4/17/2023 - Traci Paslay began full-time employment in the Environmental Chemistry Lab after working many years as a part-time laboratory assistant. She will be operating an maintaining all the laboratory equipment including our new Smartchem 210 Discrete Analyzer.
4/5/2023 - Our new Smartchem 210 Disrete Analyzer is up an running.
8/17/2020 - We've been hard at work during these crazy times. Writing manuscripts, developing project ideas and proposals, analyzing data, setting up new data management systems, etc. We're occasionally in the field at some of our remote monitoring sites, but always keeping safe with our PPE! Check out this video of Miles from this past July while servicing a GREON station on Carlyle Lake.
7/31/2020 - We updated the official NGRREC website's GREON page. You can read more about the project and download data here: http://www.ngrrec.org/GREON/
5/21/2020 - The Cape Girardeau buoy has been deployed, but unfortunately we made the decision to not deploy the last GREON station in La Crosse, WI this year due to challenges surrounding the pandemic.
4/14/2020 - We have deployed one buoy on the Mississippi River in Alton, one buoy on Lake Shelbyville, and two buoys on Carlyle Lake. Our fixed station in Lake Decatur has also been up and running since last fall. Buoys near Cape Girardeau, MO and La Crosse, WI are coming soon!
3/26/20 - Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we have been working from home for the past 2 weeks or so. Continuous monitoring efforts will have delayed deployments with year, unfortunately.
2/23/20 - Our paper led by Dr. Marcel Dijkstra was accepted by Lake and Reservoir Management. The manuscript is titled "Assessing phosphorus distribution and bioavailability in Lake Decatur, IL". Congrats Marcel et al!
9/4/19 - Dr. Sloan's paper, "Phosphorus and Nitrogen Adsorption by Clinoptilolite Zeolite coated with Iron-Oxide", was accepted to the journal of Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis!
8/20/19 - The GREON buoy deployed on the Clark Bridge in Alton started to take on water in its pontoon. Luckily, our friends from the IDNR saw it while they were out sampling, and gave us a call to let us know. Thanks to Megan Cosgriff and Robin Ingersoll for running out there when we were short-staffed. Crisis averted!
7/29/19 - Emily, Kayleen, and Xander (our interns this summer at NGRREC, SLU, and UW-Oshkosh, respectively) gave amazing presentations at the annual NGRREC Intern Symposium. Congrats!
6/27/19 - Our paper led by Andrew Shaughnessy, "Sediments in Agricultural Reservoirs Act as Sinks and Sources for Nutrients over Various Timescales", was accepted to Water Resources Research!
6/6/19 - We (SLU and NGRREC) were able to capture water quality and flow data from this historic flooding event with our NGRREC interns, Emily Schultz and Kayleen Larose.
5/3/19 - Our first GREON buoy of the year was deployed on Carlyle Lake.
11/27/18 - Dr. Sloan is finishing up the final data report for our EPA 319 grant focusing on BMP's in the Upper Silver Creek watershed. Many many hours worth of collecting ISCO sampler bottles, filtering, and analyzing water samples on the discreet analyzer!
8/31/18 - Our manuscript led by Andrew Shaughnessy and Dr. Hasenmueller from SLU focusing on sediment-nutrient dynamics in Carlyle Lake was submitted to Water Resrouces Research and is off to reviewers. Fingers crossed!
7/31/18 - The interns that worked in our lab this summer, Caitlin Patrick, Tyler Bufus and Hana Thurman, all did great jobs presenting their work at the Annual NGRREC Intern Program Symposium!
6/6/18 - Finished sampling from Carlyle Lake and Lake Shelbyville using NGRREC's new boat! Data collected was part of 2 NGRREC internships that are collaborations between our lab, SLU, and UW-Oshkosh.
5/10/18 - GREON buoys in Cape Girardeau, Alton, Carlyle, and La Crosse have all been deployed. Check out the data on greatlakestogulf.org!
1/5/18 - Today was Rachael's last day here at NGRREC. She has taken a position with Mount Mercy University in Iowa as their Director of Sustainability. Congratulations and good luck, Rachael!
12/8/17 - Miles and Ted have retrieved all of our data buoys and they are all back at NGRREC for the winter. It was another successful season!
10/31/17 - Our team had another sampling day on Carlyle Lake, and we picked a bitterly cold day for it! We're looking at spatial and temporal changes in water quality, sediment nutrient composition, and correlations between water quality parameters and spectral data.
10/18/17 - Dr. Sloan and Miles set up a new monitoring site on Silver Creek near Troy, IL. An ISCO sampler with a flow module and solar panel were installed in an old USGS gage tower, and will be used to collect samples during run-off events. This work is part of an EPA 319 grant.
9/30/17 - The 2017 Water Festival hosted by NGRREC at Lewis and Clark Community College was a huge success! Check out photos here!
9/11/17 - We met with our colleagues from UW-Oshkosh and SLU (Dr. Marcel Dijkstra, Dr. Wasit Wulamu, and Dr. Elizabeth Hasenmueller), along with undergraduate researchers (Andrew and David), and SLU graduate researcher (Kyle Peterson) today to go over the mounds of data we've collected from Carlyle Lake and Lake Decatur over the past year. This was a great "mini-symposium" that helped us think about what we've done, where we are, and where our future work could lead us.
8/30/17 - Dr. Sloan and Miles presented in the weekly NGRREC seminar. Check out our presentation, entitled "The Changing Water Quality of the Mississippi River" on the NGRREC Facebook Page!
7/31/17 - Our interns that worked on Lake Decatur, Brittany Lutz and David Pan, presented their research at the annual NGRREC symposium. Check out some photos from the internship program and the symposium here.
6/6/17 - Our colleagues from UW-Oshkosh and SLU (Dr. Marcel Dijkstra and Dr. Elizabeth Hasenmueller) met us out at Lake Decatur to conduct a survey of the reservoir. We collected water samples to be analyzed for nutrients, water samples to be used in Dual Culture Diffusion Apparatus (DCDA) experiments, and sediment to assess metal and sediment nutrient dynamics. We will be going out to survey the lake again on 6/27/17, at which time we'll be collecting soil cores as well.
5/21/17 - We had a successful day out on Carlyle Lake, continuing the spatial and temporal nutrient monitoring that we're doing with SLU.
4/11/17 - The GREON buoy in Ellis Bay is up and running! The buoy in Lake Decatur will be deployed next week, the buoys up in La Crosse, WI will be deployed in 2 weeks, and then the buoy in Cape Girardeau will be put out the week after that. The field season is starting!
2/20/17 - NGRREC seeks project proposals for 2017 that would utilize the organization's mesocosm facilities. To apply, download the RFP here and return to Ted Kratschmer at [email protected].
1/11/17 - Welcome Traci Paslay, the new student intern through LCCC! Traci will be helping out in our water chemistry lab for the spring semester.
12/13/16 - Dr. Sloan, Rachael, and Miles have each had their proposals accepted by the NGRREC Internship Program! Dr. Sloan is a Co-PI on a project with Dr. Elizabeth Hasenmueller of Saint Louis University to examine patterns of nutrient storage in lakebed sediments in Lake Decatur, Illinois. Miles is a Co-PI on a project with Dr. Marcel Dijkstra of the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh to investigate nutrient dynamics within Lake Decatur, and availability of those nutrients to aquatic plants. Those two projects will work together to collect samples from the Central Illinois lake. Rachael is the PI on a project with Lane Richter of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and they will be examining effects of wetland landscapes on bat community composition. We have a busy summer ahead of us!
12/9/16 - A student enrolled in the Biological Laboratory Technician program at Lewis and Clark Community Collect will intern with our lab for the spring semster in 2017. We look forward to hosting a L&C student, and to having some much needed help with lab work!
12/1/16 - The GREON buoy from Carlyle Lake was retrieved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on 11/22/16. The GREON buoy in Lake Decatur was retrieved and brought in for the winter. Thank you to the Lake Maintenance team from the City of Decatur for doing all the heavy lifting (see picture to the right)!
10/1/16 - Welcome to the brand new NGRREC Watershed Science website! We are slowly adding content to this site, so please excuse any broken links or blank pages while we get up and running. Comments or suggestions about the site can be sent to Miles at [email protected].