Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast

The Levinsons Collaborate for Healthy Lakes in Kosciusko County

• Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams • Season 1 • Episode 12

Share episode

Discover how a simple dinner bell trade sparked a sailing legacy as we chat with Frank and Becky Levinson, who share their family's deep-rooted history with Lake Wawasee. We unravel tales dating back to the 1920s and explore how Frank and Becky have shaped their lives around cherished memories and business ventures in the area. Becky’s upbringing on a Pennsylvania dairy farm and her family's conservation ethos have heavily influenced her passion for sustainability, which shines through in our discussion.

Known affectionately as "Becky and Frank the Builders," this dynamic duo talks about their community-building endeavors. They’ve addressed local housing needs by constructing townhomes and fostered stronger community ties than ever before. Their commitment goes beyond bricks and mortar, as they actively participate in organizations like the Wawasee Area Conservancy Foundation and Syracuse-Wawasee Trails. Through their company, Team FaB, they emphasize teamwork and environmental responsibility, aligning closely with the Lilly Center's mission, and they share insights into how these efforts have transformed the local landscape.

Experience the innovation and collaboration that drive meaningful change in lake conservation. We highlight groundbreaking projects with the Environmental Protection Agency and Purdue University, using satellite imagery to tackle algal blooms and connecting water quality improvements to property value growth. Dive into the complexities of cyanobacteria and the Levinsons' role in spearheading research to understand and combat these challenges. This episode is a celebration of legacy, collaboration, and community empowerment—join us as we explore how you, too, can make a difference in preserving our natural resources.

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

Have a question we could answer on the podcast? Send an email to lakes@grace.edu or submit a comment below.

Help us improve the podcast by filling out this short survey: https://forms.gle/MzGSXHcnkEQC8T74A.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm your host, Susie Light. I get to share some stories and talk about our beautiful lakes with my friend, Dr Nate Bosch. Nate, you graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in limnology only it's focused on freshwater aquatic systems.

Speaker 2:

On this podcast, we're going to dive into lake science. We're going to meet folks who are passionate about our lakes just like we are, and have some fun together as well.

Speaker 1:

Visit lakesgraceedu, where you will learn more about the topics in this episode and can support the Lilly Center's work.

Speaker 2:

In today's episode we have Frank and Becky Levinson, great supporters of the Lilly Center, who know what it means to collaborate and work as a team.

Speaker 1:

We are so excited about today's episode, the Lake Doctor podcast. Today joining us are Frank and Becky Levinson, and it's the other Frank Levinson, right.

Speaker 3:

Junior yeah.

Speaker 1:

Frank Levinson Jr. Frank's father, frank Sr, was one of the founders of the Lilly Center.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So Frank you grew up in Indiana.

Speaker 3:

Born in Pennsylvania, grew up in California, but we were back in Indiana every summer. My grandparents on my dad's side were here in Indianapolis. My mom's parents were up in Lansing, Michigan, and the family would just come back here every summer. So I grew up on Lake Wawasee.

Speaker 1:

Take us back to the Levinson history on Lake Wawasee.

Speaker 3:

So, as far back as we can figure it, the Levinsons started coming up from Indianapolis in the 1920s, and the original lake cottage was acquired in 1926.

Speaker 3:

I think is close to when we can do that. And so since the 20s, you know, my dad's family had been coming up, and kind of a unique story is that when they actually acquired the lake cottage, they bought it as is, and the folks that they had bought it from it had inadvertently left a bell which was kind of like a family heirloom. It was like a dinner bell. And they came back and the husband of the couple they had bought it from said hey, if you could see your way to giving us this bell, we'd really appreciate it. It's a family heirloom. My great-great-grandfather said no, I will not give it to you, I will trade it and you can have the dinner bell, but you have to teach my three sons how to sail.

Speaker 3:

Sweet and so that is how the Levinsons got into sailing. After World War II, three brothers came back and sailed snipes all over the US, kind of culminating with Pan Am Games and a couple titles within the snipe fleet that are pretty notable. But, that's how the whole love of sailing kicked off in the Levinson family.

Speaker 1:

So, becky, you didn't grow up in Indiana, you're originally from out east.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I grew up in Amish country out east so we've transplanted to Amish country in the middle of the country I guess. But I had a lovely experience growing up on a dairy farm in central Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1:

And was water in your past.

Speaker 4:

Not at all, except for well, we didn't spend a lot of time recreating on the water. But my family's farm is on the banks of Susquehanna River, which is the major tributary into the Chesapeake Bay, and ever since I was really young my family has been involved in a lot of conservation efforts with the Chesapeake Bay, and the love of farming and the idea of making sure that we're maintaining the land for future generations has always been very important to me, so I think that translates.

Speaker 1:

I think that definitely translates to what you're doing here.

Speaker 3:

Your dad was pretty engaged with farming practices that would limit runoff and you know doing a bunch of different things in terms of contouring the land too.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, he was one of the early adopters of land contouring and some of the more advanced, you know, farming practices in the early 90s, late 80s, for that area at least.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, chesapeake Bay. Lots of cool science and research going on on Chesapeake Bay for a number of decades going back. And Chesapeake Bay primarily focused on nitrogen because, as a marine system, there nitrogen would be the limiting nutrient and so nitrogen would cause a lot of excess plant growth in Chesapeake Bay. So farmers in that area would be would be learning a lot about nitrogen, how to keep nitrogen on the field, rather, than letting it run off into the Susquehanna River and then out into Chesapeake Bay, so really cool.

Speaker 2:

We focus a little more on phosphorus here locally.

Speaker 1:

So Rose Holman is where you met Frank. What were you studying in college?

Speaker 4:

So I've always loved chemistry and I had decided I was not going to be a farmer. It was just down in my blood and I decided the quickest way to get to where I needed to go is a chemical engineering degree. So that's how I ended up at Rose-Hulman, which is an excellent program.

Speaker 1:

And your degree at Rose-Hulman was also some type of engineering.

Speaker 3:

I was a mechanical engineer and went there. I have a minor in stats and most people's eyes glaze over when they hear that. But I think it's the most useful math that there is.

Speaker 1:

So stats, because research is important to the Lilly. Center and that's important to you too.

Speaker 3:

Oh, we used it, for you know well the degree, for you know quality control, making sure that what you were measuring was you know something where. What was the tolerance on that? And I think that really carries over for how we evaluate some of the projects that we want to be involved with the impact that you're making. Was it impact because you got lucky? Was it impact that's repeatable? You know how do you measure it, using the scientific method, and so I you know, becky and I, both being engineers our kids get it with both barrels, but we try and you know, with some of the engagement that we do within the community and how we can contribute to making things better.

Speaker 3:

We love to support, you know, efforts and programs that kind of bring that into the ethos as to how they're evaluating, selecting and understanding the impact that they're creating within the lakes or, you know, whatever it is we're supporting.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you are your father's son. When he came to the Community Foundation and said I'm interested in water quality and I'm looking for something that is data-driven, replicable and educational, you just echoed that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, as I tell my son, my dad tells me the same thing, I'm sorry. And he says and he says why? And I said well, this is what you're coming into. So my dad, it's henry. Henry gets it so, and probably frankie and jd so what do you?

Speaker 1:

what do you guys do?

Speaker 4:

fun with your kids on the lake oh, we spend all summer on the lake, and even more than that winter time too. Um any chance we have to do that. Normal things, all the lake toys. We um water, ski and tube and swim and jump off the pier did I hear one of your kiddos made it across the lake yes, our youngest, aj, who is an excellent swimmer, did the. Oh, is there a name for it? The?

Speaker 3:

across the lake swim.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, the across the lake swim North shore to Waco point.

Speaker 3:

Yes, not the long way, but still a mile, which is pretty good yeah.

Speaker 4:

And for an 11-year-old, I'm pretty proud of her for handling that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, really proud. Yeah, she's awesome.

Speaker 1:

And so boating, skiing, fishing, do you do fishing?

Speaker 3:

Not a huge fisher Sailing. Of course I wing foil as well, Ice boat. I'd live in the water if I could. So I was like, well, when do you get out? And I was like, well, when it freezes.

Speaker 1:

But then you're on it. But, yeah, I'm on it. But even then, yeah, I'm on it.

Speaker 3:

We've been known to cut holes in the ice and do the old Lake Wawasee hot tub.

Speaker 4:

Well, the kids even like to, even when it's cold, they'll get in their bathing suits and jump in. I think we did it New Year's Day this year.

Speaker 3:

The goodness is liquid water, so by definition it's only 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my golly.

Speaker 3:

Okay. I mean we're blessed and fortunate enough to be able to be on there. It would feel like just absolutely squandering that resource to not be there, and I try and get all my friends and other folks out to ice boat or to sail with us. It's just a wonderful thing to experience and to share with everybody.

Speaker 4:

Well, and the other part of the blessing is, every morning I wake up and I have my cup of coffee and we get visited by the bald eagle that has the nest over at the Lilly property and the ospreys and all the wonderful wildlife. In the spring we even call it bird season because you just wake up to the cacophony of the wildlife on the lake. Really cool.

Speaker 1:

It is cool. So the Lilly Center has been important to your family. Your dad was one of the founders. You've continued to pour into the Lilly Center, Nate. Why is the Levinson support important to the Lilly Center?

Speaker 2:

Well, it starts in our founding, which is pretty cool and that was developed right into our DNA as we started as you just described, susie, with Frank's dad, frank Sr, and his vision for how we started as the original donor to get us up and running and launched as an organization, and it's continued on to this day. I so much love seeing then the next generation and you guys getting involved in both with your engineering and sort of systems approach. You guys have helped us as we gain efficiency as an organization. You guys ask hard questions, which I love to challenge how we can do things better and what new things we should consider, what old things maybe we should consider stop doing if they're not effective. Kind of getting back again to that statistical sort of let's analyze what works and what doesn't work and let's pivot and let's move into some new directions.

Speaker 2:

And then, even as we move to the next generation, then of your kids, your kids have been involved in fundraising events that you've hosted at your house to help us out. Your kids have been involved in different research projects that we've done, whether it's sampling or zebra mussel samplers under your peer. It's been, it's been a multi-generational effort and that's really inspiring to me as the director and as I think about the future and seeing seeing many families develop generations around the lakes and it's just a really inspirational thing. So thank you guys for how you've been so involved and really a model family for how to stay involved generationally at the lake and continue to have an even bigger impact, which is really fun.

Speaker 4:

I think looking at the generations is kind of part of both of our HDNA. Frank mentioned about how the family has been on the lake for a number of generations and we've set ourselves up to hopefully be able to continue that for another many, many generations as long as it takes.

Speaker 1:

You could live anywhere. Why are you choosing to live here?

Speaker 3:

One. It's just a great area. I have so many fond memories, you know, just spending time here. Memories, you know, just spending time here. I think the other thing is business brought us here. You know, becky and I spent a combined 35 years in aerospace working for the Air Force federal government and loved what we were doing with that. But, um, we're the current generational stewards of the family place on the lake and we needed to redo it. The old cottage was falling down and so we were able to kind of reverse, tear that down, harvest all the materials out, reuse a lot of them in the new place, which is exciting. But they John Kidd, the GC that built our place.

Speaker 3:

And Becky said, you know, hey, we should build townhomes in Warsaw because Warsaw needs more housing and everything. And we'd essentially spent 20 years doing the aerospace thing and my career and trajectory kind of took us to the from Dayton to DC. And you know, I always told Becky as we were going through the time in Dayton and then in DC you know, hey, if there's ever a time to focus on something you want to do, because I really appreciated how much you've invested in terms of, you know, helping to, let me explore the full extent that I could. On the aerospace side. I'd love to return the favor, and you know so. We were actually at my sister-in-law's wedding in Denver and I remember we were having coffee on the screened-in porch of the place we were staying in and we were going back and forth on. You know, should we do these townhomes, should we not? And we came to the decision we should because someone's going to build them because of the need for the housing here. And we said, well, geez, why not us? We've been building stuff in some way shape or form for US government and DOD for 20 years. Let's build something here. And so business is what brought us here.

Speaker 3:

But I was talking to Nate over lunch before we came here with Becky, talking to Nate over lunch before we came here with Becky. And you know I've been amazed at when we got here. We built community so fast. I mean just friends all over the county Warsaw, syracuse, lots of different service clubs and organizations and a bunch of different friends over a number of different areas. And you know I've remarked to Becky on more than one occasion. I think I've told almost everybody here wow, we never had that community in Dayton and Dayton was a great place to live, loved it, and you know DC was also a great place to live and loved it. But there's just something special here and I think it's that can-do spirit of you know. Yes, we can build it, we can make this happen. You know, lots of folks are all pulling in the right direction and you know, there's a real appreciation for opportunity, and opportunity often shows up looking like hard work, and so that's how we ended up here.

Speaker 1:

So you build a home, you build a business, you build a community. I'm going to call you Becky and Frank the Builders. That's appropriate. It is, it is exciting and the townhomes are lovely. And I think you're not done yet.

Speaker 3:

Well, we did wrap up construction in June. We're almost through the lease-up cycle here. There's just a couple more units left. We've got a really great set of young families and empty nesters and you know just, it's really beautiful to see that area develop. The industrial property up the road has also been similarly exciting, where we've been able to build a place where businesses can come in and really grow and expand.

Speaker 1:

So for our listeners that is near Leesburg, in Leesburg.

Speaker 3:

Just south of Leesburg yeah.

Speaker 1:

Owens.

Speaker 3:

Fresh Meat Market and Car Tech and Showpiece Painting. Clc JSC RV Repair.

Speaker 1:

It's wonderful, frank and Becky, the builders, are not done yet.

Speaker 3:

Hopefully Pretty exciting.

Speaker 4:

We have a few more projects probably up our sleeve.

Speaker 1:

So Frank and Becky have been collaborators, and collaboration is really important to you. What other kinds of organizations have you built within your community that you like to support?

Speaker 3:

I've been talking a bunch. Why don't you take this one, hon?

Speaker 4:

Teamwork is a core value of ours, frank and I I mean, we even built our business name as Team Fab for that reason. It's to highlight the fact that these are team efforts, and we think that the love of the lakes here in Costco County is also a team effort. So we have been involved in a number of organizations, not just the Lilly Center, but I am on the board of WACF and Frank's on the trails committee and at the Syracuse Wawasee trails, and we've also worked with TWF as well, because this is, you know, keeping our lakes clean is a big problem and a heavy lift and it takes a lot of, a lot of people to do it. And and even just those few organizations might be the tip of the spear in that fight, but it's all the business owners, it's all the farmers, it's the families that come up to the lake every year that we, we all have to work together.

Speaker 1:

And so, yeah, We've learned that, wherever you live in Casasco County, you're on a watershed, absolutely, and water is everybody's responsibility.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

So the ways we can educate people that they do have responsibilities and getting them excited about keeping the lays clean that's very important to us as well.

Speaker 1:

So Nate collaboration is something the Lilly Center also does.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So Becky mentioned a lot of the organizations that you collaborate with. Talk a bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so collaboration is one of the three pillars of the Lilly Center research, education, collaboration so we work really hard at collaboration. We view collaboration as being able to be more effective. When you have that synergy of like-minded organizations working together towards a common purpose, as Becky was just describing, you're going to have a better success, right? We also see it as efficiency when those organizations are all working in their area of strength, we can lessen duplication and we can make sure that we're really just moving the needle as much as we can. And so we've worked with watershed groups like WACF and TWF For those of you who don't know the acronyms, who are listeners or viewers WACF is the Wawasee Area Conservancy Foundation and TWF is the Watershed Foundation.

Speaker 2:

We've also worked with government agencies like Soil and Water Conservation District, the Natural Resource Conservation Service that's a USDA program, of course the DNR, which is Department of Natural Resources, and IDEM, indiana Department of Environmental Management, but also a lot of lake associations around. We've got over 100 lakes in our county, and so lake associations are a great collaborator because they're right there with residents around that particular lake, with a vested interest in that particular lake, and so they've been great partners that we've been able to work with as well, so partnerships have been really an important part of how we've done our work.

Speaker 1:

Environmental Protection Agency. Did they not reach out to you recently?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, united States Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. They've reached out to us on a couple projects. One started to notice some bald eagle population decline in the southeastern United States and they wondered if that was happening up here in the Midwestern United States as well. And they had heard about some of our algae toxin research that we were doing up here in the Midwestern United States as well. And they had heard about some of our algae toxin research that we were doing up here on our lakes in Kosciuszko County, indiana, and asked us to work with them on some sampling and looking at algae toxins and how those could pass through some smaller waterfowl that the bald eagles were then feeding upon. And we didn't find any evidence for that decline here, those toxins and moving up the food chain.

Speaker 1:

That's good news for Becky, who likes to watch the eagles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is really good news, and so we were excited to one be asked by the EPA to be part of the study, but then to be able to have that result as well as no reason for concern. And then, more recently, the EPA reached out to us they were working on a new tool to be able to predict property values around our lakes based on the quality of the water in the lake.

Speaker 1:

That is exciting yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so they wanted to use the Lilly Center and our lakes here in Kosciuszko as their original case study for that project, and so we just had a paper, a peer-reviewed journal article just got published about that, and so you can actually see the connection between if my lake were to get 12 inches clearer. So we measure clarity based on how deep you can see this little white and black disc called a secchi disc. If you increase that clarity then you know the water's getting clearer, better water quality, and then home values then can be predicted. How high they would rise then and it was over $100 million across our county of increased property values if those lakes would increase just by a foot, which is not really that much.

Speaker 1:

That's motivation to make sure my fertilizer has zero phosphorus.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you're learning some good things. I am learning some good things.

Speaker 1:

And that's motivation to make sure that I have a barrier between my lawn and my shoreline to prevent runoff.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah. So those three things that we keep encouraging people around our lakes to do and the Levinsons have some good examples of this in their own property would be make sure we're not putting phosphorus on our yard, so that middle number on the bag of fertilizer has to be zero. Or the lawn service that you're using, make sure they don't have phosphorus in their chemistry that they're using on your yard. And then having some plants as a buffer between your property and the lake so those plants can intercept sediments or nutrients that might be coming towards the lake and I'll bet a glacial stone wall is a glacial stone, stone, seawall, seawall.

Speaker 2:

There we are close big rocks yeah, having rocks in front, that that's. That's a. That's for a little different purpose, but it also relates to that. If we have the glacial stones along the front of our seawall, it helps dissipate some of that wave energy. So we don't get scouring and we don't um, uh, we don't resuspend those sediments and bring more nutrients back up in the water for more weeds and algae to grow all those things so our lakes can be clearer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exciting stuff yeah, and then the third thing I was going to mention was, uh, yard waste. So we don't want to let, we won't want our leaves or our grass clippings to be purposefully put into the lake, even though they're natural. And some people think, oh, they'll just decompose in the lake. Yeah, but when they decompose, they give off nutrients, which makes more weeds and algae grow.

Speaker 1:

And wasn't there? The other engineering school in Indiana, Purdue, reached out to.

Speaker 2:

Lilly Center. I got to get that in for my Purdue family.

Speaker 3:

That's funny.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they reached out recently as well to work with us on a project, and so they had some satellite, they had access to some satellite imagery and you can actually measure algal blooms from satellites based on different wavelengths of light that bounce back to the satellite sensor and they needed a partner who had in-the-water data of algae that they could compare to their satellite data and correlate the two together to better predict where we're going to find certain algal blooms and then hopefully prevent them in the first place. And so we've been working with Purdue University the past couple of years on that project too.

Speaker 1:

I love it. Data. Data is important.

Speaker 3:

That was something that you— and they're doing multispectral and hyperspectral analysis on that, so love that yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I don't even understand that, but our collaborators do. That's just what I used to do.

Speaker 3:

I used to support satellite programs that would do that kind of analysis and collection, and it's just one of those things where you can use not just visible light, right, and the pictures that you're getting, but you can take a bunch of different measurements to look at the kinds of nutrients, the kinds of vegetation that you're seeing in different landscapes, water pictures, everything like that.

Speaker 1:

So you'd look at ultraviolet light, different spectrums of light.

Speaker 3:

Cool, I understood that. Good, good, look at ultraviolet light, different spectrums of light. Cool, I understood that.

Speaker 1:

Good good good Golly. Ned. Okay, let's see you are passing on a legacy of stewardship to your children. What careers do you think they might have in the future?

Speaker 4:

That's a very good question. I think we'd have to talk to them. Ah, Becky, that's a very good question. I think we'd have to talk to them. Ah, Becky, that's a good mom answer and teamwork, collaboration and integrity and honesty and transparency, and we hope to see them use those in the ways that they see fit.

Speaker 1:

Nate, what kind of legacy do you see the Levinson family providing to the Lilly Center?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I might answer that just how Becky did for her kids that we would love them to develop what that legacy would be.

Speaker 2:

But when I think about you know, we often think about past performance as giving indication of future success, right in the area of data-driven being transparent, with the data being transformative, with what we're doing replicable as well. I think that's the things that we're doing at the Lilly Center and that's the things we're going to continue to do, which adds to the legacy of the Levinson family, because you guys have been so tightly connected with us right from the beginning and then continue to invest financially and with your time and with your advice as well, going forward, and so I think you guys can be proud as a family, of what you have done and what you're going to continue to do, and we're just so excited to be alongside you to be able to accomplish those things, specifically in the lakes and streams, which is the area that we work in.

Speaker 3:

I think you're probably heaping too much credit on us. I think the leadership that you've had, the vision that Grace had for kicking this thing off, and then the willingness to start tackling hard issues and just start systematically figuring out how to solve one problem, and then that gets you to the next one. You know, I think the thing that's been exciting for us is to be involved with starting some new things, right. You know, I think once folks can see the value right, they can see the value in is my lake safe to swim in? Can my dog go swimming in the lake or are the toxin levels too high?

Speaker 3:

Water clarity and what that means for maintaining the natural resources that we've been gifted in our corner of the country, and then also what that means to attracting talent to the area and being able to recreate on all these lakes and being able to maintain that lifestyle. It's been amazing, but it's going to take new things right. I mean, the neat thing about science is it keeps advancing. We keep finding out that things are perhaps more complex or things are interacting in a different way, and so, you know, my dad had a vision with you guys to kind of kick that off, and it's been neat, as Becky and I have partnered in different ways with you guys to see hey, what else can we explore? What's going to be that next thing?

Speaker 3:

You know, how do we identify and demystify some of these complex interactions so that we can know what's happening and talk about them in common terms, so that folks really understand why we want to protect this and then also export that?

Speaker 2:

We're not the only place that has lakes.

Speaker 3:

We're not the only place that has this challenge and, you know, if we can, if we can lead, you know by by just kind of leading by example here, I think that has a big impact for other watersheds in the in the nation or in the world that want to protect their own resources as well too.

Speaker 2:

And let me give a couple examples of new ideas that the Levinsons have brought into the Lilly Center here just recently. So there was an event at their home a few years back and we were talking about algae toxins in the lake and someone brought up the idea of we're sampling one location in the middle of a lake. And so do we really know that the toxin levels that could be harmful to people or their pets are the same all around that lake? Well, likely it's not. But is that one spot representative enough or not? Well, if we have a question like that, we should probably do some research right and figure that out. And so at that event a few people kind of pitched in and said, hey, we'll help with funding for that. And we started a new research project where we then developed eight locations around the lake, and so we now have a spatially set sampling procedure there around the lake and do that every week through the summer, and sometimes it's different, you'll get certain parts of the lake where levels are a little higher.

Speaker 2:

Other parts of the lake are a little bit lower. We're starting to see a trend over time where certain parts of the lake seem to be a little bit higher the majority of the time. So why is that? What can we do to stop that in the future? And so that was a great example of you and friends and others being around there coming up with a new weekly and then we give out a notification then before the weekend for folks to know how to interact with the water safely. And the question came up well, what's happening in the intermediate time? And so the idea of putting a buoy out there in the lake that would be consistently measuring and looking at data to fill in the gaps of that week. And so who do we work with?

Speaker 2:

But engineering students at Grace College and you guys helped with early ideas about that. And mechanically, how does that work? And how do we secure it to the bottom of the lake and how do we make it visible so people don't hit it? How do we make it seaworthy, and just lots and lots of questions then that come up. And then this year the newest thing with the buoy was to allow the sensor array to move up and down, because we were noticing that even with that out there all the time, if we have a really sunny day, our sensors lose the algae. We don't see the algae anymore with those sensors because the algae is moving down in the water column to avoid getting sunburned and so well, kind of more complicated than that.

Speaker 3:

but it's like getting sunburned.

Speaker 2:

And so, but then when it was cloudy, then the algae would come back up around the sensors, and so, okay, now we need the ability in our buoy to move the sensor array up and down in the water column to be able to capture algae as they're moving up and down and kind of fill in the gaps of every week. And so those are just a couple examples, as these engineering minds get going and we start coming up with new things that we need to look into.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like Levinson's legacy is one of collaboration and encouragement.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you know that's pretty exciting because some of your listeners may be listening and think, well, I don't have the capacity to do anything, and I want to challenge that. Thinking much like a watershed is everybody's responsibility. Protecting water should be everyone's responsibility and having an impact through your legacy, making a donation, being involved that's everybody's responsibility right becky any final words I just appreciate the opportunity to come here and hang out with you wonderful people, Susie. We didn't touch on. Becky is the only rocket scientist I know.

Speaker 4:

She is really an official rocket scientist. I'm a bit retired from that profession.

Speaker 1:

That's okay. It's like a mom you never retire from those things, right Maybe?

Speaker 4:

but well, it's like a mom, you never retire from those things, right, maybe? But um, and and nate for indulging our inner dork over and over and over again. Um, it's wonderful to collaborate with you and we see a lot of um possibilities moving forward, um, and a lot of encouragement with all the organizations on the lake moving forward, moving similar direction. It's very rare to have a community, I feel like be so on the same page about the importance of the water quality here in Koskoski County and we're really excited to be a part of it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much, both of you, for being here today and for your excellent legacy of collaboration and teamwork.

Speaker 3:

Stop, you're making me blush.

Speaker 2:

Thank, you, Susie. Thank you, Nate.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Hey, I'm Dr Nate Bosch of the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, and today we're going to talk about cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. Why do we see blue-green algae in certain lakes and not in others? Why do we see it at certain times of the day and not at other times of the day? Why do the toxins that these algae can produce show up in certain lakes but not others, or at certain times but not other times? Toxins are important to consider because they can be harmful to people and pets who use these lakes, and these are questions that are talked about and wondered about all around the world, not just northern Indiana or even just in the midwestern United States. So let's dive into some of those questions. First thing that we need to understand when we think about these algae is they have a competitive advantage over other algae in that they can vertically migrate up and down in the water column of a lake. So, as they do photosynthesis, like all plants do, they're producing carbohydrates the simplest form is glucose and as they accumulate more carbohydrates in their cells, they're producing carbohydrates the simplest form is glucose and as they accumulate more carbohydrates in their cells, they start to get heavier, and so they start to sink down lower in the water column, away from the surface and down towards the bottom of a lake. They also have gas vesicles which can increase buoyancy. So as they have more gas in those vesicles they can increase buoyancy. So as they have more gas in those vesicles, they can increase buoyancy and move up towards the surface. So these algae, unlike a lot of other types of algae, can actually control where they are in the water column. So they can be up near the surface when they want to get sunlight and do photosynthesis. They can be down near the bottom of the lake where there's higher nutrient levels, like nitrogen and phosphorus, and they can pull in those nutrients and be able to grow quite prolifically. That's called luxury uptake. They can take more nutrient on than they actually need in order to come back to the surface and grow a lot more aggressively than some of the other types of algae that they're competing with in a lake some of the other types of algae that they're competing with in a lake. So this vertical migration is a real competitive advantage then, to blue-green algae and is one of the reasons why we see it in some of our lakes, and sometimes it can bloom, which means we've got a whole lot of it all at one time. So why in some lakes and not in others?

Speaker 2:

This has been a question that we've noticed and have been trying to solve here locally as well. We have some lakes which has high amounts of algae populations, and so we can look at chemistry of the water and the temperature of the water, the conditions maybe of the wind, and try to predict when we see that. And we have other lakes which, despite the high population of the cyanobacteria, we have really low toxin production. In other cases we have lakes with high toxin production but yet low algal populations. How can that be right? Well, these blue-green algae can regulate in some instances how much toxin they produce. It's somewhat what we're trying to figure out right now different chemical cues. Maybe it's competition with other algae, maybe it's certain genetic strains of these blue-green algae that lend themselves more to producing toxins than others around them. These are active research questions that we're working on right now. For instance, lake Wawasee, which is our largest natural lake here in Indiana, has a little bit more toxin than we would expect given the relatively low population of algae that we often see in that lake. So, as we've tracked that over time, a few years back, we started adding more sampling locations around the lake to try to get a better sense of how is this algae moving around the lake? Potentially Do we have higher toxins in certain parts of the lake and we noticed typically in the southeastern part of the lake we had the more elevated toxin levels.

Speaker 2:

Well, we go sampling once a week, right? Well, what happens during the other times of the week that we're not there sampling? So we talked to our Department of Engineering here at Grace College and the students and faculty there developed a buoy for us where we could have a sensor using fluorescence to be able to monitor how much blue-green algae is there at certain times, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, more than the weekly sampling that we were doing. But an interesting thing happened we would see the algae and then the algae would disappear as we looked back at that data every hour of the day, all seven days of the week, remember, blue-green algae can vertically migrate up and down in the water column. So at certain times of the day, when the blue-green algae was right around where that sensor was, we would see it in our data. Other times, if it moved closer to the surface or down near the bottom, we wouldn't see that blue-green algae in our data.

Speaker 2:

So we went back to the Department of Engineering and came up with a design for the Buoy 2.0, if you will, and those of you who are typically listening to us on the podcast, this might be a good opportunity for you to switch over and watch us on YouTube, as I'm showing a model of this Buoy, but I'll describe it to you as well if you're listening. So this Buoy, I've got a small model of it here in my hand. The actual version of it is 6.9 feet tall, so taller than I am standing here today and it's got a large vertical shaft down underneath it that helps create stability when it's in the water. It has a sensor that can move through that shaft and out the bottom. It's got some solar panels on the top to produce electricity. There's a battery inside. There's a motor which can move that sensor up and down in the water column. There's a flotation here around the middle section, some splash guards. I've got an aquarium here that I'm plopping this in just so you can kind of see how it works. That stability arm down on the bottom there helps hold it vertical in the water. You can imagine, on a lake like Lake Wawasee, which is where this has been deployed our biggest natural lake here in Indiana as I said, lots of wave action from boats, but also just from the wind itself, and so having that stability is going to be really important Waterproof housing around it, and this works really well. So we tested it out a little bit and we intend to deploy it for the full summers coming up here over the next few years.

Speaker 2:

So what are some things that you can do yourself to help learn more about this type of algae, the blue-green algae, and protect you and your family? Well, I'd encourage you, if you're in Kosciuszko County here in northern Indiana, to go and sign up for our algae notification system that comes out every Friday to keep you and your family, your pets, safe for the weekend. In time for the weekend. If you don't live in our area here of northern Indiana, you can go and see our expert guide to blue-green algae, which is on our website, both of those things available at lakesgraceedu. So as we continue to do this research, we'll continue to keep folks updated on how they can keep their people and their pets safe, and what we hope this research will eventually lead to is prediction and then prevention of these algae toxins in the first place.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. Join us next time. It's bound to be fun.

Speaker 2:

Listening to this podcast is just the first step in making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover some tangible ways that you can make a difference on your lake.

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next time. The doctor is in.