Yeah, so I'm gonna get the temperature here.
Alright, we have a very humid day today.
So it is 1340.
What was the temperature?
Negative 20 of it.
It is minus 25.4.
Alright.
Oh, yeah.
Time and initial.
Yeah, that is 13.
Alright.
Then, you want me to read them off as I put them in?
Yes.
Let's move this apart.
Alright.
So, Ruth?
Ruth.
It does must be the fresh ones.
Just that one.
Alright.
Big stone.
12.
Yep.
Mom.
12.
Silver.
5, yes.
Alright, that's it.
Alright.
So then, we'll go down the hall if you want to do patience here.
Is the fan okay?
Is there a lot of interference?
If we could turn it off, that'd be awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you.
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 .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 fillet 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 to 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. It's homogenized in the bowl. Then we send it through two more times.
Where did this sample come from?
This sample 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 Cliff. Many of the fish that we do for walleye, the largest portion of what we do for 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 are 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 do.
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?
About 30 in a day. So, we generally do the, we do a lot of this up front and then later on we kind of come back in and start doing more of the analysis.
So, that are really important part of this, the part that's probably our least favorite. I've grown thousands of fish on this project, but the dishwashing 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, 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 the container.
Take a portion of 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 we 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.
So, 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 sample analysis portion.
And then they get rinsed really well with misty distilled water and then that distilled water 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's can be mindless, you can listen to a podcast, you can listen 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 with somebody doing a drink? Well, then it's less fun. Then you put on a podcast.
Is that why he can place podcasts in the car? Could be.
He just really likes to learn or have, you know, have fun needs a little comedy in his life.
So this grad student or regular student, we don't have any, we don't have any graduate students here at UWS in science.
We do have, there's education does have some and I think maybe counseling, but not biology.
Yeah, 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 students use the glithwick research that we've done to present.
So it's kind of nice because it gets that information out there as well.
So what are the yellow and blue? We just have, each like gets a color and it's not specific to the lake each year.
It's just so that we can kind of add a glance in the boxes that we have. They hold 72 vials.
I kind of like this.
So we just have 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.
And because we've done, because the glithwick samples the lakes kind of on a cycle,
we've done many of these lakes many times. And so we have the same sample code year after year.
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 fish from a particular lake.
Do you have samples from Lake Manor Kagan? Is that one that they pulled from?
I know they do surveys there, but I wasn't sure.
Right. I would have to look and not remember right after time in my head.
Yeah, certainly not a big deal.
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not really sure.
So, um...
Do you know, are they heavy samples from the nether target?
We might.
Yeah, we can check. We have the code breakdown, so it'd be a quick check.
Let me check the numbers.
That was the one we passed on the way here on the left, right?
No, no.
It's by cable.
Yeah.
So, are we back in?
We're going to go into this, um...
Sometimes people do odd things up there.
We probably saw Ethan play football years ago.
He's out proud alone.
Oh, cool. That's awesome.
2017, yeah. All my classes were involved in that.
Oh, yeah.
Never had class in here.
You missed your class.
You missed your dream fish.
But you would have... Yeah, you missed your chance.
How did you get out of having a...
Either heads take like an environmental class.
Yeah, I did, um, I went to community college.
I knew you were very good.
Okay.
I kind of got all the same care that came up here for two years.
Nice.
From my degree.
Yeah.
Good.
All right, so, um, we have a new Mercury Analyzer this year.
We're very excited about it.
It's this DNA 80, so it stands for direct Mercury Analyzer.
Um, 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, um,
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 just heat the fish up really hot over a short period of time.
It takes about six minutes to get a Mercury concentration from a fish, um,
using this instrument.
And so, yeah, we put a sample into a sample boat.
I'll demonstrate that.
Uh, 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.
Uh, 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 do.
So if we do 30 samples in a day, we would do, um, 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.
Um, so it's important that we're using matrices that are similar in type.
So, um, so I'll go ahead and show you the analysis that we do.
So the first thing that 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.
Um, 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 was soaking in.
Um, 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.
Um, and then we weigh out approximately .2 grams of fish.
Triciest part is getting it into the boat and not everywhere else.
I'm going to stop right there.
It's 1.187 grams.
Now we record the weight.
So 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 .187 grams and then a check mark.
Oh, well, let's try that again.
Okay, so .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 going to push start.
So 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 when we do a standard curve so we can determine a known amount.
We'll have this absorption so we can 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 an 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.
So 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 a 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 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 that's the calibration curve.
But if we go back to measure, this is the sample right now that's being analyzed.
So is it for you?
Can you look at the angle?
Ooh, that's normal.
That's high.
That's low.
Not now.
Not yet.
Not yet.
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 you can probably just get some close shots.
Just we're lucky we had a process where when we do every sample we analyze, we charge our cells 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 having.
That can analyze a variety of different metals.
We've used that on projects with Glyphwitt.
We've done things where they had a project a couple years ago that was because of the Thanksgiving project.
And that one, they were looking at...
So it's done now.
That's quick.
I guess it's quick.
It's so quick.
It's so quick.
And then look, so you saw what the tissue looked like.
Fire to, you know, when I put it into the sample boat, now that you're looking at it, it's 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 now?
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 a 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 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 0.351 milligrams per kilogram.
So I would say that's relatively low.
I don't know what the cutoff is now.
It used to be one, but I think they've lowered it for consumption advisories.
So this is a little more than a third of compared to a good enzyme.
Yeah.
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 the most bio available and most able to cross the cell membranes and things like that.
So that's the more dangerous form, but most of the mercury that's present in fish is present as methyl mercury.
So, but this is a total mercury.
If there was something there that was not methylated, we would still catch it.
Okay.
Cool.
Can we have you two up another?
Absolutely.
Probably part Ethan right over here.
Does that really want to be?
Does that make sense?
For what?
To see her lower another one.
Yeah.
And then before you put it over here, Ethan will probably reposition just so we can see it going in and it all but the wheel's spinning in.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
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.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Okay, which slot are you going to get in?
Three.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Yep.
Okay.
So then we put the sample into slot three.
And over here, we need this meal is going to spin and then the little...
Yep.
So I'm going to push this into the front.
Yep.
I already typed in the sample identification here.
Then we have to enter the mass.
Two, six, eight.
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.
This screen is showing what temperatures that is actually happening in the difference.
So it goes up to...
The last one goes up to 750 degrees Celsius.
So that's how it combusts the sample.
It does that thermal decomposition to get the mercury in the state that we need to measure again.
Why was its flavor that way?
Yeah.
So that's the little bar that shows how much time it's left.
Yes.
Yep.
So this is the total time we ran that to where we're at.
Yep.
So that one was very similar to concentration.
The first one we did was 351 micrograms per kilogram.
The second one we did was 359 micrograms per kilogram.
They're both from the same lake, but the second one, yeah.
They're both from the same lake.
It would be interesting to go and look at the lengths to see how close in size they were.
But oftentimes from the same lake there.
And that's what I was talking about, the water quality, the fish are water quality.
To capture super close-ups of putting the sample in the tray and stuff like that.
I could if you think that's important.
I think it'd be kind of fun sequencing.
Sure.
To be fun with wood shots.
Yeah, like some kind of telephoto.
Yeah, I could try that.
It's just space I'd have to be like...
If you would mind turning towards me?
Sure.
That's all right.
Just to make sure across the board we're getting all.
I do have a tissue course in California this Friday.
Oh, okay.
Must be on site.
Oh, great.
Sometimes.
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.
It's harder to get a depth of field on this.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So I'm going to 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.
It's not better.
Sure.
It would like that not there too.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Yeah.
Do your thing.
All right.
Grab it by the tab.
Okay.
Tear it.
So we zeroed out and then I'm going to grab this vial.
Okay.
Whenever you're ready.
Okay.
And I'll grab this.
Okay.
And I need to rinse it over there, but I can move this again.
I'm going to grab a camera, but keep that there.
Then I'm going to mix the sample up with in the vial here.
It's not good there.
And then I'll take a little bit of this and put it in the boat.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Make sure the cord lights.
And then that's it, it'll go back over there then.
That's good.
Okay.
Okay, whatever you're in.
Okay.
What do you think possible to do that again?
Yeah, let's shake it this time.
No, no.
I'm too, I'm too, I'm too, much like telephoto less.
Okay, just look it up a little higher if you don't mind.
And then whenever you're ready, go ahead and go.
Okay.
Okay.
Perfect.
And close the glass thing.
Perfect.
Okay.
I was shaking too.
All right.
And then when I press the green button that will go ahead.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Oh, so much of this green.
So I see what you can see.
Yeah.
So then I can, oh, that's exactly what we're looking for.
Perfect.
Okay.
Okay.
Cool.
Ah.
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 had to wash my hands.
They just smell like gloves now.
Wow.
You're doing the political stuff here.
They're busy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Except the biggest difference is we can almost, some of those we ended up having just,
we tried analyzing them here, but there was a lot of background noise.
We couldn't, 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.
Okay.
I'll get up your ways.
All right.
Sorry.
Just one second.
I guess you want to show and tell?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
What do we, 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 white fish, lake trout, we have a lot of spring walleye
samples.
By far, the most, what we do is spring walleye, so we get between 350 and 450 spring walleye
samples annually from Glyphwick 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.
So we have 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 become 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.
It seems to be the most obvious one that you, I mean it does seem like that's an open,
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 full laying 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.
But it is a potential source.
We've had people go back and look at PCBs and other different things that are in those samples.
So problem this out for me, obviously your research institute, what is it that it does?
I mean you're part of this relationship with Glyphwyth, but you've given me the broader picture
in the context of wildlife what we're interested in, but a lot of the research that goes into that.
Right, so the Lake Superior Research Institute has been here.
We do grant funded research and we've had a relationship with Glyphwyth since the middle of the 1990s.
So we receive samples from them.
We do the mercury analysis on them and then we give the analysis the concentrations of mercury back to Glyphwyth.
And then they use that information to make maps where they do consumption advisories of lakes that are in the seated territories.
And they do it on a basis of a couple of different things.
They do the women of childbearing age and young children.
And then they have the adults that are beyond childbearing 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 childbearing 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 just what's around certain lakes.
And certain lakes what kind of if they have a lot of swampy areas around them or if they have a lot of 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 a baseline for when you start to worry.
I guess walk me through because those were like the .35.
Right the fish that we looked at today they were in about the .3 milligrams per kilogram of fish that we 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.
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?
Where is the point where you said oh that's a lake that no one should be eating this?
I'm not exactly sure right now what the concentration is where we're calling.
Things have changed over the years.
One used to be kind of the mark that we would use as 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 take a fish out of a lake they're not going to know what concentration that is.
Oh I was going to just get a look at the last year we sampled them.
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.
We lost some things.
Yeah no problem.
Let's go back in here.
Close it before it starts chirping at us.
Beautiful. It's been updated a lot. It's really nice.
The person that she came, she fixed it, she put her two weeks in.
Okay.
So I guess the story is about the 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 especially for the tribes it's such an important food culturally to them.
And it's just a part of many of their ceremonies and their culture and it's 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 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're doing.
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 of fish and now I'm managing the project.
So I was able to see that through. I've been able to work with Glifwick 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 Glifwick 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 or what we've been talking about?
Do you see the trends going?
Yeah, I was worried you were going to ask that.
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 Glifwick.
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 rules enacted to kind of keep mercury emissions lower.
And I think that that did help mercury concentrations in fish.
I think that I'm not sure that we're seeing that as much anymore.
I think that we saw things kind of drop off with mercury concentrations in 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.
So that would be it would be really nice to 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 look at data and write a really good paper on what are the mercury trends in the seated territories in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan.
So I think that's really important.
Long term over the next 10 to 20 years, is mercury still a bigger concern than PFAS?
That's a good question. I think that we know what the effects of having too much mercury in your body are.
So I think 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 research needs to be done to determine the effects.
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 is really long.
Christine Polkinghorn, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, the last name is Polkinghorn, 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?
Yes.
Yes, it's at the Lake Superior Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
I'd like to have the...
Yes, and technically, I think it's University of Wisconsin-Superior Lake Superior Research Institute.
I think UW is supposed to come first.
Oh, cool.
1922?
No.
Wow, that's those records.
Yeah.
2022.
Cool.
I realize they're probably going to be fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
All right.
We got here.
We have to turn this over to UW
for five minutes.
So, theyeahsen Summit
is next
background in the screen.
Okay, just holding that there for a second.
Green is now a cog right here, huh?
Mm-hmm.
And KG is the code.
Maybe you can put them back.
Okay.
Okay, you grab another one.
Okay, that back too.
I'll just get a closer shot at it.
Okay.
So that's nine fish from that way down here.
That's okay.
Okay.
Typically we get 12, 38.
12.
And Minnesota just created a new model that might can reduce the cycle size down to six.
Really?
Yeah, since we have so much historical data.
Yeah.
They're able to predict using that historical data.
Remember, we may be able to cut it down to six.
Okay.
Then I can double the price for fish.
Yeah.
Okay.
We found it.
Okay.
Thanks.
All right.
Have a good day.
So that's why we want to go box by box.
I know.
Yeah.
It would have been the absolute end.
Karen's doing something completely different now.
She switched to hydrologists.
Yeah.
Does she jump into?
Yeah.
Did you have training in that too?
I mean, she got a degree in that.
Oh, okay.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Good.
Sure.
There's the actually labeled the link of the company.
Perfect.
Let's follow about the FAL.
Not on there, but most likely.
Okay.
That's great.
Right.
That's my writing.
I can't blame anybody but myself.
I mean, you should have saw one big writing in the day.
But we recognize the name.
Exactly.
I always keep a gel.
Good enough.
I always challenge.
Oh, I.
Okay.
So I signed that.
Does it already have the car?
Do you want to scan it?
Okay.
So that I have a copy.
We should have a copy of that too.
Sorry.
I forgot.
Yeah.
Great.
And Karen sent the.
Yes.
Yeah.
A test.
Yep.
Yep.
Should be the labeled stuff.
Yep.
Yeah.
Whatever I gave back to her.
I just need to scan.
Email.
All right.
All right.
I've not already got a copy.
That's true.
Cause it's not going to be on the clipboard.
Yep.
It's going to stay on the clipboard.
Okay.
And honestly, like, I don't know if it would be something like, but it's not Friday.
I don't want it to be on the clipboard.
Okay.
Okay.
Cause I got it.
I got like.
A little more.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
That was.
That was.
Okay.
Okay.
That's pretty good, right?
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
I feel bad.
It's not going to get more time with the thing.
That's quite all right.
It's one of those little elements.
One second.
Sorry.
Could you start?
Sorry.
Don't worry.
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh, one second.
Okay.
Whatever you're in.
Perfect.
Thank you.
That was like the elementary school science.
Water cycle.
Yeah.
That was like the elementary school science.
Water cycle.
Yeah.
That was things.
Operation.
Yeah.
When I did my yahara 2070 dock, we had to create a graphic for me that showed like the water cycle.
I was kind of thinking that, you know, we did.
Yeah.
So it's like, ooh.
Yeah.
Doing that so well.
I'm like, hipster.
I'm going to.
It's going to shoot.
Yeah.
That's nuts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
You get up to it, you know, above 20 inches and it really spikes.
That's more than what's quadruple what they were saying is.
Right.
What they would feel comfortable.
Oh, I know.
It's the most funny.
Yeah.
It's like the Canada.
That's all it would be.
Yeah.
Wow.
Make it enough.
It barely attached little scenes.
Yeah.
Right.
It's like the lake we are in, it's not.
Everything's 23 and 24 and 24.
It's just fun.
Fun catch.
We are.
But we are frustrated because we don't keep one over 20.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You've been there twice.
It's never happened before.
It said it was at like 35% which is a good amount of time.
And then it just cuts a glass.
The reason I think it does that, maybe the numbers will miss confusing is because this
is powering everything.
It's powering this, firing the camera, so maybe it sucks more energy up.
Apparently that's the nice feature about this one.