Southeastern.edu
HAMMOND — On Thursday, Southeastern Louisiana University’s Center for Environmental Research posted its year three annual report with information that updates the work being done on environmental monitoring.
The report is a follow up to the recent public presentation of research findings held in Manchac, titled “Science in Action: Research and Education on Lake Maurepas.”
The research is being conducted by the center, a unique and innovative academic research unit.
Work on the baseline information has been ongoing for three years, focusing on biodiversity monitoring, ecological physiology, wetland monitoring, and chemical analysis of water, sediment and animal tissue. Additional emphasis is placed on community outreach.
Part of the preliminary findings shared at the recent public presentation showed that metal levels seem to be within acceptable levels in catfish, crabs, water, sediment and birds. While various toxins, chemicals and heavy metals were found, generally the levels at this point do not exceed the threshold of concern.
According to Director of the Center for Environmental Research Kyle Piller, they found low levels of arsenic, but no mercury, lead, or cadmium, a little bit of chromium, and no selenium in water samples.
“The levels that these metals were found in the water and sediment were below EPA’s value that would warrant concern for an ecological risk,” Piller said.
Piller said that currently external labs are used until the project’s labs are Department of Environmental Quality-certified and their quality assurance and quality control protocols for the labs are developed and refined. However, the project is installing new equipment in the labs so that they will be able to run labs in-house once certifications are obtained.
Interim Dean of the College of Science and Technology Daniel McCarthy emphasized the importance of transparency the project strives to maintain with the public.
“In order to make informed decisions and have the community know what is going on, we need science behind it,” he said. “That has been and continues to be the goal of our center.”
The project has also installed seven chemical monitoring buoys near the mouth of the rivers and the middle of the lake that are in the process of calibration before collecting chemical data. The information from the buoys will be posted on the project’s website.
The center is focused on environmental monitoring throughout Louisiana and beyond and has monitoring capabilities that span a variety of ecosystems from aquatic to wetland to terrestrial habitats. The center currently builds on past and ongoing research efforts to monitor and investigate the health of the environments of the Lake Maurepas region.
By early summer, the center will also post a “Maurepas Dashboard” with the most recent information on various measurements in an easy-to-read format.
The year three report is available on the website at https://www.southeastern.edu/maurepas.