The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians (CTCLUSI) recently received long-awaited funding to purchase a FlowCam Cyano instrument, after first learning about FlowCam at an east coast workshop a few years ago. CTCLUSI makes up three tribes (4 bands) who all reside in close proximity to one another along the Coos River Tributaries in Oregon. According to the CTCLUSI website:
Read MoreTopics: Marine Research, Freshwater Research, Invasive Species, Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight, Aquatic Research
Harmful algal blooms can have a detrimental effect on the environment and on human and animal health. As a result of climate change, water utilities are experiencing these events with increasing frequency. Historically, many water monitoring agencies have not had a plan in place to proactively monitor for cyanobacteria, but rather found themselves reacting to the effects of a bloom after the fact.
Last month, the US EPA released a report that addresses concerns within the agency about the lack of a cohesive, agency-wide plan to monitor freshwater bodies for harmful algal blooms (HABs):
Read MoreTopics: Freshwater Research, Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight, Aquatic Research
In August, our FlowCam team attended our first in-person drinking water conference since the onset of the pandemic: the Kentucky/Tennessee Water Professionals Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We met drinking water and wastewater professionals from around the region, ranging from small utilities to state agencies.
Pictured right: Savannah Judge presenting on the water quality monitoring program developed by the City of Wichita Falls in Texas
Read MoreTopics: News and Events, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater)
Aquatic scientists often need to store natural samples for a period of time before processing them using FlowCam. There are multiple preservatives available for this purpose. Glutaraldehyde is a
popular choice of preservative because it will preserve pigment autofluorescence, and therefore allows the use of FlowCam's "Trigger Mode" to automatically distinguish cyanobacteria from other algae, and reduce images of detritus and other non fluorescing particles. Another preservative often used is Lugol's solution, which does not preserve fluorescence, but is less toxic and requires less stringent storage conditions.
Topics: Algae Technology, Marine Research, Freshwater Research, Harmful Algal Blooms, FlowCam Technology, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), Aquatic Research
Applications Scientist, Kay Johnson has spent this week in Cincinnati training new FlowCam users at the Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) on their new FlowCam Cyano. GCWW is located on the Ohio River across the water from Kentucky. They will be using the FlowCam Cyano to count and categorize cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton populations both before and after treatment.
Read MoreTopics: Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight
"After receiving hundreds of complaints, the City of Wichita Falls, Texas, developed a plan for monitoring harmful algal blooms to detect and mitigate taste and odor (T&O) compounds and cyanotoxins."
Read MoreTopics: Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight
The FlowCam was recently used by a team led by Natasha Barteneva of Nazarbayev University to develop a method for the classification of Microcystis colonial morphospecies in samples obtained from a long-term mesocosm experiment (the AQUACOSM Lake Mesocosm Warming Experiment).
Read MoreTopics: Freshwater Research, Harmful Algal Blooms, FlowCam Technology, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight, Aquatic Research
The City of Worcester, MA has purchased a FlowCam Cyano to help expand a volunteer water quality monitoring program. The effort is led by Jacquelyn Burmeister, a senior environmental analyst with the City's Lakes & Ponds Program. Together with several other local watershed associations, she helped organize a regional cyanobacteria monitoring collaborative that has recruited dozens of volunteers to help expand cyanobacteria monitoring in the area's recreational waters.
Read MoreTopics: Invasive Species, Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater)
This year we introduced a new grant program for US and Canadian water utilities: The FlowCam Drinking Water Equipment and Travel Grant Program. The program is designed for water utilities to advance their science by helping them reduce labor hours, detect nuisance algae, and predict harmful algae blooms or taste & odor events.
Read MoreTopics: Freshwater Research, News and Events, Harmful Algal Blooms, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), User Spotlight
One of the many reasons we at Fluid Imaging Technologies were excited to join the Yokogawa family of companies in 2020, is their commitment to sustainability and the environment.
The FlowCam was invented in the 1990s to study plankton in ocean water and quickly expanded its applications to drug development and life science. Our commitment to science and the health and safety of our planet and global community is the thread that has held our company together since its founding.
Read MoreTopics: Marine Research, Freshwater Research, News and Events, Municipal Water (Drinking/Wastewater), Aquatic Research
