So I'm going to get the temperature
here.
OK.
All right, we have a very humid day
today.
So it is 1340.
What was the temperature?
Negative 20 of it.
It is minus
25.4.
See you
All right.
And just initial.
Oh yeah,
time and initial.
Yeah, it's 13.
Alright, then you want me to read
them off as I put them in?
That's my best part.
I'm here.
All right, so Ruth.
Truth.
Those must be the fresh ones.
Just that.
All right,
big stone.
12.
Yep.
Mom?
12.
Silver Sure.
Uh, five,
yes.
That's all of it.
All right, that's it.
Okay.
Alright, so then we'll
go down the hall if you want
to do the patients here.
Is the fan okay or that is
there a lot of interference?
If we could turn it off that would
be awesome.
Yeah, I don't know what
happened today but the humidity in
the building is crazy.
Yeah, I've got the mic
so I can talk if that helps.
So once we receive the fish,
we grind them using
a KitchenAid mixer.
So this is our homogenization
process.
And the reason we do this
is to make sure that
when we take a small
sample of fish to do the mercury
analysis, we're getting
a uniform portion of the
sample. When we do the
actual mercury analysis, it's
about 0.2 grams of tissue
that we weigh out for the analysis.
So it's a very small part of the
sample.
And so we want to make sure that
it's just representative of
the entire filet that we have.
So we put the fish through the
grinder three times.
The first time we catch the first
little bit that comes out and
throw that away because
we want to make sure, we
do a very good job cleaning
everything, but we want make sure if
there was any fish that was hung up
in that grinder that we're
throwing away that first portion
when it comes out.
So send it through the first time.
It comes out of the grinder,
gets homogenized in the bowl.
Then we send it through two more
times.
Where did this sample come from?
This sample is from
on.
This is from Lake Superior.
We have a mixture of
fish that were caught for a
fall project that they did.
So this is actually a Cisco that was
caught in Lake Superior near
Red with many
of the fish that we do.
For walleye, the largest portion
of what we do are walleye.
And so every summer,
we get between about 400
and 450 walleye that
we homogenize each one individually
and then analyze those for mercury.
The walleye that we do our from
inland lakes in Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Minnesota.
The fall samples that we get
are all samples that are from Lake
Superior, and there are a variety of
species that we Thank you.
Does the species difference make a
difference in the amount of mercury
based on the food chain?
Yes, exactly.
So if we're doing something that's
eating organisms that are lower on
the food chain, they're going to
have less mercury.
So for example, whitefish have lower
mercury levels than
a lake trout.
Walleye are the ones that have a lot
of higher concentrations
of mercury overall,
I would say.
So then we take, after the third
time it goes through and it's
mixed within the bowl, then we
fill one of these vials.
They hold about 20 grams of
fish.
And we seal it up and
we put them all in a container
and then they're frozen.
Once we get about 30 to 40
fish, then we're ready to do the
analysis.
So how many fish would you say you
can process in a day?
30 on a good day.
About 30 in a day.
So we generally
do the, we
do a lot of this upfront
and then later on we kind of
come back in and start doing more
of the analysis.
So then a really important part of
this, the part that's
probably our least favorite, I've
grown thousands of fish on
this project,
but the Washing is
the very most important part.
Because if you're not getting
the dishes clean, then the fish
analysis that we do later on could
have contamination in it from an
earlier fish.
And we really
rely on the students that we have
here at UWS to help us make
sure they're doing a good job.
We also do a lot of quality
assurance on the project.
So when we're
doing grinding the fish,
probably every hundred samples we do
a tuna sample.
That's called a procedural blank.
So we take just a portion of the
tuna sample out of the container,
drain the water out of a container,
take a portion the sample and just
put it directly into a container and
then we would process
the tuna just as we have with
the walleye.
And once we've done that
we put that into a
vial and then analyze those
as a before grinding and after
grinding to make sure that we're not
adding any mercury.
Or losing any mercury in the
process. So that's
a good check to
make sure that we are keeping things
clean as we're processing the fish.
So the washing process
is just washing
the sample with,
Washing the sample with a
laboratory cleaning
solution called Liquinox,
we rinse things off to make sure we
don't get a lot of the tissue
going down the drain and clogging
things up.
But yeah, washing the things and
then we soak them in a
dilute acid solution for
a minute.
That also helps to remove any
residual metals that we
would have that would be
in the in
the sample analysis
portion.
And then they get rinsed really well
with distilled
water.
And then that distilled just gets
rid of any extra residual soap,
acid, and then we put the
thing back together and repeat the
process over
and over and over.
It's, you know, I kind of
miss these days grinding because.
It can be mindless, you can listen
to a podcast, you can listening to
music. If you're in here with
someone you enjoy working with, lots
of visiting, so it's
really not that bad.
Some days I miss it.
What if you're 70 and you don't
enjoy it?
Well then it's less fun.
Then you put on a podcast.
That way you can place podcasts in
the car with me.
Could be.
He just really likes to learn or
have fun.
He needs a little comedy in his
life.
So is this a grad student or
regular student?
Regular student, we
don't have any graduate
students here at UWS.
In science, there's
education, does have
some, and I think maybe counseling,
but not biology.
So this is
Jayden's first year here with us.
She's only actually been doing this
for maybe
the last month.
But we're very glad, we're always
very glad for our students.
It's a great opportunity to
get some experience in the sciences.
And ideally, not only is she
in here grinding and washing dishes,
she'll get to see the entire
process.
A lot of students use this as
a capstone experience or
an undergraduate research
project where
they can then, everyone
here has to do a senior project
presentation and so a lot of
the students use the Glickwick
research that we've done to
present. So it's kind of nice
because it gets that information out
there as well.
So what do the yellow and blue mean?
We just have each
lake gets a color and
it's not specific to the
lake each year, it's just
so that we can kind of at a
glance in the boxes that we have
they hold 72 vials.
I kind of like this
so we just the lake identification
and then the sample identification
for the fish and then on
the caps we have a
code that we have come up with
generally it's a three-letter code
Um, and because we've done,
because Glipwick samples the
lakes kind of on a cycle, um,
we've many of these lakes many
times and so we have the same sample
code year after
year. Um, so that's kind of a
nice way for us to just
look at all those freezers that we
have if we need to find a fish and
be able to pull, pull fish
from a particular lake.
You have samples from Lake
Mamacoggin?
Is that one that they pull from?
I know they do surveys there, but I
wasn't sure.
Right um
I would have to look and
not remembering right off the top of
my head
Certainly not a big deal.
So, I don't know.
I'm not really sure.
So, um.
Do you know, are they heavy
samples from the nanopartype?
We might.
I'm checking.
Yeah, we can check.
We have the code breakdown,
so it'd be a quick check.
And she would have a sample of it.
Let me check the numbers.
That was the one we passed on the
way here on the left, right?
In the Amakawa, it's this one.
It's by cable, yeah.
So are we back in?
We're gonna go into this
Sometimes people do odd things out
there.
You probably saw Ethan Graham
playing football years ago.
He's our proud alone.
Oh, cool!
2017, yeah, all my classes were
in Colton.
Um, yeah.
Never had class in here.
The Mystic Rainfish
But you would have, yeah, you missed
your chance.
How did you get out of having a,
either had to take like an
environmental class.
Yeah, I did, um, I went to community
college at DFU Maribu,
so I kind of got all this taken care
of and came up here for two years
for my degree.
Alright, so we
have a new mercury analyzer this
year we're very excited about.
It's this DMA80, so it stands
for Direct Mercury Analyzer.
The thing we are excited about with
this analyzer is that,
as it says, it's a direct mercury
analyzer.
So in the past, when we were doing
mercury analysis, we would have to
digest the samples with
concentrated hot acids,
and that was dangerous.
And not really great for the
environment, but in order to get
from the fish sample
to having the mercury released
in a form that the instrument was
able to measure it, that's what we
had to do previously.
But this new instrument actually
does thermal decomposition of
the fish tissue.
So basically what it does is it
heats the fish up really hot over
a short period of time.
It takes about six minutes to get
a mercury concentration from a fish.
Using this instrument and
so Yeah, we put a sample
into a sample boat.
I'll demonstrate that We
push start and
it gives us a concentration after
six minutes Again, we
do have a lot of quality
assurance that goes in prior to
that So we make up standards
of known concentrations of mercury
We do duplicate analysis
of fish to make sure that we're
getting the same concentration from
the same fish if we repeat it
We do spike concentrations.
We spike samples with a known amount
of mercury.
So we can subtract that known
amount of mercury and make sure
that, again, we're recovering all
of the mercury through the process.
And then one of the other important
things that we do is we have a
certified reference standard that we
run multiple times a day with each
one of the fish samples or each
one of the groups of fish samples
that we use. So if we do 30 samples
in a day, we would do our
certified reference material.
Probably three times, and
the material that we use is
called a dorm sample.
It is from Canada,
and it's actually dogfish liver
tissue.
So it is a fish tissue,
so it's similar tissue type to
what we're analyzing.
So, it's important that we are
using matrices that are similar in
type.
So I'll go ahead and show you
the analysis that we do.
So the first thing that we What we
do is we weigh out
a sample.
So, in the other lab, we
saw the sample being ground
and put into these vials,
so I took these out earlier.
Again, when we did the acid
rinse in the lab across
the hall, we do that here in
between samples to make sure that
we're not carrying over
any mercury, so
we just have a little bit of acid
there that I'm
soaking in.
I already put the boat
here.
And then I need to
turn the balance on.
Kind of mix this up to make sure
that if there was any moisture in
the vial, it's
mixed back in with the fish.
And then we weigh out approximately
0.2 grams of fish.
Trickiest part is
getting it into the
boat and not everywhere else.
I'm going to stop right there.
It's 0.187
grams.
Now we record the white.
Let me go over here.
There is a previous sample that I
did in there. That's the dorm sample
to make sure
that we were getting the
concentrations that we wanted this
morning.
So the sample's in there,
then I have to enter the mass
and the identification here on
the screen of the sample.
So I already did the
identification code, but the
amount that I weighed out, I need to
enter here. So it's point.
187 grams and
then a check mark.
Well, let's try that again.
Okay, so 0.187 grams,
check mark, and then I just go
ahead and press this green light.
When I press this arrow, what will
happen is this carousel
will rotate, and there's
an arm here that will
pick up the sample and it will push
it into the furnace.
Then we can't see anything beyond
that, but we'll see on the screen as
it measures.
So I'm gonna push start.
So it does that quick turn.
Picks up the sample and puts it
into the sample combustion chamber.
The light here changes so that we
know that it's in the process of
doing an analysis and while
it's doing the analysis that will be
red.
And then what we can do is we can
click on here to watch the
signal.
So what's happening is
there's a spectrophotometer
that's built into this instrument,
and it's able to measure
the mercury.
Absorption, the amount of mercury
that is absorbed is relative
to how much is there.
So that's why we do a standard curve
so we can determine
a known amount will have this
absorption so we could make a line
out of it.
A calibration curve is what we would
call it.
And then when we run a sample and
get an absorption we can just
calculate what concentration
is in the sample.
So you can see that
on the screen it's showing we
have absorption that's
coming off from that particular
sample.
This instrument has three different
cells built into it so what
it will do is it will analyze
the concentration in each
one of the cells individually and
it will give us a
result based on where the best fit
is for the line
within which one of those cells.
So it takes about six minutes to get
an analysis here but
that's what the process is.
Let me see if you can see the graph.
Yep, you can see the graph.
It'll be a little bit easier once
we're completely done.
I can show you, so that's
the sample coming off.
We can come back to here, but this
is the calibration curve.
So here we had,
going across the bottom here,
it says mercury nanograms.
So we know how much mercury we had
in our standards.
And then this is the absorption here
on the y-axis.
And so it's graphing
the concentration.
Versus the absorbance and
it's because we're looking at
a broad
broad difference of
concentrations here.
It's actually an S-shaped
curve.
If you look at a
smaller range
of concentrations you have more of a
linear curve and
so what will happen is we'll
get an absorption based
on our sample there and
using this curve we're able to
calculate the concentration.
So So that's the calibration curve,
but if we go back to
measure.
That's, this is the sample right
now that's being analyzed.
So is it, for you,
can you look at that and go, ooh,
that's normal, that high, that
slow, that...
Not now because,
not yet, because we
have, because it has the three
cells and it hasn't
done all three of them yet so it's a
little bit hard at this particular
point, but once it's done running I
can say oh yeah that's,
it'll give us the concentration.
Well, if we have a few more minutes,
then Ethan will probably just get
some close shots.
Just were lucky we had,
we
had a
process where when we do every
sample we analyze,
we charge ourselves basically
for using it so it's coming hard
to get grant funding for new
instruments.
So we have to kind of because we've
been at this for so many years we
know. We have to set
aside money as we're going ahead.
This is, like I said, I've been here
since 1997 working on it.
This is the fourth instrument I've
used.
So, yeah, we've had to
replace three in the time that I've
been here. That can analyze a
variety of different metals.
We've used that on projects
with GlifWit.
We've done things where they
had a project a couple years ago
that was the Thanksgiving project.
Um, and that one, they
were looking at,
um, that's done now.
That was quick.
It is, it's quick.
It's so quick. It's quick, and
then look.
So you saw what the tissue looked
like prior to,
you know, when I put it into the
sample boat.
Now that you're looking at it, it is
just ash that's left in there.
So it's a nice procedure too because
we don't have a lot, we're not
creating hazardous waste.
Where does the mercury go?
The mercury that was there
is, there's a trap
that's on the back of this
instrument. It's a carbon trap, so
it just catches the mercury vapor
that's in there.
That has to be replaced probably
every year based on how often
we use the instrument, but it's
just, it's a small,
about this quantity of carbon,
activated charcoal basically,
and so that is hazardous waste,
but prior, when we had the
other instrument, we were Creating
significantly more than that because
we had to add so many chemicals to
do the digestion.
So now we can look at the
So now you can look at the graph and
you can see what
this is, the way that you
look at this is it's looking
at the peak height
of the curves
and so this
is because there's
the two cells it's got two
different peaks and
actually there's a third one down
here and so,
this was like one of the cells, a
second cell and the third cell.
So.
What it does is it
just chooses the one that's the best
fit.
So if we go back to the result,
right here on the screen, it says
that that sample
was 351
micrograms per kilogram of mercury,
which usually we would
report it in milligrams
per kilogram.
So it would be
like 0.35.
One milligrams per kilogram, so
I would say that's relatively low.
I don't know what the cutoff
is now for, it used to be one,
but I think they've lowered it
for consumption advisories.
So this is a little more than a
third compared
to a good section.
Yeah.
So I would say this is a pretty
healthy fish to eat.
So, are you able to differentiate
the types of mercury you're looking
at?
No, so this is
a total mercury analyzer.
So when you talk about
mercury,
certainly the methyl mercury is the
part that's the worst mercury
because it's the most bioavailable
and most able to cross
the cell membranes and things
like that.
So that's more dangerous
form, but most
of the Most of the mercury that's
present in fish is present as
methylmercury.
But this is a total mercury.
If there was something there that
was not methylated,
we would still catch it.
Can we have you do up another?
Absolutely.
So we'll probably park Ethan right
over here if that's where you want
to be.
Does that make sense?
For what? To see her load up another
one. And then before you put it over
here, Ethan will probably reposition
it just so we can see it going in
and all the wheels spinning.
So again we just mix it up to make
sure that it's homogenous in there
and if there's any moisture at the
bottom we're mixing it kind of
back in.
Alright, that one is .268,
we'll record that.
Okay, then did you want a
repossession? Okay.
Which slot are you putting it in?
Three, yeah.
Perfect, yep.
Okay, so then we put
the sample into slot three.
And over here we
need
This wheel is going to spin and
then the wheel pushes into
the front.
So I already typed
in the sample identification here,
then we have to enter the
mass.
2 6 8
accept it.
So now we have the sample
identification and
the sample weight and
we identify that we're doing this
as a normal measurement.
And then we press go.
You took them to service, didn't
you?
This screen is showing what
temperatures are that is
actually happening in the
different cells there.
So it goes up to,
the last one goes up, to 750
degrees celsius.
So yeah, that's how it
combusts the sample, it does that
thermal decomposition to
get the mercury in
the state that we need to measure it
in.
Well, I use this flavor at that
point.
Yeah.
So that's the little bar that shows
how much
time is left.
Yes, yep, so this
is the total time here and that's
where we're at, yep.
So that one was very similar in
concentration.
The first one we did was
351 micrograms
per kilogram.
The second one we do was 359
microgram per kilogram They're both
from the same lake.
But the second one, yeah, they're
both from the lake.
It would be interesting to go and
look at the lengths to
see how close in
size they were, but oftentimes
from the the same like there.
And that's what I was talking about,
the water quality, the fish are
water quality.
To capture super close-ups
of like putting the sample in the
tray and stuff like
that.
I could, if you think that's
important.
I think it would be some kind of fun
sequencing.
Sure. Be fun, quick shots.
Yeah, like some kind a telephoto?
Yeah, I could try that.
It's just space, I'd have to be
like...
If you wouldn't mind turning towards
me? Sure. That's alright.
Just to make sure across the board
we're getting all.
I do have an assist you course
coming for you this Friday.
Oh, OK. Must be on the site.
Oh great, okay,
yeah, that might be
high too, that's good.
So for this, I think if you can just
kind of point out to Ethan where
you're going to go next to allow him
to focus.
Yep. Because it's harder to get a
depth of field on this.
So, okay, so I'm gonna take a
boat from here, put it on
there, yep, and then
I'll do the mix.
I'll take that,
here we can move this out of the
way.
Is that better?
Like that not there, too.
Okay. Sounds good, yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
Let's grab it by the tab.
Okay, tear it.
So we zero it out and then I'm going
to grab this vial.
Okay, whenever you're ready.
Okay, and then I'll
grab this.
And I need to rinse it over there,
but I can move this again.
I'm going to grab a chem-wipe
but I'll keep that there.
Then I'm going to mix the sample up
in the vial here.
It's not good there.
Thank you.
And then I'll take a little bit of
this and put it in the boat.
To record the light.
And then that's it, it'll go back
over there then.
Okay, whenever you're ready.
If I'm moving fast, will I do that
again?
Yeah, let's shake it this time.
No, no, no.
Just tell me.
I'm too much of a telephoto.
Lift it up a little higher if you
don't mind, and then whenever you're
ready, go ahead. Okay.
Close the glass
I was shaking too, right?
Alright, and then when I press the
green button, it will go ahead.
Go ahead.
Whatever you're hearing.
All right.
That
Perfect.
Yeah. It helps so much having this
screen so I see what you can see.
Yeah. So then I can know, oh, that's
exactly what we're looking for.
Perfect.
It's really a pretty impressive body
of work that we've been able to
keep all that and I was,
we were talking,
oh I gotta wash my hands they just
smell like gloves now.
Wow, you're doing the political
stuff here.
Very busy.
Yeah, that's it.
Thank you. Have a nice evening.
Yes, except the biggest difference
is you can only see some of those we
ended up having just we tried
analyzing them here, but there was a
lot of background noise.
We couldn't.
That what you're looking at.
Like, I think stuff that was in the
organics, when we did, you know,
because that's also a digestion with
concentrated acids, and then you
have to break it down with us
because we wanted to give
you good results, but we just
couldn't get them with that,
unfortunately.
I'll get a twin.
All right
Sorry, just one second.
I guess you want to show and tell?
Yeah!
Absolutely.
What do we have in here?
Right, we have years
worth of fish samples in
here that we've
gotten from Glyphwick and
you can see we have some
from 2013,
2011.
We have a variety of
both, this one is whitefish,
lake trout, we've a lot of
spring walleye samples.
By far the most what we do is
spring walleyes so we get between...
350 and 450 spring
walleye samples annually from
GlyphWic.
And we've been analyzing those for
mercury.
And every year when we are done
analyzing them, we store them in
these freezers.
So we archive the samples in case
anyone would like to analyze them
for something later on, or
in case we have to go back and
answer other questions about
mercury.
Four freezers that are full,
this full of mercury samples
dating back to 1996.
So it's been a really good
archive so that
people can go back and look at
potential metals that, other metals
or other chemicals that become
of interest that
we didn't know were a problem and
now we're learning are more
problematic such as potentially
PFAS.
That seems to be the most obvious
one, that you,
I mean, it does seem like that's
an invitation to figure out, okay,
when did it first start appearing in
fish?
It is.
One thing we have to be a little bit
careful about with the archive
samples is the
processing that we used
from the
fileting to the grinding
to the
sample containers themselves.
Is it compatible with PFAS analysis?
Because we don't want to be
a part of the problem in the
analysis of that.
A potential source.
We've had people go back and look at
PCBs and other
different things that are in those
samples.
So broaden this out for me.
Obviously, you're at the Lake
Superior Research Institute.
What is it that it does?
I mean, you are part of this
relationship with CliffWhip, but
you've given me the broader picture
in the context of wall
life, what we're interested in, but
a lot of the research that goes into
it.
Right, so
the Lake Superior Research Institute
has been here, we do
grant funded research and we've had
a relationship with GLIFWC
since the middle of the
1990s.
So we receive samples
from them, we
did the mercury analysis on
them and then we give
the analysis, the concentrations
of mercury back to GLIFwC
and then they use that
information.
To make maps
where they do consumption
advisories of lakes that are
in the seeded territories.
And they do it on a basis of
a couple of different things.
They do the women
of child-bearing age and
young children and then they have
the adults that are
beyond child- bearing age and
males because mercury is
a neurotoxin and so it's more
of a concern in
younger children and
women of childbearing age than it is
in adult males or women
beyond childbeering age.
So you're one of the first ones to
see the info come out.
Have there been times where you're
like, whoa?
There are some times I see a fish
that I go, oh well I would not want
to eat the fish from that lake.
And there are certain lakes that are
certainly higher
in concentration in mercury than
other lakes.
It has a lot to do with the ecology
of the,
just what's around certain lakes,
what kind of, if they have a lot of
swampy areas around them or if they
a lot rock,
more like granite or,
basalt around them, that's going to
have an impact on how much mercury
is present in the fish.
So you said that one was kind
of the baseline for when you start
to worry?
Is there, what a, I guess walk
me through, because those were like
the 0.3, five stages.
Right.
Right, the fish that we looked at
today, they were in about the 0.3
milligrams per
kilogram of fish
that were looking at.
Those I would say are not a high
concern, again it depends on
your age and
the frequency that
you're eating the fish certainly.
Yeah, my general rule
after having done this for many
years is that I...
Try not to eat any walleye that are
over 20 inches.
That seems to be kind of a good
cut off.
It's not safe in every lake to
eat fish that are in that size
range, but that's
generally, I would say, a
pretty safe area.
So what is the
one break threshold, or
where's the point where you said,
oh, that's a link that no
one should be in this?
Yeah, I'm
not exactly sure right now what
the concentration is
where we're calling, you know,
things have changed over the years.
So one used to be kind
of the mark that we would use as
like people probably shouldn't be
eating any fish that are
in that concentration.
So I would say that that certainly
would not be
eating it, but because most people
don't know just
what they're eating.
If they take a fish out of a lake,
they're not going to know what
concentration that is.
Oh, I was going to ask you to look
up the last year we sampled it.
Yeah, that might not be too bad.
We might be fine with that for a
little bit. But yeah, no way too
much.
And then down here, just this
screen wall light.
Sure.
Friday afternoon
We're going to come in on a Monday
and vomit,
and then who gets
that job?
So yeah, these have alarms, we're
real excited about them.
Yeah, we lost some of that one.
That was last year, I think.
Awesome, thanks.
Yeah, I know, huh?
Close it before it starts chirping
at us.
Beautiful, it's been updated a lot,
it looks really nice.
Yeah, the person that she came,
she fixed it, she put her two weeks
in, okay?
Ready when you guys are.
So I guess the
story is about walleye.
Why, in your estimation,
why is walleye one of the key ones
to pay attention to for these kind
of issues?
Well I think it's important because
it's such, especially for the
tribes, it's such a
important food culturally
to them and it's
just a part of many of their
ceremonies and their culture and
it is important to make sure that
we're keeping their population safe
and looking at how much
mercury is present in those and
then making these consumption
advisories so that people
are informed about what is
a safe.
Safe lake to fish in, how many
fish meals they can eat from there
a month basically and make
sure that they're keeping their
families safe.
So when you're doing this work,
I mean this is probably just one
portion of like the job you do
here, but you
talked about you came here the year
after this started.
What does it mean to you to be part
of such a long longitudinal
study?
Right, it's amazing to have
just the breadth
of this and the depth of this
study because we've been able to
work on this for years and I've
learned a lot of things as a
scientist. I started here just
out of graduate school.
I ground a lot fish and now
I'm managing the project.
I was able to see that
through, I've been able to work with
GLIFWC individuals, several
different individuals there,
on writing quality advisories
and looking at what's important
when we're doing the analysis to
make sure that we're answering the
questions that are important to them
and doing really good quality
work so we have the quality checks
built in like duplicates and
standards and reference checks.
So it's important to us, it's great
to be able to give that information
to people.
And I think we just have a really
good relationship with Glyphwick and
to be able to provide that to them.
And it's an interesting topic too,
like everybody's excited about
fishing and everybody loves catching
a walleye.
So it's good information to be part
of all of that together.
Anything else that you can think of
that you want to add with what we've
been talking about.
Where do you see the trains going?
Yeah, I was worried that you were
going to ask.
Part of the problem is that because
it's a partnership,
one of the things that we do is we
analyze the fish and we write the
report and we hand it off to GLIFWC
and then you guys
make the maps, but I
don't have a clear picture of
what have been the trends over 30
years. We should be able to look at
that. I think that there
were...
There were rules enacted to kind
of keep mercury emissions
lower and I
think that that did help mercury
concentrations in fish.
I think I'm
not sure that we're seeing that as
much anymore. I think we saw
things kind of drop off with mercury
concentrations and fish and now
they've plateaued and maybe jumped
up a little bit, but I don't
know why that is.
I think there's a lot of things that
can contribute to that.
That would be, it would be really
nice, you know, if we could take a
look at the data over those
years because we have lakes
that we've looked at on five-year
and three-year cycles so I think we
do have the information that we
would be able to, you now,
look at data and write a really good
paper on what are the mercury trends
in the ceded territories in
Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan
so, yeah, I think that's really
important.
Long term over the next 10 to
20 years,
is mercury still a bigger concern
than PFAS?
Um, that's a good question.
I think that we know what
the, we know
what the effects of having too much
mercury in your body are,
so I think that that's not
going away at all.
I think right now PFAS is
a little bit of an unknown as
far as what are the effects on
people and so I think that
that research needs to be done to
determine the effects and
it's PFAS analysis is
very complicated And
so I think...
There needs to be efforts made in
that front to make sure we're doing
good analysis.
And hopefully 30 years down the road
they've got something like this that
they can look back on and say,
you know, we've got really good
solid results that we're confident
in the quality of those results.
Can I get you to say and spell your
name and give your title?
Oh yes, this is going to take a
while, my name's really long.
Christine Polkinghorn, C-H-R-I-S-T-I
N-E, the last name is Polkinghorne,
P-O-L-K-I N-G-H
O-R N- E, and
my title is Research Program
Manager at the Lake Superior
Research Institute.
Is that technically at
UW-Superior or what's
the...
Yes, it's at the Lake
Superior Research Institute at the
University of Wisconsin-Superior.
I'd like to have some.
Yes, and technically I think it's
University of Wisconsin Lake
Superior Research Institute.
I think UWS is supposed to come
first.
I got it.
Oh, cool. 9222.
Er, er, 922, no.
Wow, that's those records going
wild.
2022 cool
Ready to go?
Can you just hold that there for a
second?
Green is never cut.
NKG is the code.
Maybe you can put them back.
Maybe grab another one.
OK, you can put that back too.
I'll just get a closer shot of you.
So that's nine.
The fish are from that way down
here. That's right.
Typically we get 12.
Yes, and Minnesota just created
a new model that might can reduce
the sample size down to six.
Really? Yeah, since we have so much
historical data, they're
able to predict using that
historical data, and we
may be able to cut it down to 6,
which then I can double the price
for fish.
Hey Karen, we found it.
Thanks.
So that's why we want to go box
by box because it
would have been the absolute end.
Karen's doing something completely
different now, huh? She's supposed
to be an hydrologist.
Wow.
Yeah, did she have training in that
too? I mean she got her degree in
that.
Cover. Sure.
They actually labeled the link on
the cover. Okay, perfect.
It's all about the NFL.
Not on there, but most likely.
It's an inspiration to write more
neatly on the covers.
That's my writing.
I can't blame anybody but myself.
I mean, you should have saw my big
right in the ass.
But we recognize their name by the
way. Exactly. So you thought it was
a very long time. Oh yeah, I always
keep in jail.
Good luck.
Oh, I, okay, so
I signed that,
or is it already out in the car?
Do you wanna scan
it and send it to me?
So that I have a copy, we should
have a copy of that too, sorry, I
forgot to.
Yeah, that'd be great.
And Karen sent the.
Tester with that.
That should be the label stuff.
Yup, it was.
Alright, so whenever I get back
to work, I just need to scan, email,
and I'll be back.
That's true, because it's going to
be on the clip more.
It's going stay on the clips.
And honestly, like, I don't know
if you can hear me.
But if it's not Friday.
I want it to be done
because I got political
work I have to do now.
Okay.
That was G-R-I.
Something.
I think that's probably good, right?
Yeah. That's big.
Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Appreciate that.
Sorry. I feel bad it's not gonna get
more time with the thing.
That's quite all right.
It's one of those little elements.
One second.
Sorry, could you start?
Yeah
Um, one second.
Okay, whenever you're ready.
Perfect. Thank you.
That was like elementary school
science, water cycle,
those things.
Vaporation.
Yep.
When I did my Yajar 2070
doc, I
had him create a graphic for me
that showed the water cycle.
I was kind of thinking that, you
know, we did...
And so it's like, whew,
I'm doing that so well I'm going to
tip-stir on the corn sweat.
Thank you.
That's nuts.
That's kind of weird.
Yeah. Wait.
Wally from Lake Superior.
Wow.
You get up to above 20 inches
and it really spikes.
That's more than what's
quadruple what they were saying was,
what they would feel comfortable
eating. Oh, I know.
It's above 20.
Don't.
Yeah. It's like when you go to
Canada, that's all they eat.
Well, lucky enough we got this in
the 80s.
Yeah, right.
It's like the weight we are in is so
freaking strong.
Everything's 23, 24, 25.
It's just fun to catch because we
don't want it.
The weird frustrating thing is we
can only keep one over
20.
You've been there twice, it's never
happened before, mid-interview
it said it was at like 35%
which is a good amount
of time and then it just cut to
black. The reason I think it does
that maybe is maybe the numbers
will miss confusing is
because this is powering
everything, it is power this,
powering the camera so maybe it
sucks more energy I don't know.
Like apparently that's the nice
feature about this.
Bye.
We are almost at the end of
the tunnel.
This is what the assets like being
in this system.