Lakes science programs. Moorings are structures placed at various points in a body of water that allow scientists to position instruments, collect samples and take long-term measurements.
The Limnos concentrated its research in 2014 on Lake Erie. This spring and summer it will be on Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Huron.
There is generally a five-year cycle of intensive research and monitoring of the Great Lakes by the Limnos. It doesn’t venture onto Lake Michigan as it is the only one of the five Great Lakes completely within the United States.
The Limnos is on the water about 26-28 weeks each season, depending on weather conditions. Individual research sojourns usually last 1-2 weeks — up to three weeks on the distant Lake Superior — often with a different complement of researchers on board each time out, depending on the nature of the experiments.
The boat can accommodate 14 officers/crew members and up to 16 scientific personnel. Blaine Morton is in his first year as its captain. There is lab equipment on the ship to conduct some experiments.
The 45-metre (146-foot) long vessel has a shallow draft.
“It allows us to get in to near shore areas for science,” Bob Rowsell, manager of research support with Environment Canada, said during a recent media tour of the Limnos prior to its spring tour launch.
Among the equipment aboard the Limnos that is deployed for scientific experiments includes the Rosette sampler. It is a multi-bottle array with temperature and depth sensors. Water samples are collected in individual metal tubes via remote control in the ship’s laboratory.
Other testing equipment on the Limnos includes a large box corer, a clamshell bucket that can dredge up to a half metre of mud from a lake bottom.
A piston corer can sample 6-10 metres deep in the lake bed.
Some water and sediment samples are analyzed onboard the Limnos with further testing sometimes done at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters.
Testing of sealed water and sediment samples is often done in the ship’s lab within minutes of them being brought onboard in order to avoid possible contamination by air or other substances.
Among the items researchers are looking for in the samples are organic and inorganic contaminants, and invasive species.
Environmental scientist Alice Dove said levels of the neurotoxin mercury “appear to be going down but in some fish it is going up” in the Great Lakes. Normally, the larger the fish the more mercury it might retain.
Methylmercury, the organic compound form that can be found in some fish, can have severe effects on the brain and body of people whose diet includes large quantities of fish.
“We do have fish monitoring. We are tracking long-term trends in fish,” Dove noted.
The data the Limnos’ researchers collect, in all areas, is often published in scientific journals, she added.
“We analyze, interpret and disseminate the results.”
Overall, Dove said water quality, in general and for drinking, throughout the Great Lakes is getting better.
Sue Watson, a watershed hydrology research scientist, was on the Limnos for the pre-season media tour.
Her specialty is studying freshwater algae and the green moss-like mass (algal bloom) that sometimes gathers around a shoreline. It is the product of excess phosphorus, mainly, and nitrogen, sometimes caused by the runoff from fertilizers applied to land.
Blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) can smell foul when it decays and may also give off toxins. The process reduces oxygen in the water and is harmful to fish.
“If we can understand where most of these nutrients are coming from,” an action plan to prevent or minimize their growth can be devised, said Watson.
She said that, biologically, algae are “close to being animals.”
Watson said Burlington’s drinking water, before it is treated, comes from a deep area on the ‘lake side’ of Lake Ontario.
“It’s very, very pure when it comes out” of the tap, she said.
As for the water on the other side of the Skyway Bridge, in Burlington Bay, Watson said, “I would swim in it but I wouldn’t want to swallow it.”
As for invasive species in the Great Lakes, such as past problems with zebra mussels, which clog water intake pipes, Dove said it’s not as much of an issue as in the past.
“The rate of invasive species is low because of (ship) ballast water regulations.”
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5590481-burlington-based-coast-guard-ship-a-floating-laboratory/