Lake Superior Reserve Launches First Buoy

SUPERIOR, Wis. — An exciting new addition to the Lake Superior family made its way to the waters.

At Wisconsin Point, Lake Superior Reserve deployed their first buoy into the water. The device is solar powered, and they’re eager to introduce this new research opportunity to the Northland. The team positioned the buoy to monitor where the St Louis River, and Lake Superior meets. It will collect data for a number of things including water health, algae blooms, and water conditions. There are already some results from this new piece of equipment.

“So, one of the things that we’ve been seeing in this late August, early September is a lot of what the buoys have been showing it’s a really warm water year. Especially this season the waters are staying warm. Which can lead to some really productivity, so we get some algae readings from the buoys, it gives an idea of how productive the waters are,” said Hannah Ramage, Monitoring Coordinator.

The buoy was built by a UMD Engineering student Dane Polkinghorne. This project was made possible by funding. He says this sort of experience is especially exciting for the start of his career.

“Once we got the buoy out itself, that was really exciting. But then, once we got back to the reserve itself and I looked on my computer and saw it was transmitting information, that was the relieving moment. And yeah, it was really exciting to tell family and friends like yeah, you can go on this website and see these water quality conditions parameters listed,” said Dane Polkinghorne, Water Quality Engineering Specialist.

If you’re interested in checking out what the buoy is picking up on. The buoy collects information every 15 minutes and uploads the data each hour to their website.