Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Welcome to Lake Doctor: A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast, your go-to source for understanding and preserving the health of our local lakes. Join hosts Dr. Nate Bosch, an expert in limnology, and Suzie Light, a lifelong resident and passionate advocate for our aquatic environments, as they dive deep into the challenges facing Kosciusko County's lakes.
Dr. Nate Bosch grew up in Michigan and received his doctorate in 2007 from the University of Michigan in limnology. With 18 peer-reviewed publications spanning research from the Great Lakes to smaller inland lakes and streams, Nate has been awarded the prestigious Chandler Misner Award twice by the International Association of Great Lakes Research. At Grace College, Nate is a professor in the environmental science program, dean of the School of Science and Engineering, and leads the Lilly Center team, serving the local community with dedication and expertise.
Each episode tackles these critical issues head-on, featuring insightful interviews with our partners, engaging Q&A sessions, and fun segments for the science enthusiasts among us. You'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the impactful research and education efforts spearheaded by the Lilly Center and discover how we can all contribute to safeguarding our precious freshwater ecosystems.
Tune in bi-monthly starting June 2024, and join the conversation by leaving comments or emailing us at lakes@grace.eduwith your questions and ideas. Supported by the K21 Health Foundation, Rick and April Sasso, and DreamOn Studios, this podcast aims to inspire and inform the next generation of water-literate citizens and environmental stewards. Learn more about our work and how to support us at lakes.grace.edu.
Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Launching Environmental Careers with Ryan Workman
In this episode of The Lake Doctor Podcast, we welcome Ryan Workman—Grace College alumnus and current environmental scientist at Stantec. Ryan reflects on how his years with the Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams gave him hands-on research opportunities, professional mentorship, and a deeper understanding of real-world environmental challenges. From conducting water-quality studies to collaborating with local conservation partners, those early experiences became the foundation for his career in environmental consulting.
Ryan shares how the skills he developed—data analysis, field research, and community engagement—continue to shape his work today as he tackles complex projects protecting natural resources. His journey demonstrates how investing in students not only transforms individual lives but also strengthens the broader effort to care for our lakes, streams, and ecosystems. Learn more about how the Lilly Center equips future scientists at lakes.grace.edu.
Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.
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Thanks for joining us on the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm Susie Light and my co-host, Dr Nate Bosch, is a professional lake nerd.
Speaker 2:That's true. I received my doctorate from the University of Michigan in limnology, which is studying rivers and lakes. In today's episode, we're so excited to have Ryan Workman. He's a former student of mine, he's currently an environmental scientist with Stantec and we're going to talk about how the Lilly Center invests in future environmental professionals.
Speaker 1:And we probably also want moms to be encouraged to let their children play in ditches with frogs, because they might become a future environmental scientist. That's true. Listen closely to this episode. The doctor is In. Ryan, we are so excited that you're here today joining us for the Lake Doctor podcast on our new set, and, gosh, we've known each other for at least seven years, but would you please tell our listeners and our viewers about you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me. So again. My name is Ryan Workman and I am. My hometown is Auburn, indiana, so not too far away from Warsaw, just a little short drive. On 30. I came to Grace College originally to finish my college degree and I originally was going for secondary education, but then landed myself in environmental sciences within the first year, so that's where I found myself originally, in this space of Warsaw, indiana focused on the idea of environmental sciences, which then developed into a focus of water through Lilly Center.
Speaker 1:Was Dr Nate one of your instructors here?
Speaker 3:He was my instructor as well as my guidance counselor, as well as my biosep point.
Speaker 1:So he's had a lot of hats. Well, your degree is in what exactly?
Speaker 3:Environmental science specifically.
Speaker 1:And then as an environmental scientist, what kind of job opportunities are there for somebody with that degree?
Speaker 3:Specifically, environmental science is very broad, so you have a lot of opportunities to find yourselves, a lot of different medias to be focused in. So, like I said, I found myself in the focus of water, but then there's also air medias. I found myself in the focus of water, but then there's also air medias. There's ground medias, there's a lot of different. There's waste, hazardous materials. Environmental science has a lot for students or anybody who's looking for opportunities to dive in that has experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I could jump in there too so you could categorize it like Ryan just did, with different types of environments environments but you can also categorize it with different sort of sectors of jobs. So you could have the government sector sometimes we call that the public sector working for a government agency, whether federal, all the way down to a city. You can look at it more the for-profit sector, those companies and corporations working there, and then you can also look at the nonprofit sector and those nonprofit organizations often will have environmental scientists as well.
Speaker 1:Would you have classified yourself, Ryan, as a kid that was interested in the environment before you came to Grace?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. So I had an innate interest for, specifically, biology animals as well as had a lot of experiences with different parts of the environment, like with water. Specifically, you would go to Sylvan Lake a lot when I was a kid and experience the lake life, which is a great opportunity to have, especially in northern Indiana, which is a great opportunity to have especially in northern Indiana.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I've had a lot of reaccountants from my grandparents, as well as my mom just telling me my passion for the environment, catching frogs in ditches during my sister's softball games is a notorious one that my mom would bring up, or finding a tree frog at our local pool and asking my mom if I can keep it just random scenarios like this where, um, the environment, uh, presented itself and I had interest in it I remember talking to you as a brand new student here at grace about conservation biology.
Speaker 2:You were really intrigued with sort of the biological science of how life works with different organisms, but then the specific angle of that as conservation and how can we use different conservation practices towards healthier biology, whether it's plants or animals.
Speaker 1:So I imagine, Dr Nate, that when you heard a bright student asking you those kind of questions, that you probably said to yourself I need this kid to come to work. So how did Ryan come to work for you?
Speaker 2:So we hired him at the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams.
Speaker 2:We hire a lot of our environmental students here at Grace College and I remember talking to some of our other regular staff members man Ryan just sort of excels beyond our expectations, no matter what we give him to do.
Speaker 2:And so at the time we were doing the Northern Indiana Lakes Festival and I remember lots of different random tasks with the lakes festival, sort of putting on a huge party for our community right Centered around lakes and celebrating them. But then other things like hey, we've got the the fairgrounds here and we're concerned about maybe e coli going into the down slope lake, or we have this chemical company and we need to look into kind of past potential pollution sources that maybe we need to be mindful of here today. Or even log jams. We have the Tippecanoe river here that goes through the middle of Kosciuszko county and is one of the top most important rivers for biodiversity in our country and Ryan helped with identifying some different log jam locations along there that we worked with the DNR with to remove those. So, no matter what the project, ryan always did really well and exceeded expectations.
Speaker 1:So I want to give you an example of that. Do you recall when the community foundation, where I had, was working?
Speaker 1:at the time did a donor event and we invited our donors to come and learn about our grantees. And the Lilly Center was a grantee. And, ryan, you and one of your co-workers or co-students at Grace came and manned that particular booth for us. And the thing that impressed me about you and your buddy was, after the event was over you boxed up your stuff, but then you came to us and said what can we do to help you and my gosh kiddo? I got to tell you I fell in love with you right then. You, you manned that booth so well, but the idea that you reached out to say what can I do to help, I mean that's like stewardship in action.
Speaker 2:So thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that is from, I believe, the first time we had met and that is definitely a memory that stuck with me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm glad you remembered that Good. What did you see? What would you see as your highlight when you were interning at the Lilly Center, or what specific projects did you work on that you really love?
Speaker 3:great question, um. So, like nate had kind of covered on the larger projects at a time, I was kind of just jack ball trades, doing stuff in the education focus, um, or even or providing support for the fish tanks program or lakes in the classroom, and then also providing support with even just addressing envelopes for the focuses on the business end, or even just the keeping connected with the public who are invested in our lakes and streams here. So so, but I would say one of my favorites that I was involved with would be the stream sampling. So it's you're out in the environment, you're putting waders on, you're driving around with your buddies. One of you has to man the clipboard, the other two are taking care of the quantimeter or just measuring the length of the stream, so which presents a lot of fun times and opportunities with just a couple of other.
Speaker 1:You got your early training when you were in the ditch with the frogs right.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's. Right, that's true. Yeah, so I was accustomed to being wet. But that would be where I had probably a good initial experience for that type of data collection in the environment. And then in application, the opportunity to do data collection with the DNR flagging those log jams throughout the Tippecanoe before a large effort was made to remove those log jams to open up that environmental asset for the community. That was probably my most memorable outside of the other opportunities I got with the Lilly Center.
Speaker 1:But I think there was a project that you worked on that the public could actually go see today. Would you tell us about the Byer Trail project?
Speaker 3:today, uh, would you tell us about the buyer trail project? Yes, so, transitioning to the my time with the city of orsall storm utility, we had an opportunity presented to us at buyer farm trail, uh, which is adjacent or west of KCH.
Speaker 2:There was Lutheran Kasiasko Hospital. For those who might not be from our area here.
Speaker 1:And Ryan, you did this while you were working, so you had already graduated, correct?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And you were working for the city of Warsaw in the stormwater area, yes, stormwater utility, yep.
Speaker 3:So at that time my predecessor had Teresa Saylor had recently left the position and there was a need to manage an environmental program that the city is required to conduct or to administer and that is through their stormwater utility. And so the stormwater utility was involved with some signage that was extending on the buyer farm trail, or not. Initially, excuse me, initially, there was some signage that was being uh unveiled through a ribbon cutting on the west side, there on buyer farm trail, and there was uh noticeably some erosion that was happening around the initial turn. And so, from my memory, the mayor at the time, mayor Tallmer, had reached out noting that there was this erosion control issue here at this project site, or at least this potential project site, and that we have a utility to take care of this. Come out and check it out.
Speaker 3:So myself and at the time our stormwater inspector, brandon Cordell, who is now the MS4 coordinator for the city of Warsaw, had come out to the site to inspect and see where the erosion soil control problem was. And for those who don't know the essence of stormwater, if you do remember that one time when you were looking through a science book and there was a water cycle picture, that arrow that would go from the top of the hill down to the bottom. That is where stormwater utilities focusing on is that runoff or whatever that stormwater is picking up potential pollutants or even physical erosion or impacting the soil there. We would have to address that, and so in this instance, we wanted to address the continued erosion that was occurring on the bank there around the curve, and we noticed an opportunity to improve that area.
Speaker 2:Aside from just stabilizing the ground there, we saw potential for additional education as well as public participation and involvement in a very unique space that only city of warsaw has so I gotta jump in there, because he mentioned mayor talmer and he mentioned his transition from being a student to, uh, working for the city of warsaw and um, so that was a pretty big role for a brand new graduate to take on. And I can still remember when Mayor Talmer called and said, hey, we're going to have this opening in this position. Do you by any chance have any students that would do well in this? Maybe a recent graduate or someone of Ryan, given how well he had done with all of these different tasks, given his organization skills, communication skills, the fact that he had already looked into some of these stormwater related issues in our community and so made that recommendation and just saw how he excelled in that role so well Many people department heads throughout the city saw that and be able to move in that coordinator role.
Speaker 2:He really did an amazing job and I sort of felt like a proud dad in some sort of ways, kind of a surrogate dad in sort of being able to invest in him, see him just do really well and then be proud of him on the professional side of things than when he is in the community. So that's what we'd love. We love to see that of our students when they graduate, that they're really successful.
Speaker 1:The Lilly Center focuses your work in Kosciuszko County, but when you look at people like Ryan, who are graduates of your program here, the impact is greater than Kosciuszko County.
Speaker 2:That's true. Yeah, we like to talk about that as kind of a multiplicative impact, right that we have these students who are here working at the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. This past school year, for example, we had 46 college interns paid working here at the Lilly Center doing various tasks. When Ryan was here he used the phrase jack of all trades. We had fewer students that were doing lots of stuff. Now that our students are a little more specialized on certain teams. But they're not only having an impact in our community when they're here working at the Lilly Center doing their various tasks on those teams here working at the Lilly Center doing their various tasks on those teams, but then when they graduate and they move out and most of them stay in northern Indiana, but they move out into these different towns and cities and organizations and corporations they're then continuing to have even more impact throughout their career and so it's multiplying then the impact of the Lilly Center throughout northern Indiana and really through the Midwest with where our students end up.
Speaker 1:So, ryan, you are no longer at the City of Warsaw. What is your job now?
Speaker 3:So I had transitioned out of the City of Warsaw three years ago to Stantec Consulting Services Incorporated, and essentially, environmental scientist is my role. That's my title. However, I function as a project manager as well as a technical expert when it comes to compliance and advisory for permitting compliance for water-focused regulation.
Speaker 1:So who would be seeking a permit for that?
Speaker 3:Oh, there's a lot of scenarios where you would be required to get a permit or chase after a permit. My work primarily supports industrial users. Work primarily supports industrial users, so they have a specific process where you have your water use coming in. You have a process where you're making a product that incorporates raw materials or all components that may be incorporated in the water. Not all that water is used in that process and usually gets discarded or discharged with those additional items that were originally in that water use and then they want to discharge that and to do that they must be permitted and technically or depending on the amount of water they're discharging, the activities that they are doing or the specific type of product that they are making, that permit may be more stringent or more relaxed.
Speaker 1:So an industrial application, somebody that may be doing water laser cutting is that the kind of customer you would have? Or any manufacturing that would incorporate using water as their manufacturing?
Speaker 3:Primarily manufacturers. In some cases research and development does require some water discharge but you can suspect if that process or that industrial user discharges water, that needs to be permitted one way or another, just so that the agency who's authorized to manage that program knows where that water is going. And again it gets a little bit more stringent for those users that have very specific narrated activities or, again, depending or flagged, depending on what type of products they're using and the raw materials.
Speaker 1:Food processors, would they need permits?
Speaker 3:Yep, okay, so I've worked on a project that has been for a pet food facility, so that's food in itself and they do require a permit, but again, that was all in-house and yeah, it's very unique scenarios we find ourselves in.
Speaker 2:And those permits are called NPDES permits right, Typically.
Speaker 1:Oh and acronyms. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Let me test myself here Non-point discharge elimination system.
Speaker 3:National Pollution Detection Elimination System.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was a little off there or non-point source pollution detection.
Speaker 3:National Pollution Detection Elimination System Okay, I was a little off there or Nonpoint Source Pollution Detection. So if you use the acronym.
Speaker 2:Then you don't have to worry about being wrong, susie, that's right, so that's why in?
Speaker 3:science. We use so many acronyms, even testing me a little bit there.
Speaker 1:So, nate, the projects that Ryan shared with us, the signage and the runoff mitigation system that they put in place why are those projects important to communities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a couple of reasons. One on the signage side of things. We want to empower people to not only understand what's going on but also be able to do some of these practices themselves, and so the signage is going to be really important for people to uncover some of the mystery of what's going on with a particular practice. So maybe there's a practice of a rain garden, for example, and so the public might see kind of a low area with some plants planted in the middle of it and they might drive by or walk by or bike by and say, hey, what are those weeds doing in the bottom of that low depression? Well, if there's a sign there and they see, hey, it maybe looks a little less manicured than they're used to. It's not that it's just weeds. Those plants are there on purpose. Maybe they're native plants that are really good at absorbing a lot of water, and so that low depression that normally would flood and flood out into a parking lot or someone's yard, now instead those specially designed plants can pull that water out. Maybe it allows infiltration down to the soil or maybe more transpiration up from the stems and the leaves into the atmosphere. And so the sign really then helps people understand what's going on.
Speaker 2:But then the practice itself is important as well. So it could be something like a rain garden that I just mentioned. It could be pervious pavement or concrete or paver bricks in certain areas that allow water infiltration. Pavement or concrete or paver bricks in certain areas that allow water infiltration. So there's less of that runoff which Ryan talked about before, which would lead to stormwater running pollutants off like greases or oils or nutrients or sediments that could wash them into a receiving water body. Instead, if we allow infiltration, that ground, that soil that the water is now going into, can help clean that water as it's percolating through that soil and then into the groundwater, and then that way out to one of our rivers or lakes is going to be cleaner than if it were just to go across the surface of the ground directly into a stream or a lake.
Speaker 1:So, Ryan, you have been passionate about environment your whole life. Why should a city be interested in environmental practices?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, especially for the city of lakes specifically. Well, it's completely tied to a couple of things. Uh, one specifically would be that and I had clued on this before but our local environmental assets are huge to our community. So, um, a couple one thing to note too, has nate was saying about the benefits of signage.
Speaker 3:Benefits of signage also adds that multiplication effect that you had mentioned, that also helps us maintain the entire system of the city of warsaw, hopefully to some effect. So we have some specifically focused on improving our environmental assets or keeping our lakes and streams clean, which would be stormwater utility, at least within the city of warsaw. On the public side, a lot of different private businesses are probably doing the same thing, whether on their own or through other supporting efforts.
Speaker 1:But then you so one of the things I'd like to know is is a city penalized if they don't do things? Are they regulated by the government to do things? Um, are they? Are they doing those kind of things just to be good citizens or because they're being forced to do those things?
Speaker 3:to your question, for if they're required to, the city of orsall is required to do and administrate the MS4 program or the municipal separate storm sewer system.
Speaker 2:Another acronym.
Speaker 1:Yes so keeping the storm water separate from the sewage water. The water is going to go into the waste treatment plant. Yes, correct.
Speaker 3:So my understanding, there are no combined sewers in the city of Warsaw at this point, and so with that, the city of Warsaw is managing stormwater solely as stormwater. There isn't mixing of whatever kind. So when we have water discharging from our outfalls, the city of warsaw is saying this is meeting stormwater quality standards. This is meeting high standards to make sure this water is not polluted to a degree that's going to be impacting our environmental assets or our lakes and streams that we use recreationally here, especially with swimming in it as well as one of those recreational functions. They're required to make sure they maintain that system so that the water that's discharging they're not liable for whatever's going into those lakes and streams.
Speaker 1:And it probably takes less of a burden on the sewage system by diverting it.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, so you have less water going through your wastewater treatment system. So since you have less water going through that system to be treated, you can expect that that system should be able to last and have longer longevity.
Speaker 1:So how can I, as a private individual, be a good steward of stormwater?
Speaker 3:There are a couple practices that you can do as a household resident or even as a commercial business, if you own your own small business as well. Primarily it falls under a couple of practices or best management practices bmps that somebody can do on their own individually. One low-hanging fruit for residents specifically would be fertilizer management. So if you go to a home okay, what type of practices or activities happen here? You see this really nice lawn. It's adjacent to a really nice cool canal where your boat's sitting there.
Speaker 3:Just understanding what type of substances or materials that you're using on your lawn and where that can actually end up, maybe recognizing what you're putting on your lawn and knowing where that footprint is, would also impact what you're choosing to apply onto your lawn. So that's one low-hanging fruit. But then also you could have your own waste management um, like green practices, like recycling, or even residents can be minimizing their footprint by um managing their own uh, like food waste differently than just, again, um, throwing in the waste bin. So there's a lot of impacts that you can do, specifically for water quality. That's going to be fertilizer, it's going to be the biggest one.
Speaker 2:Yard waste would be another. You talked about food waste or recycling, but yard waste. So people's leaves or grass clippings. Sometimes when someone's mowing their yard they'll throw the grass clippings out onto the street, but in the street there's drains and gutter systems right that move that storm water towards the local river lake, and when you start to add that up around a whole city or town, that's a lot of grass clippings or leaves that are going to end up in a downstream river or lake. As those things decompose, they give off nutrients, they cause excess of weeds and algae in our lakes, and so we we would like to see homeowners instead keep those things, you know, mulch them into their own lawn so compost for good nutrition for their lawn. Or, you know, bag them up and have them taken away or put them in their garden where they can compost them, something like that, rather than getting into the storm system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's another good point too, because yard waste in itself also collects elsewhere if you don't collect it, and at most times it goes towards the lowest point, it follows the water and it covers those storm drains which it does impact the effectiveness of the stormwater system, which takes away that water, which does incur flooding at most points. So that's another thing that residents can do is just be wary and mindful of their storm drains on their street and if they know it's just a little bit higher water, then more than likely that storm drain might be covered and they can either covered or might be plugged and they can either reach out to their local storm utility to take care of that.
Speaker 1:Or just go and plug it yourself.
Speaker 3:If it's covered on top right All right.
Speaker 1:So what is green infrastructure?
Speaker 3:So green infrastructure is a not your typical traditional way, like gray infrastructure, which would be piping or culverts or anything that is typically with concrete to help direct the flow of water.
Speaker 3:Green infrastructure is a solution that incorporates biological systems as well as a green component to it. An example would be like a green roof or a rain garden or, specifically locally here, the Byer Farm Trail, where you are incorporating methods that are creating multiple benefits focused towards the environment, as well as multiple benefits focused towards the environment, as well as solving the problem that was originally proposed. So, for instance, for Byer Farm Trail, you had the problem of erosion and sedimentation on the walkway and that would eventually lead to a larger problem. So the solution with buyer farm trail was green infrastructure, where we did not install pipe or just put on um uh redirect the flow of water, but we allowed in a natural system for that water to flow as well as recharge the uh local wetlands there just west of that system as well. And it also provides a lot of other benefits like habitat for local critters and again, it is completely impervious. So you have an additional characteristic that helps improve the environment that might not else be met through your typical gray infrastructure methods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so green infrastructure has to have a natural component, as ryan was saying, and um, but it still has to also provide that ecological service, um, and so it has to minimize flooding or it has to allow different plants or animals to grow, as you you said, and so that green infrastructure. One of the things I really loved about that project that Ryan and his team at the city designed was not only was it a solution to the flooding and the sedimentation, the erosion that was occurring in that location, but it also looks really nice, it's beautiful. The erosion that was occurring in that location, but it also looks really nice, it's beautiful and it provides we actually had an educational event there one time it provides almost like an amphitheater sort of seating opportunity there, overlooking a beautiful wetland complex, and so I think these green infrastructure projects are win-wins for the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, green infrastructure projects are win-wins for the community. Yeah, so Stantec has a. The company that you're working for now has a passion for serving community.
Speaker 3:Would you talk to us a bit about that? Yeah, so Stantec's model is primarily focused on community development. At least from what I approached on for a lot of our projects is we want to provide or inject ourselves in the community and provide the most value where we can. I found myself specifically in the business line of environmental services, but Stantec has other environmental services specifically that provide resources as well as value, again, to not just environmental needs but also additional needs for the community, whether it's managing growth and actual community development, as well as water resources or even infrastructure, buildings, buildings, um, but yeah, stantec themselves try to provide value for, again, the communities and that they're involved in with through their projects.
Speaker 3:Um, and then there's a clear indicator that this is true, uh, and this is a true focus of theirs, and it's through Stantec in the community, which is a event that they hold annually and essentially they allocate a certain amount of hours per year per individual to volunteer and be involved in their community. And where I find myself here, locally, a little distant off from a couple of our local offices I think the closest office we have here is Walkerton or Indianapolis, but they still or Stantec allows us to apply those hours where we would like, and so for the past couple of years I've been able to volunteer here locally at the Lilly Center for those hours, hours and um again develop my community at whatever uh function that that is, and at last year it was doing some uh landscaping and some uh addressing some envelopes.
Speaker 3:So yeah, but we stand, tech finds themselves focused on the communities to try to help develop where we can and try to inject the most value we can and provide the most support that we can.
Speaker 2:And just to elaborate a little bit on those tasks, somebody might say well, hey, how does landscaping or addressing envelopes, how does that help the community? Well, those are two really important tasks, though they might not seem so right on the surface. One landscaping all around our lily, our lily center facility. Here are native plants, and so we've got lots of species of native plants which are doing important work of filtering and allowing water to infiltrate down into the soil rather than run off and cause stormwater issues, and so these native plants are doing a good service.
Speaker 2:They're also a great example to community members who come here to the Lilly Center to see how aesthetically pleasing these native plants can be. We've got beautiful flowers on different plants different times of the year. We keep them in sort of a manicured array so it sort of accentuates different features of the landscaping around the building, and so Ryan was helping with that and then addressing envelopes. Any nonprofit organization knows and you know this from your background with the Community Foundation it can only be successful if it's sustained financially, and so we work really hard to keep our financial supporters informed about the work that we're doing, how they might choose to invest in new or different ways in the future, and so Ryan was helping with that important aspect of what we do as well.
Speaker 1:It's addressing an envelope, but that's not what it is. It is connecting the organization to somebody who cares about it, and that's a real important thing. So you don't just address envelopes. Thank you for volunteering and it's wonderful that Stantec has a corporate value of giving back and community development, really needed at this time.
Speaker 2:And Stantec is in a lot of communities and so that impact back to that multiplication word again right, that impact is having a multiplicative impact with those Stantec employees all around this country and essentially around the world Is Stantec a global company. Global Global company Wow.
Speaker 1:Nate, how does the Lilly Center engage community?
Speaker 2:Well, our mission is making our lakes and streams clean, healthy, safe and beautiful, and we engage Kosciuszko County, which is here in northern Indiana, as our focus, but we've talked about how the impact goes more broadly. We work in three areas that allow us to engage the community. First is in research, where we're identifying threats, we're finding the most strategic solutions. We do a lot of education, where we're increasing water literacy in our community so folks can make good choices to help steward these aquatic resources well. And then we do a lot of collaborative work and we can be more efficient and effective when we're working together with other organizations, whether that's Stantec or the city of Warsaw, or local school systems or other lake or watershed groups. We can have an even bigger impact when we're working together.
Speaker 1:And you have some really cool tools that community members can use if they want to know about the water quality of the lake that they're planning to go boat on or swim in. Where do they find that information?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So our website, lakesgraceedu, has great options if people want to learn about their particular lake. There's a whole lakes guide there, with over a hundred lakes in our county listed with all the information available. If people want to go in the water with themselves or their kids or their pets, we have a algae toxin notification system and so people can sign up for that on our website and get a notification every week during the summer to know if it's safe to go in the water and which water it is safe to go in. People can go on onto our website and see all the data from past years to see how things are tracking.
Speaker 1:Including data that Ryan collected when he was here.
Speaker 2:Right, which is pretty cool. Yeah, so that data still lives on where people can see that, and then we have current live data as well through our stream sensor network. So when Ryan was here, we didn't have those stream sensors yet. It was a lot more manual effort. And now we have these stream sensors which are measuring, I believe, every 10 minutes, all around the clock, every day of the year, and people can go on our website and see real time. I think there's 14 different stream sensors around our county and they can see that data and what's going on with our streams.
Speaker 1:Brian, I know you had fun in the streams collecting data, but can you imagine having to be there and every 10 minutes taking the samples wow no you have any fun stories you want to share about when you were doing data collection oh I have to uh go in the archives for that one. Anybody fall in the boat, fall out of the boat.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I would just relish the opportunities I would have when my time for Tippecanoe Lake would align where I was doing the clipboard, because if you had the quantum meter on Tippecanoe Lake, you're doing the most work.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's the quantum meter on Tippecanoe Lake? You're doing the most work, Okay what's a quantum meter?
Speaker 3:So the quantum meter was capturing just a different variety of data points, from like DO to pH, at different levels of the lake.
Speaker 1:Dissolved oxygen would be. Yes, that acronym good work enough of these acronyms.
Speaker 3:But yeah, dissolve oxygen, um, ph and other um parameters. Uh, but typical new lake is the deepest one that we would be taking this data from and my understanding it was like around 30 some meters that we would have to take this data and so every meter you would have to pull up this quantum meter and then hold it for them to take the the data and then just keep pulling it up. So you're just in the clipboard. You got to sit out there on the boat, it'd be nice, and sunny, you're just taking the data casey's pulling up the quantum meter, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that quantum meter.
Speaker 2:Now we use a ProDSS, more recently it's called a multi-sensor array, and so it will have multiple sensors on it and on the housing, and it will do dissolved oxygen, like Ryan said, ph, which is a relative measure of how acidic or basic the water is.
Speaker 2:The pH actually stands for a French phrase, which is a relative measure of how acidic or basic the water is. The pH actually stands for a French phrase which I can't pronounce. But then also conductivity, which is the relative amounts of salts that are in the water dissolved salts, and it will do temperature as well as depth in the water, and then we can look at different pigments that are in algae as well, like chlorophyll or phycocyanin, and we can measure all of those things simultaneously. As that, that sensor array is at different depths, and so there's somebody, like ryan said, on the clipboard who's madly writing down all of these numbers, and then there's somebody else who's who's having to hold this sensor array steady with the boat rocking around and stuff like that, all the way from zero at the surface down to 30 meters.
Speaker 1:So it's quite a task like hoisting it up with 30 different data points to me yeah well, you're exercising your brain muscles and the other guy was exercising his arm muscles, pulling it up right. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2:Brains and brawn. Brains and brawn.
Speaker 1:What do you miss?
Speaker 3:What do I miss At my time at the Lilly Center?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I miss working with all my friends that were there at the time. There was a lot of great experiences that I had with a lot of different people that were pivotal to the efforts of the Lilly Center but also varied from person to person and each brought a unique thing to the team and so a lot of those experiences. I can call up different names I called out one earlier, casey but just from the Lakes in the Classroom Fish Tanks team to Sampling team to the Festival team just had a lot of different individuals that I got to work with and I gleaned a lot from each individual. So yeah.
Speaker 3:I would say that's probably why I got the most out of the Loyalty Center. Was that and the experiences and why I missed the most. Why I got the most out of the LA Center was that and the experiences and why I missed the most.
Speaker 1:Ryan, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and your journey, and thank heaven your mom didn't drag you out of that ditch when you were catching frogs, you might have had a whole different trajectory. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 3:Thanks Susie, thanks Nate.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. You can share your thoughts or submit a question by leaving a comment or sending an email to lakes at graceedu.
Speaker 2:Listening to this podcast is just the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.
Speaker 1:We will see you next time. The doctor is in.