Many lakes in the us have serious water top quality problems, like algae roses, low oxygen levels plus fish populations dying out and about. Now, a research team in Oregon is testing out methods to get more oxygen into lakes that need this, as Jes Burns regarding Oregon Public Broadcasting studies.
JES BURNS, BYLINE: You never suspect on a whisper-still morning with the actual mountains and marsh reflecting from the water, but Upper Klamath Lake can be a tough place as a fish. Fish can't survive with regard to there's enough oxygen inside the water to breathe through their gills. And the oxygen levels here in Upper Klamath Lake could drop extremely low, especially inside summer. About the same season, two endangered species involving fish vanish.
MASON TERRY: The juvenile sucker - they are dying off.
BURNS: Mason Terry is really a renewable energy professor on the Oregon Institute of Technologies in Klamath Falls. The endangered fish - the shortnose and Displaced River suckers - was once common in Upper Klamath Lake and a crucial traditional food source regarding local tribes. Now practically none are surviving their first year. When Terry learned that low oxygen is one of the suspected reasons the endangered suckers aren't surviving, he had a concept.
TERRY: Why don't we just do what they certainly in fish ponds or as part of your aquarium? Why don't we just attempt to bubble some air affordable in there and see what happens, see if there's a boost to affect that one factor that might be a root of their mortality?
UNIDENTIFIED PARTICULAR PERSON #1: One, two, three. Not too far...
MELTS AWAY: Terry's renewable energy individuals at OIT drag a floating cell raft about as large as a single-car garage outside the lake and onto the particular boat landing at Rocky Point. This is the ultimate assembly site.
(SOUNDBITE INVOLVING POWER TOOLS RUNNING)
IAN RILEY: Let's just grab the following battery and bring the item up here since it may be the most annoying action to take.
BURNS: Ian Riley (ph) shacks up a battery to the solar panel products. The panels will run two compressors which will push air, with all the oxygen it contains, down to the lake. U. S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Josh Rasmussen works on sucker conservation inside Klamath Basin. He says putting a good aeration system in one place of the lake where juvenile suckers are often found could benefit that fish.
JOSH RASMUSSEN: It's the right way to provide an area to the suckers to escape the bad water quality and no less than have somewhere to hide until things progress.
BURNS: Upper Klamath Lake isn't really alone in having water quality issues based on low dissolved oxygen. The chemistry of lakes worldwide continues to be altered by human growth and agriculture.
Ken Ashley, a lake aeration specialist along at the British Columbia Institute associated with Technology, says the problems are only visiting get worse with climate change.
KEN ASHLEY: The effects of the low oxygen are going to get magnified, and there's planning to be more algal problems even more fish kills and bad taste and odor wounds. And there'll be more demand to do something positive about it.
BURNS: When the temperature of water for the surface rises, it prevents oxygen from dealing with lake bottoms. Ashley says aeration can be quite a solution.
ASHLEY: Yeah, it is a growth industry, unfortunately.
MELTS AWAY: The students put final touches for the system and drag the solar raft back into the lake. And using the push of a switch...
(SOUNDBITE OF COMPRESSOR RUNNING)
CAN BURN:...The compressor comes that will life. The air hose draped from the water appears to twinkle as air is pushed through many tiny holes.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Bubble, bubble.
CAN BURN: It'll be next season before they know when this aeration system functions - when fish matters reveal if any Higher Klamath Lake suckers make it through past their first special birthday.
For NPR News, Im Jes Burns in Klamath Falls, Ore.
https://www.oxygen-compressors.com/Oxygen-Compressor-pl3626255.html