'Smart' buoys monitor Lake Erie water conditions

SANDUSKY — Around the end of April, a Cleveland nonprofit will be deploying two "smart" buoys in Erie County to monitor water information in both Sandusky Bay and a Lake Erie tributary. The buoys are part of a network of buoys that the Cleveland Water Alliance deploys in Lake Erie. The group, which promotes the importance of Lake Erie is northern Ohio's "freshwater economy," deploys the buoys in the warm weather months, putting them safely into storage during the winter. The group is now in its fourth year of deploying the buoys. One of the Erie County buoys will be placed in Old Woman's Creek, said Ebie Holst, director of Innovation & Clusters for the Cleveland Water Alliance. The other will be offshore of the city in Sandusky Bay. Each buoy monitors wind speed, water temperature, air temperature, pH levels (measuring how acidic or alkaline the water is), dissolved oxygen, toxins, thermal upwellings, hypoxia (areas of low oxygen) and harmful algal blooms. The data is transmitted in real time and shared with a wide variety of groups that can use it. The Cleveland Water Alliance works with local officials and academics as it deploys the two Erie County buoys, including Aaron Klein, Sandusky's public works director, and George Bullerjahn, an emeritus professor at BGSU Firelands who has spent years researching algal blooms in Sandusky Bay. The group began with two buoys in 2021. Now there is at least one in each Ohio county along the Lake Erie coast, said Samantha Martin, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland Water Alliance. There have been 13 smart buoys in operation so far; a 14th will be added this year, and a 15th will be added this year or next year. The Cleveland Water Alliance owns nine and manages others that are owned by a utility. Data from the buoys is used by a number of different agencies and groups, according to a Cleveland Water Alliance fact sheet. Fish researchers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, such as the scientists in the Sandusky Fisheries Research Station in Sandusky, tag thousands of walleyes, perch, trout, salmon, and carp, tracking the fish with a network of data receivers at the bottom of Lake Erie. That data from the fish tagging is paired with lake condition data from the smart buoys to help understand fish behavior. The National Weather Service uses the wave, wind, air temperature and water temperature information from the buoys to develop the models in its forecasts and to issue small craft advisory warnings. The U.S. Coast Guard uses the wind speed and wave height information when it is trying to figure out where a boat may have drifted, or where a person might be found after a "man overboard" situation. The information also is helpful in figuring out conditions when a water towing service must tow a boat to shore. The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, located in Ann Arbor, uses the buoys to monitor lake conditions. Boaters can use the wind and wave information when planning trips, and fishermen also can use the information. Kayakers can figure out if it's safe to go out on the water. Once the buoys are deployed, members of the public will be allowed to text the buoy and get information back, the Cleveland Water Alliance says. Sometimes the floating buoys go astray, and they have to be tracked down and rescued, Martin said. Aside from the buoys, the The Smart Lake Erie Watershed network also uses other sensors in the Lake Erie shore area to monitor local conditions. Those sensors are placed in the open water, on beaches, in rivers and streams, in ponds and on bridges and boats. More than 6,500 square miles of lake and tributary areas are covered by the Smart Lake Erie Watershed Network, which uses radio signals to transmit information. The Cleveland Water Alliance was formed in 2014. "We came into existence as a reaction to the Toledo water crisis," Martin said. In 2014, a harmful algal bloom contaminated Toledo's water system, forcing residents to rely on bottled water until the problem was fixed. The incident drew attention to the threat to municipal water supplies from harmful algal blooms, although since then, cities along the lake have been able to avoid a similar major incident.