Two days after Hurricane Ian slammed into the Southwest Florida coast as a near Category 5 storm, SCCF Marine Lab Director Eric Milbrandt, Ph.D., began to mobilize a coordinated effort to assess water quality impacts.

“I reached out to our colleagues at University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions (UF-CSS) who we’ve been working with on a current harmful algae bloom research project funded by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” said Milbrandt. “After seeing the devastation of the causeway and the islands, I knew that our routine monthly sampling from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico would not be possible with SCCF equipment.”