The Great Lakes Observing System, a non-profit that shares real-time data about conditions in the Great Lakes, launched a new on-line platform during its annual meeting in Chicago this week, making the data available to anyone with a smart phone or computer.
It's called Seagull, and it allows anyone to access information about water temperature and quality, wave activity and weather. Information that comes in real time from a network of high tech buoys.
Professor Tom Bridgman from the University of Toledo has been studying the ecology of the Great Lakes for 15 years. In 2014, a toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie caused a health emergency allowing toxins to enter the water supply.
"When the Toledo water crisis happened, there were no buoys in the water in the area, and so the water treatment plant didn't know that they were having a problem until a large concentration of algae was already in the water plant," Bridgman said.
You can check out the new platform at Seagull at Seagull.glos.org.
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