ESP Deployment

Deploying the environmental processor aboard R/V Thomas G. Thompson. (Credit: Stephanie Moore)

This week, as part of an IOOS Ocean Technology Transfer award, the NEMO mooring near Cha’ba at La Push, WA, was outfitted and deployed with an environmental sample processor (ESP) to detect harmful algal blooms. The ESP will provide autonomous, near-real-time measurements of the amount of toxin and the concentrations of six potentially harmful algal species.

The new tool’s deployment is part of a collaborative project led by the UW and NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and funded by the NOAA-led U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System. Partners include NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, NANOOS, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Florida-based Spyglass Technologies, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Bellingham’s Northwest Indian College (NWIC).

The ESP still near the surface. (Credit: Jan Newton)

Here is a video from Transect Films showing the deployment:

 
View near-real time data on NVS and check out the NOAA press release and UW Today article for more information.

ESP Test Deployment

Last week, a joint team led by NOAA NWFSC's Stephanie Moore and UW-APL's John Mickett went out on the R/V Robertson to test deploy a new Environmental Sampling Processor (ESP). This inconspicuously named robot both samples and analyzes water in situ to remotely determine if harmful algal species are present and if so, how toxic the bloom is. It then transmits this data in near real time to scientists on shore. 

This robot is part of a monitoring strategy that will help health authorities and shellfish growers be proactive in their response to harmful algal blooms (HABs). For more info, check out the NANOOS HABs info page.

Check out NWFSC's video for more information:

Last minute preparations aboard the R/V Robertson. The ESP is housed in the large orange cylinder under the A-frame.

First the surface buoy is deployed where an intake tube will sample water near the surface and bring it down to the ESP, around 20m below.

To prime the sampling tube, a small group goes out in the Zodiak to collect the surface buoy and pump water through the line, getting rid of all air bubbles.

One of the team's divers checks that the ESP is sampling in it's new home for the next two weeks. Photo credit: Eric Boget

The ESP will be deployed for real next year on UW-APL’s Cha’Ba mooring off the coast of La Push and data will be available on NVS. Stay tuned!

It's Razor Season!

It's been a record year for razor clamming along the Washington and Oregon coasts and if all goes well, the season will continue through next month. Make sure you check for closures in your area before heading out and read about shellfish safety and Harmful Algal Blooms on the NANOOS HABs information page.

Guest Post: Emergency Cyst Mapping in Hood Canal

written by Stephanie Moore, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center

The dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella. Photo credit: Gabriela Hannach, King County

In September and October 2014, there was an unprecedented harmful algal bloom of Alexandrium in Hood Canal that contaminated shellfish with potent biotoxins. The area where the bloom took place has historically been biotoxin free.  Alexandrium produce a suite of neurotoxins, called saxitoxins, which can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans who consume contaminated shellfish.  The regulatory limit for human consumption is 80 ug saxitoxin equivalents per 100 g shellfish tissue.  At the peak of the event, shellfish toxicity was 12,688 ug STX equiv./100 g.

The Washington State Dept. of Health and the local shellfish growers are concerned that the large bloom may have resulted in a new "seed bed" forming (i.e., a concentrated area of cysts that are deposited to benthic sediments and provide the inoculum for blooms the following season) that could increase bloom risk in this area next year.

In late January, scientists from NOAA Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) and collaborators Cheryl Greengrove and Julie Masura at the University of Washington Tacoma participated in a research cruise aboard the UW’s R/V Barnes to do some small scale cyst mapping in the area of the large bloom. Ian Jefferds from Penn Cove Shellfish contributed funds to purchase lab consumables needed to do the cyst mapping.

Heading out of Pleasant Harbor aboard R/V Barnes

The Craib Corer takes a single, undisturbed core sample from the top of the sediment layer

Prepping the Craib Corer for deployment

The samples were taken back to the lab is Seattle and analysis will begin this week.  If cysts were deposited in the area, the Washington State Dept. of Health will need to be more vigilant and dedicate more resources for biotoxin monitoring in this area, and any future dredging activity that could disturb the cysts and suspend them up into the water column where they could germinate should be planned outside of the time of year that supports blooms.

Visit the NANOOS HABs Information Page for more information on Harmful Algal Blooms in the Pacific Northwest.

A videographer from NOAA Fisheries Ocean Media Center joined the cruise to document the effort