The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center (NGRREC℠) deployed its seventh buoy in the Great Rivers Ecological Observatory Network (GREON℠) on Carlyle Lake on May 6, 2015.  

The deployment was made possible with the help and collaboration of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Carlyle Lake Project Office.  

The GREON℠ buoy will house water quality and weather monitoring equipment and is part of a larger network of scientific water quality monitoring buoys being deployed throughout the Upper Mississippi River basin.  

The Lake Carlyle buoy will help identify climatic and water quality conditions that cause periodic algal blooms in the lake. A partnership between NGRREC℠, the USACE and Saint Louis University Biogeochemist Lisa Chambers make these research efforts possible.    

The buoy will be in place through the summer and fall, but will be removed before the first hard freeze. During that time, it will continuously monitor a suite of water quality parameters including dissolved oxygen, temperature, water clarity, phytoplankton abundance, dissolved organic matter and nitrate concentration. These are important variables that are directly linked to the habitat quality of aquatic species. Data from the station will be available online at NGRREC’s Great Lakes to Gulf Observatory, gltg.ncsa.illinois.edu.

The monitoring station is marked with reflective tape and lights for nighttime visibility. The USACE will place warning buoys near the GREON unit to help boaters remain a safe distance from the unit, which contains fragile scientific equipment.   

For further information, contact NGRREC Watershed Scientist John Sloan at jjsloan@lc.edu or (618) 468-2820.  

The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center is a partnership of Lewis and Clark Community College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

NGRREC℠ aspires to be a leader in scholarly research, education and outreach related to the interconnectedness of big rivers, their floodplains and watersheds, and the people who use them.