Q&A: Diatom matchmaker makes microscopic organisms relatable

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What diatom is most like you? The average person has probably never asked what they have in common with these unique microscopic species of algae, but a new interactive project from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station can help you think about the incredible richness of life in our lakes and rivers.

Different diatom species thrive in different water conditions, and they create glass shells that can last a long time in lake sediments. This means it’s possible to understand what the water was like in the past by examining what diatoms were there.

Tori Thrash

This winter, Tori Thrash, the Environmental Research Fellow at the Research Station, launched an online personality quiz so anyone can match up with one of several species of diatoms.

Thrash graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a B.S in Environmental Science, Minor in Biology, and a Certificate in Sustainability. In the summer of 2018, she was introduced to diatoms during a four-week experiential field and lab course at Iowa Lakeside Lab in Okoboji, IA on the Ecology and Systematics of Diatoms taught by Mark Edlund (SCWRS senior scientist) and Sylvia Lee. The next summer, she came back to Lakeside as the teaching assistant (John Kingston Diatom Fellow) for the class.

Thrash has spent the last several months working at the Research Station getting hands-on experience conducting environmental research — including working on projects that include using diatoms as environmental proxies to understand lake conditions in the past.

Here’s more about Thrash, diatoms, and how this idea came to life.

Discovering diatoms

“I discovered what a diatom was the summer before my junior year of college when I took the class at Lakeside Lab. It felt so refreshing to discover something for the first time. I had no idea what diatoms were and suddenly I got to see hundreds of species that we sampled from different ecosystems like lakes, fens, prairie kettle holes, vernal pools, rivers, creeks, and streams! I fell in love with getting to experience totally new ecosystems and got so excited to see new things under the microscope. 

“There are an estimated 20,000 to 2 million species of diatoms so, chances are that when I look at a slide from a new location, I will see a diatom that I never have before. 

“The only way I can describe studying diatoms is like being an art collector, a detective, and a genealogist on top of being a naturalist, an ecologist, and limnologist.”

“Once you see just a little bit of the vast diversity of diatoms, you will understand why people become fascinated by them. Their glass cell walls are so ornate and beautiful. Each species has a unique morphology that corresponds with their environmental tolerances and the ecological niches that they fill. 

“We can use this idea that different genera or species of diatoms prefer certain environmental conditions to create an estimate of what environments were like in the past, based on diatom assemblages. For instance, there are some diatoms that outcompete other species when there are more available nutrients; when you see that these diatoms were present in the past, it’s your turn to figure out why nutrients were higher. Did logging and runoff occur? Was there a source of direct nutrient pollution? 

“The only way I can describe studying diatoms is like being an art collector, a detective, and a genealogist on top of being a naturalist, an ecologist, and limnologist.”

Unique outreach

“Part of my job as the Fellowship at the station is to help with outreach. I was invited to help with the SCWRS booth at the SMM event called Behind the Sciences on MLK day. The event featured the work that the SMM research and collections staff does every day. 

“The goal was to engage with the community about our science to promote curiosity and encourage learning.

“Before I found environmental science, I was an education major and an artist. Both of these interests bleed into my life as a scientist.”

“I began brainstorming some ideas that would fit within those goals that people of all ages would enjoy. I let my sense of humor guide me, I giggled at the idea of creating a diatom personality quiz inspired by those that you find on Facebook  about which Disney or Harry Potter character you are most similar to, based on questions that are supposed to reflect your personality traits and preferences. After surveying some staff at SCWRS they seemed to really like the idea too.”

Sharing microscopic 

“I thought that a personality quiz could allow people to make connections between how they live and thrive and how other organisms do the same, even the ones we cannot see with the unaided eye. 

“I wanted to get people thinking about the basic ideas of biology and ecology, help them understand why there is so much diversity on Earth, and introduce them to diatoms an important facet of research at the station. And I wanted the quiz to be an example of how diverse diatoms are, how they fit into different ecological niches, and how they help with water quality research. This was a way to demonstrate how ‘form follows function.’

“Something I love about outreach and education is how I can express my creativity and love for learning. Before I found environmental science, I was an education major and an artist. Both of these interests bleed into my life as a scientist. This was a really fun way to express my interests and interact with people to get them excited about learning.”

Take the quiz!

Take our quiz: What kind of diatom are you?

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Do you enjoy working alone or thrive in big groups? Have you ever stolen a french fry off of your friend’s plate?

Answer these questions to find out which freshwater diatom (aka tiny algae) you’re most like.

Our current Environmental Research Fellow Tori Thrasher developed this quiz to help people understand why diatoms are critical to our understanding of water quality, and how each one can indicate different environmental conditions.

Take the quiz here

ST. CROIX WATERSHED RESEARCH STATION ANNOUNCES ARTIST/WRITER RESIDENCIES FOR SUMMER 2020: Enhancing Scientific Understanding Through Art

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Pine Needles cabin (By 2003 artist-in-residence Dave Brandon)

Artist at Pine Needles, a residency program sponsored by the St. Croix Watershed Research Station, seeks applications from artists and writers for Summer 2020. With the vision to enhance scientific understanding through art, the St. Croix Watershed Research Station invites Artists in Residence to interact with the scientific staff and local community to further explore the intersection between art and science.

In addition to accepting applications from established artists, the Pine Needles Residency includes an emerging artist category to encourage and support upcoming artists with this same calling. Since 2001, the Artist at Pine Needles program has welcomed more than 50 artists and writers to the banks of the St. Croix River in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota.

The St. Croix Watershed Research Station is the environmental research station of the Science Museum of Minnesota. The setting for the Artist at Pine Needles Residency is the James Taylor Dunn Pine Needles Cabin, located just north of the village of Marine on St. Croix along the St. Croix River.

In 2019, the artists selected were: large-scale, 2D and 3D visual artist Katherine Steichen Rosing of Madison, WI; botanical printmaker Linda Snouffer of St. Paul, MN; installation artist and sculptor Peter Krsko of Wonewoc, WI; and emerging artist, lyrical essayist and poet Kate Lucas of Minneapolis, MN.

Applications for 2020 will be accepted from writers and artists who focus on environmental or natural history topics and strive to connect the complex world between art, the natural world, and the sciences. As part of the program, artists will be encouraged to design an outreach project to share their work with the local community.

Application packets are available from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station or www.smm.org/scwrs/programs/artist/. The application deadline is February 29, 2020; decisions to be announced by March 31. For more information, contact Alaina Fedie at the St. Croix Watershed Research Station: researchstation@smm.org or 651-433-5953, extension 12.

One National Park, eight lakes, two million water quality clues

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Mohan, Engstrom, and Edlund set off with canoe and gear to study a remote Isle Royale lake.
(Photo by Mark Edlund)

This August, Dr. Mark Edlund, working with colleagues from the station, the National Park Service, University of Maine, and St. Olaf College, returned to Isle Royale National Park for 10 days of paddling, portaging, and collecting information from remote lakes in the National Park in Lake Superior. The team included Research Station director emeritus Dr. Dan Engstrom, and Joe Mohan, a PhD student from University of Maine, whose advisor, Dr. Jasmine Saros, is the other lead principal investigator on the project.

The trip culminated two years of study to determine if these wild waters are changing, and why. With instruments submerged in the lakes taking readings every 30 minutes, more devices deployed to collect sediment sinking to the bottom, and other extensive efforts, the scientists are trying to answer pressing questions.

In recent years, blooms of cyanobacteria, algae that produce toxins, have been spotted in some Isle Royale lakes. But almost the whole park is federally-designated wilderness and hasn’t changed much in decades. There haven’t been any new farm fields plowed, or residential neighborhoods developed, or wastewater treatment plants discharging upstream — the usual reasons for such noxious conditions.

Field work video by David Burge

Nonetheless, the algae have been blooming. So the scientists set out to study the lakes and their watersheds, reconstruct historic water quality, and investigate connections between land, climate, atmosphere, and water. A few key questions have come up. 

Has it always been this way? Cyanobacteria are natural organisms, only becoming a problem in certain conditions — warm, nutrient-rich water is ideal. Human memories are imperfect, so scientists need data to determine if this is a new problem or not.

If it’s a new or increasing phenomenon, why is that? It could be climate change — not just global warming but also changes to wind and precipitation patterns. Or additional nutrients could be carried from afar on the wind. 

Maybe forest fire frequency has changed, decreasing runoff. Or some other subtle changes may have occurred in the lakes and the areas affecting them. There were many maybes but not much reliable information.

Edlund and Mohan work together on the shores of an Isle Royale interior lake, extracting material for DNA analysis. (Photo by Dan Engstrom)

That’s how the field crew found themselves bushwacking into rarely-visited lakes. Seeking to solve these mysteries has meant some long hikes and recordingdata that can contain critical clues.

When the team pulled their sensors and sediment traps from the lakes this summer, they wrapped up one phase of the project. Pieces of an explanation hopefully reside In all the sediment samples and computer databases. Now comes the analysis. 

Stay tuned for part three of this trilogy.

Tribal partners help study changes in northern Minnesota lakes

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The impact of the research conducted at the Science Museum’s St. Croix Watershed Research Station reaches farther because of our partnerships with the Red Lake Nation. Collaborating on multiple projects has allowed our scientists to learn from these partners, study unique bodies of water, and help tribal resource managers make informed decisions.

The Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota is home to about 7,500 members of the Red Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Many residents depend on the reservation’s rich natural resources through hunting, fishing, and subsistence harvesting, as well as employment in commercial fishing and logging. 

“The Red Lakes are consistently named as the most important natural component of the Reservation by tribal members,” says Shane Bowe, water resources director of the Red Lake Department of Natural Resources. “The lake is of great spiritual importance as well an important source of sustenance and income. Our program is charged with protecting the water quality in and around the lake and we take that role seriously.”

Three partnerships between Research Station scientists and the Red Lake DNR are addressing water quality while inspiring learning and informing policy on tribal lands and water, state waters, and international waters:

Paleolimnology of Red Lake

Working with the Red Lake DNR, our scientists have extracted sediment cores from the bottoms of Upper and Lower Red Lakes, at six locations. The cores were analyzed to determine the history of the Red lakes and their watershed over the last 150 years. 

Our results indicate that the Red lakes have not been as heavily impacted by land use or nutrient loading as many Minnesota lakes. The important finding of the project is that the lakes, and their world class walleye fishery, are unique, but have oddly exceeded nutrient standards for northern Minnesota for a long time—the lakes are not impaired, but naturally productive. 

“Partnering with the St. Croix Watershed Research Station has allowed us to show evidence of what we have long suspected based on our own 20+ years of data,” Bowe says. “Upper and Lower Red Lake have been highly productive nutrient rich lakes for hundreds of years. Rather than an impairment, we think this actually contributes to the lakes’ highly successful walleye fishery.”

The Red Lake Nation, working with the Science Museum and the State of Minnesota, will move to develop “site-specific” nutrient standards for the Red lakes. Brenna P., a tribal member and Bemidji State student, also interned at the Research Station to learn algae identification as part of the project.

Dust deposition in Minnesota

Wilderness lakes across northern Minnesota are changing in unprecedented ways that result in noxious algae blooms. The cause of the problem is likely two-fold – our changing climate and atmospheric deposition. 

On Red Lake tribal lands, we sampled two remote peatland lakes, where any mineral input to the lakes should only come from atmospheric sources, to see if dust deposition has changed over time and is threatening tribal and northern Minnesota lakes.

Soil and nutrients can be carried long distances by the wind, and large agricultural areas upwind from Red Lake may be increasing nutrients in these isolated waterbodies. This project has the potential to show another way in which our world and its waters are all connected.

Water quality of Lake of the Woods

Lake of the Woods is a multi-jurisdictional water body (USA, Canada, Tribal, First Nation) and was recently declared impaired for nutrients and algae by the State of Minnesota. A state plan was put in place to fix this impairment.

The Red Lake Tribal DNR is partnering with the Science Museum to monitor water quality and algal toxins in Lake of the Woods to measure the effectiveness of Minnesota’s plan to bring better water quality to this important resource. 

Even though the giant border lake isn’t part of the Red Lake Reservation, it is part of the band’s territory in treaties and has been used over the years by band members. The Red Lake DNR also believes it will receive more use from band members in the future.

Check out this recent article in the fall issue of the Red Lake DNR’s Dagwaagiin (p 8-9) for more information.

Thank you to our tribal partners for strengthening our science!

Registration now open for 2019 St. Croix River Research Rendezvous

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The St. Croix River Research Rendezvous, held annually in October, brings together scientists, resource managers, agency staff and the interested public to hear presentations about research plans, projects, and findings in the St. Croix watershed.

The conference fee is $45 and includes continental breakfast, breaks, lunch, and frolic). Optional Lodging at SCWRS on 10/21 and 10/22 is $55 per night.

Please register by October 15, 2019. Late fee will apply to all registrations received after this date.

Register online

Can’t register online? Please call (651) 433-5953 ext. 10. Additional information at www.smm.org/rendezvous.

Tentative Program Schedule

Session 1: Current Research in the St. Croix River Watershed

  • Breaking the St. Croix Down Into Bite-Sized Pieces
  • Engaging Agricultural Stakeholder in Development of the Lower St. Croix “One Watershed Plan”
  • The Effect of Habitat Conditions on Lumbricidae Population in the St. Croix State Park (Edgewood High School students)
  • Minnesota Master Naturalists and University Researcher Study Life History Needs of a Local Native Mussel

Session 2 Retrospective: Policy and Advocacy in St. Croix Scenic Riverway

  • Creating the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway – Julie Galonska, Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway superintendent
  • Revisiting the History of the St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team: What’s Next?

Session 3 Retrospective: Biological Studies within the St. Croix River Watershed

  • Reflections on Water, Wetlands, and Unsung Heroes: If We Don’t Look, We Don’t See
  • Inspired by the Mollusk Diversity of the St. Croix–MN DNR is Restoring Mussles in Other Rivers

Session 4 Retrospective: Water Quality Studies, Standards and Protection

  • Tale of Two Rivers – Dan Engstrom, Retired, Director emeritus, St. Croix Watershed Research Station
  • Monitoring Lake St. Croix: Setting Standards and Monitoring Progress – Kent Johnson, Retired, Metropolitan Council
  • Hydrologic Models in the St. Croix: Wherefore, Whence, and Whither – Jim Almendinger, Director, St. Croix Watershed Research Station; Richard Kiesling, U.S. Geological Survey

Session 5: Closing Remarks

  • If you Build It, Will They Come? – Ron Lawrenz, Retired, Director, St. Croix Watershed Research Station and Warner Nature Center
  • Recognition and Farewell to the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center – Vikki Getchell, Director, Warner Nature Center

Follow along with a Research Station scientist studying climate change and lakes in Greenland

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August 12: “Landed in Kanger this morning and then straight up the ridge to check the instruments that have been monitoring dust blowing off the sander for the last year. Still running! #DustyLakes“

Research Station staff scientist Dr. Adam Heathcote is currently in southwestern Greenland as part of an international research expedition. He is tweeting about science, tundra, climate change, and more while he’s on the island.

The trip is his second field campaign to Greenland, part of a project examining how some of the most pristine lakes in the world are changing in the face of rapid climate change. Professor John Anderson from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom is the project’s principal investigator.

The research team is spending two weeks hiking across the tundra and collecting water, sediment, and other samples from rarely-visited lakes with unique ecological features.

As a result of earlier work, members of the team recently published a new peer-reviewed article in the journal Environmental Research Letters about the speed at which Greenland’s ecosystem is changing due to global warming.

“We’re seeing environmental responses much more quickly than we might have expected,” said lead author Jasmine Saros, a lake ecologist and associate director of the University of Maine Climate Change Institute. “What it means is that the system is very sensitive to climate. It responds quickly when the temperatures go up.”

Not only has Greenland experienced some of the most extreme climate change on Earth in the past two decades, extensive scientific monitoring and research has been conducted at the same time. This has provided unique opportunities to study how climate change happens, and what its effects are.

Heathcote is focused on the impact of airborne dust on the nascent lakes of the post-glacial landscape. When glaciers and ice sheets melt, huge plains of sediment are deposited by meltwater. These outwash plains, or “sandurs,” are loose and often subjected to strong winds.

Wind can carry considerable quantities of nutrients into the lakes, a process which has implications for other parts of the world, as well as the future of our planet’s changing climate.

Nutrients in lakes usually get there by running off the surrounding landscape, but these lakes have small, nearly barren watersheds at the foot of the ice. They can be easily affected if nutrients come through the air.

“As the Greenland glaciers melt, increased discharge and newly exposed terrain is redistributing dust-bound nutrients, which could potentially fertilize these lakes, leading to major ecosystem changes,” Heathcote says. “It is critical to have scientists on the ground in these remote environments documenting these changes as they happen.”

Follow Heathcote and his colleagues’ adventures and observations as they tweet live from Greenland, using the #DustyLakes hashtag.

Here are a few of his tweets from the past week:

Reference:

Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape, Jasmine E Saros et al 2019 Environ. Res. Lett. 14 074027

Video: The bacteria that made life possible are now killing us

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The St. Croix Watershed Research Station is very pleased to share a new video by popular YouTube channel MinuteEarth. The Research Station sponsored this video with funding from the McKnight Foundation.

The video explains in plain language the ancient and important organisms called cyanobacteria, which are a key area of study for our scientists. When provided with too much fertilizer or warm weather or other factors, they can turn lakes toxic for people and animals.

The Research Station has multiple studies underway seeking to better understand when, where, and why harmful algae bloom. (Research funding is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.)

Thanks largely to MinuteEarth’s 2.1 million subscribers on YouTube, the video has more than 120,000 views after just two days online.

The team at MinuteEarth has lots of experience translating fascinating but complex ideas about nature and science into fun, understandable animated videos. We love what they did with this topic. Thank you to script writer Peter Reich, editor and director David Goldenberg, illustrator Sarah Berman, narrator Julián Gómez, and others.

Please watch and share the video, thank you! Click here to view it on YouTube.

Learn more:

Butterflies, blue-greens, kilowatts, and calories

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Sheep, perennial plants, and solar panels could help solve water problems, with the right design and locations. (Photo by Photo by Merrill Smith, U.S. Department of Energy)

Solar energy is helping move the world’s energy production from fossil fuels to carbon-free sources. Done right, it could also offer a solution to other serious environmental problems.

Not only is the planet’s climate warming quickly, but much of Earth’s water is contaminated with nutrients, harmful algae, and chemicals that make it unsafe to drink. A million species of life are at risk of extinction, including creatures like pollinating insects that are critical to human survival.

The best ways to solve these problems are still up for debate — no matter what, big challenges will require big changes. Any strategy that can help address all these issues at once means saving valuable time and resources.

New research points to the potential of “farming electrons” to do exactly that.

Learn more about this topic and other connections between agriculture and water at the 2019 Agroecology Summit!

Solar panels take energy from the sun and turn it into endless electricity, without adding carbon to the atmosphere. The technology provided more than 1 percent of Minnesota’s electricity needs in 2018, a 50-fold increase from 0.02 percent in 2015. Xcel Energy recently announced it expects to more than triple its solar generating capacity in the state by 2030.

But a solar farm can grow more than one crop, according to Dr. Shawn Schottler of the St. Croix Watershed Research Station and his colleagues. It can also reduce runoff into lakes and rivers, provide habitat for bees, birds, and butterflies, and produce meat for human consumption.

It can do all this while producing revenue to support farmers and rural communities.

To maximize the benefits of solar farm, they must be located in the right places with perennial vegetation planted underneath them.

Until now, the potential benefits to water quality of combining solar and vegetation has not been seriously studied. Schottler’s analysis shows that solar installations could be another way to reduce the overall costs to taxpayers or farmers while making significant strides in improving Minnesota’s clean water.

Schottler’s study builds on previous research that shows much more perennial vegetation is needed on Minnesota’s landscape to make meaningful improvements in water pollution caused by runoff. Novel strategies will be necessary to meet the state’s water quality goals.

Combining solar, perennial plants, and sheep on a regular rotation could help meet essential needs like food, water, and energy, all on the same acres of land. Providing resources humans need in the century ahead, while protecting air, water, wildlife, and climate, is a balancing act that is constantly becoming more critical

The results are still preliminary, but the analysis identified potential benefits of solar that go far beyond energy production.

An acre of solar panels can provide 20 times the energy produced from an acre of corn grown for ethanol, plus pollinator habitat, and nearly as much meat. Three million acres of cropland in Minnesota are used for ethanol and byproducts.

Right now, about 25 percent of America’s corn acres is used to make ethanol and other biofuels, excluding byproducts used for livestock feed. That is in large part because the federal government currently requires American consumers to use about 14 billion gallons of ethanol – approximately 10 percent of gasoline – in order to create a strong and stable market for corn.

But there are other ways to produce energy and protein on the land. Trading corn and cattle for photovoltaic cells and sheep could have an oversized impact.

Schottler’s analysis found that an acre of land with solar panels on it can make at least 20 times as much energy as the same acre growing corn for ethanol, and almost as much meat. Sheep provide nearly as much protein per acre as cattle, and fit under the panels, don’t chew on wiring like goats, and don’t require wintering like cows.

There has been some recent buzz about planting pollinator-friendly vegetation at solar farms. In 2016, agriculture, energy, and environmental groups in Minnesota worked to establish the nation’s first statewide standard for vegetation on solar sites. The initiative pointed to the potential of generating energy and providing pollinator habitat on the same land.

“Because the United States solar industry first took off in the desert Southwest, a standard practice for the land on solar sites is gravel and/or shallow-rooted lawn grass,” says Fresh Energy’s Center for Pollinators in Energy.

A key principle to getting water-quality benefits from the solar-perennials-sheep strategy is to locate some solar sites in sensitive areas where they can reduce the most runoff. Solar sites installed on lands adjacent to streams, and the required streamside buffers, could have a significant positive impact on water, while helping offset the costs of prohibiting annual crops in buffer areas.

If solar farms are installed in sensitive areas, energy development could reduce not only greenhouse gasses, but drive improvements to water and wildlife.

Because solar is such an efficient way to generate energy, we won’t need that many acres of it in Minnesota, it will be critical to provide financial or administrative incentives if we want solar farms in areas that also provide water quality benefits.

Harvesting electricity

Pollinator-friendly solar could also benefit clean water. (Photo courtesy Fresh Energy)

Schottler’s research, funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund on the recommendation of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, has analyzed numerous scenarios to reduce runoff with market strategies.

Progress on the state’s water quality goals has been slow and improvements remain distant because the amount of land covered in perennial vegetation has remained low. Most protection efforts have focused on small-scale projects to slow runoff, capture sediment and nutrients, and restore wetlands. The benefits of those efforts have too often been overwhelmed by the intensification and expansion of agriculture elsewhere.

So, much of the water in southwestern Minnesota remains in about the same poor condition as it was 25 years ago — overwhelmed with algae, toxins, sediment, and flooding.

Planting sensitive lands with vegetation that reduces contaminant runoff — and produces energy and food — has the potential to finally cause the large-scale change needed to make measurable improvements in clean water.

With prices plummeting and demand soaring, solar projects are coming to America in a major way in the near future. Solar energy development will never exceed more than one percent of America’s 990 million acres of farm and range land, but can be an important part of the solution to providing a clean water supply for the next generation. Now is when the public can actively shape how different solar development designs could result in additional benefits.

Metaphorically, the country is at a policy knick point — the unstable place where a prairie stream cuts through a bluff and down to a river below. Putting solar farms, perennials, and sheep in sensitive areas can help form a firm channel that lets the water flow but reduces what it washes away.

2019 Agroecology Summit

Friday, August 16th, the Willow Lake Farm will warmly welcome visitors for a weekend of conversations, swimming, camping, field trips, homegrown food and live music.

August 16-17, 2019
Willow Lake Farm
Windom, Minnesota

How do we find a path to cleaner water and better habitat while maintaining agricultural profitability? What will it cost and how can we pay for it?

To help answer these questions, we will present tangible examples of policies that could improve water quality and habitat by creating incentivized markets for products derived from novel, perennial cropping systems.

Learn more and register

Research Station Receives St. Croix River Stewardship Award

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scra-award-2016-05-06
Research Station director Dr. Dan Engstrom (left) receives the 2016 St. Croix River Association Stewardship Award from SCRA board member Don Hansen.

The St. Croix Watershed Research Station was honored to recently receive an award for its work to study and protect the St. Croix River and its watershed. This federal Wild & Scenic Rivers, managed as a National Park, is the station’s home water and an important part of its work.

The award was given by the St. Croix River Association (SCRA), the nonprofit organization which works to protect, restore, and celebrate the river and its basin. The research station has partnered frequently with SCRA on conservation of the St. Croix.

The annual awards are given to individuals and organizations that provide outstanding contributions to protecting the river—now and for future generations.

“While it is their job to do research, we see time and again the passion this staff has for the St. Croix, and the tributaries. We are thrilled to honor the hard working team at the Research Station,” SCRA executive director Deb Ryun said.

In its announcement, SCRA stated, “Its research has had a significant impact on the St. Croix River. For instance, it influenced Minnesota to become the first state to ban the anti-bacterial agent, triclosan, in personal care products. The Station’s sediment sampling in Lake St. Croix became the basis for the St. Croix nutrient reduction goals agreed to by Minnesota and Wisconsin.”

The announcement also noted the station’s programs to connect people with science in creative ways, including the Artist at Pine Needles program and Research Rendezvous.

Accepting the award at SCRA’s annual dinner on May 6, research station director Dr. Dan Engstrom recognized the two organizations’ history of partnering together, as well as with other agencies like the National Park Service and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Dan also thanked founding director Ron Lawrenz, who was also at the event, for his vision and work to create the Research Station more than 25 years ago.