J. Carl Ganter:
Welcome to a special version of H2O Catalysis where we’re bringing together thought leaders and listeners from around the world to learn about the world’s greatest challenges in the water space and to tease out solutions. As Charlie said, I’m Jay Carl Ganter, director of Circle of Blue, where we report on the competition between water, food, and energy around the world.
You’re joining an urgent conversation about toxic algae and water pollution. It’s a story that’s in the headlines now. It’s in the headlines in Florida and it’s in the headlines around the planet. Today, we are coming to you live from Michigan, from Florida, from Ontario, and with other participants from as far as Europe and Asia. We’re really excited by the interest in the issue, and the urgency.
To see our latest coverage of algae and of course global water issues, visit us at circleofblue.org. You’ll also have the chance to discuss these issues live during today’s event in special break-out groups with our expert guests facilitated by top journalists from Circle of Blue. To share your questions and comments via Twitter, use the #Algae and #BarleyPrize. Today, we are peeling back the layers of this complex urgent story that’s breaking now and when it isn’t good to be green. It’s the story of dangerous algae blooms in Florida coastal estuaries east of Okeechobee, Lake Okeechobee, and around the world.
Today, we have a special two part broadcast produced with support from the Everglades Foundation. In the first hour, we have assembled world leading experts and Circle of Blue’s journalists, who will explore the urgency of Florida’s and the world’s algae challenge, what’s happening now, and how the nation’s states and communities can respond. In the second hour, we’ll switch gears and hand the controls over to the Everglades Foundation, which is launching what is basically an X-prize for algae. It’s a $10 million challenge to solve phosphorus pollution. It’s called the George Barley Water Prize. Why now? Again, if you have been watching the headlines, waterways in Florida and many parts of the world are literally under seige from toxic algae blooms. These blooms are killing fish, choking cities fresh water supplies, they’re harming ecosystems, and they are cutting deep into recreation and tourism revenue.
A few weeks ago, fresh water estuaries near Lake Okeechobee were transformed from a calm blue into a toxic fluorescent green mat of algae, while dangerous blooms across China and India put already stressed water supplies at risk. In Florida earlier this month, Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in four counties and yesterday the state of emergency was extended in Martin County. Residents are outraged and they are seeking solutions. In a few moments, we’ll be joined by former Senator Bob Graham, who also served two terms as Florida Governor, and we’ll hear from three national experts to put this all in context.
First Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation, has just been in the field looking at the situation first hand. Mr. Eikenberg, thanks for joining us today.
Eric:
Thank you Carl, good morning. I’m privileged to be with everyone today representing the Everglades Foundation. As Carl referenced, the Everglades Foundation, we’re a non-profit lines based organization here in Florida dedicated the the restoration and protection of America’s Everglades. This unique ecosystem, this river of grass, is a United Nations World Heritage site and biosphere reserve. It is the home to two U.S. national parks and it is the only place where alligators and crocodiles coexist. Most importantly, it is the engine that keeps Florida’s economy humming while being the source of drinking water for more than 8 million Floridians and millions of tourists. For the last 22 years, the Everglades Foundation has been led by a board of directors who are distinguished leaders in business, science, education, and government. From the outset here this morning, I want to acknowledge the leadership of our chairman, Marshall Field V, the vision of our co-founder Paul Tudor Jones, and the legacy of George Barley for whom we honor today.
The Everglades Foundation is a solution oriented science based organization. We recognize, as Carl pointed out at the outset here, that water is the most basic of human needs. It plays a role in so many aspect of our lives, drinking water, recreation, helping to create and sustain thriving economies, not just here in Florida, but across the globe. Industries from real estate, to fishing, agriculture, to boating all depend on a healthy supply of clean fresh water. As we all know, based on the headlines and the coverage, today our water is at risk. It’s more at risk today than we have seen in the past. Unfortunately, we saw this day coming. Today, in Florida, billions of gallons of polluted water, algae plagued water from Lake Okeechobee, our nation’s second largest freshwater body, is being released into coastal rivers and estuaries– triggering ecological, economic, and health concerns. As many of you know, national tension is focused on Florida’s water crisis.
As we visit today, toxic blue-green algae continues to plague Florida’s east and west coasts. As Carl mentioned, Florida is in a state of emergency due to this toxic algae. Here in Florida, we have a phosphorus problem. However, this is not the first time. Three years ago we experienced the lost summer due to a similar algae bloom caused by excess phosphorus in our water in Lake Okeechobee. The phosphorus problem is not just isolated to Florida and the Everglades. Two weeks from today, it is the second anniversary of the shutdown of Toledo Ohio’s municipal water supply due to the infiltration of algae from Lake Erie. America’s Great Lakes are impaired by excess phosphorus. The cycle is becoming more frequent. Jobs and the economy are threatened. Real estate is impacted. Home values suffer. In fact, last week the Everglades Foundation was in Orlando participating in the largest recreational fishing trade show in the nation. The recreational industry that is has $9.3 billion impact in Florida, supporting more than 123 thousand jobs. It is a vital industry to our state and it relies on clean water.
The damaging impacts of excess phosphorus go beyond America’s borders. Countries like China and India, among others, are all experiencing the ill effects of this global problem. Excess phosphorus in freshwater can be viewed as a local problem, yet it links globally. The alarm bells have rung. People want solutions. What we are excited about today, this historic day for the Everglades Foundation, a day that has been four years in the making. Today, July 21st, begins a process that will bring together the brightest minds from across the nation and the globe. Over the coming months and years scientists, engineers, academics and entrepreneurs will participate in the largest challenge focus on water. Today we are proud to announce the start of the $10 Million George Barley Water Prize. Recognizing the cost to remove even a small fraction of a small fraction of the damaging phosphorus using existing technology would cost more than $3 trillion worldwide. Our board of directors made a strategic decision to incentivize innovation, to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit, and see if we could find a more cost effective solution to removing excess phosphorus from fresh water.
Bold new thinking is required to inspire that type of revolutionary mindset designed by an award team of scientists in partnership with our prize management team, Verb. With the support of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, the Knight Foundation, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Xylem, a host of individual donors, all who are seeking to find a winning solution that can effectively scale up and put us on a path to resolving this global pollution problem. We’re especially grateful this morning to the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change as our prize partner who helped design the prize and will ensure that the winning technology will empower a global solution. That solution will work in a cold climate in addition to a warm climate here in Florida.
Our neighbors to the north have really embraced this initiative with an aligned mission and without their partnership in this global endeavor we will not be successful. I want to acknowledge our prize chairman, Dr. Maurice Ferré, who will dive deeper into the Barley Water Prize in the second part of this call. I want to thank Circle of Blue for facilitating this timely conversation in this momentous occasion for the Everglades Foundation. I appreciate the time this morning and I’m pleased to welcome the director of the Environmental Innovations branch, and Environment Program Vision of the Ontario Ministry of Climate Change, Mr. Tom Kazas. Tom?
Tom:
Thanks Eric. Thank you for leading the conversation and thanks also to Circle of Blue for setting up this conversation. What’s happening in Florida is alarming. It’s significantly impacting the state and the country. It’s not unique to southern climates. Canada and the United States face similar challenges with occurrences of algal blooms in the north and most notably on Lake Erie, like Carl mentioned. Algal blooms of 2014 shut down the water supply in the city of Toledo, Ohio. We responded to this problem with a bi-national agreement, The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, that sets out aggressive phosphorus loading targets to reduce phosphorus inputs to Lake Erie by 40%. This US and Canadian partnership is expected to be achieved through strategies aimed at reducing point-source wastewater pollution as well as agricultural and municipal non-point-source contributions. Phosphorus pollution is not just an environment issue. Phosphorus is an important nutrient in agricultural and fertilizer used and is a major contribution to non-point source loading.
We talk a lot about a water constrained future as a society, but nobody’s talking about a phosphorus constrained future. In a world where we are faced with the prospect of feeding 10 billion people, phosphorus is too valuable and scarce a commodity to be wasted sitting at the bottom of the ocean or used to randomly grow algae in fresh and estuarine water systems. Just 8% of the world’s supply of phosphate rock or fertilizer production is found within the territorial property of the United States. Canada has precisely 0% of the world’s supply. Phosphorus recovery and reuse is an essential tool we wish to maintain through security in addition to solving our water pollution problems. Within the Great Lakes, Ontario recognizes the interconnectedness of these issues and is working with its partners to address phosphorus in excess algal blooms. Collaboration with partners at the bi-national, domestic, state, provincial, and local levels will be the key to our success.
Innovations in the fields of phosphorus removal and recovery hold great promise in solving these problems. Innovation comes about through conversation. Conversation in the village market. Conversation between individuals with problems and those with a potential solution. Conversations just like the one we are starting today catalyzed by the Everglades Foundation. Ontario is excited to be involved with the Everglades Foundation as they develop this challenge prize design and is excited to join them in launching this major initiative. While the driver for the initiative is ameliorating the challenges brought by eutrophication in the Everglades, the Foundation has been mindful that phosphorus pollution is ubiquitous and many cold water/fresh water ecosystems also face the same challenges. It’s graciously expanded the expanse of its scope of this challenge beyond the Everglades to cold fresh water systems such as the Great Lakes and Ontario has been pleased to be involved in the design of the challenge questioned for these water bodies.
We look forward to joining them other the next five years as they challenge the smartest minds in the world to tackle this problem once and for all. I look forward to the conversation today. Thanks for joining us and helping to bring much needed global solutions to life.
Carl:
Hi there. Carl Ganter here. Tom Kazas from Ontario. Thank you so much and Eric Eikenberg, thank you for those sobering words. We’re certainly all connected. Just a quick note, too, the World Economic Forum names water crisis the number one global risk of greatest impact of the decade. We can certainly see why as what’s been articulated very, very well. Again, to carry this further and get deeper into the details, we’ll be joined by experts with added perspectives, and we want to hear from you. Post your questions and comments to #Algae and #BarleyPrize. This is a historic day and historic time in the planet’s history. In a moment we will hear from Jay Corless, Senior director of Innovations UN foundation and Debra Shore, Commissioner on the Board of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, and Dr. Tim Davis, research scientist at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. With all of our events, following our comments, you will have a chance to joining these experts and top journalists in three break-out discussion groups.
In the second half we will hand off the controls and you will have a chance to get to the solutions that we just heard about. A moon shot for big solutions, you’ll hear from the Everglades Foundation which is today launching the $10 million George Barley Water Prize to spur innovations and responses to the algae challenge, but first to put this in historical and immediate context, we’re pleased to be joined by former US Senator Bob Graham. From 1979 to 1987, Senator Graham was governor of the start of Florida and launched the Save the Everglades program. Senator Graham, thanks for joining us today.
Bob:
Carl, thank you very much for this opportunity, especially extend my congratulations to the sponsors, the Everglades Foundation, the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Knight Foundation, Xylem, and the Kingdom of Netherlands for their innovative thinking and their commitment to solve this global challenge. It’s interesting to me that this challenge, the George Barley Prize, is following in the path of other efforts which have dealt with challenging issues. Maybe the best known occurred in the 1700s, when after a number of ships were lost at sea with great loss of life, a prize was established in 1714 to create a global competition to solve the problem of how to measure longitude at sea. It lasted for almost a half-a- century and eventually solved this very technically challenging and life threatening issue. We are at another stage of the use of a prize, of a competition a reward for innovation, for another major challenge to our globe.
I am especially pleased with the groups which are joined. I have worked closely with the Knight Foundation on a number of initiatives. Both of my father’s parents were born in London Ontario, so I have a strong feeling for the partnership with our friends in the north and the Everglades Foundation has been a great advocate for Everglades for restoration scientific and in terms of advocate for steps. Today, that need is extenuated by situations that are occurring at several locations in the Everglades. Eric and others have mentioned the fact that there is a major algae bloom now in the Indian River Lagoon, which is east of Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River, west of Lake Okeechobee. At the same time, there is a significant algae bloom in Florida Bay which is at the tip of the Peninsula to the Florida Keys, not because it has too much water, but because it does not have enough water. The volume of fresh water that is being dumped in the east and the west and contributing to the enormous algae bloom is the same water which, in a purified form, needs to be delivered to Florida Bay to maintain its salinity.
I am pleased to be part of this program today. I commend all of those who have joined to give us light at the end of a very long difficult tunnel. I commend those who will accept this challenge and make the world a better place. Thank you.
Carl:
Thank you Senator Bob Graham. You talked about setting new courses. It appears we’re on that path to the light at the end of the tunnel. To makes those lights a little brighter, joining us now is Jay Corless of the UN Foundation and Deborah Shore, commissioner of the board of the metropolitan reclamation districts of Chicago and Dr. Tim Davis, research scientist at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research laboratory. A quick note too, my very first assignment for National Geographic was cave diving in the pristine underground waters of Florida of Wakulla Springs. Quite a complex system of crystal clear beautiful water underfoot there in Florida. Jay Corless are you with us.
Jay :
Yes, I am. Hi. Thank you very much for having me.
Carl:
Jay, I’d love to start with a big picture perspective. This is a big problem globally. We’ve just heard the crisis level. The world economic forum number one problem on the planet. China is spending billions trying to clean up the mess in one lake alone. You’re really a design thinker for complex problems. Where do you start with something that’s as integrated and complex as algae?
Jay :
First of all, thank you for having me and I’m honored to be supporting this initiative with the rest of this panel and this group here. In terms of these large complex problems. I think what we are beginning to see is cross fertilization from other sectors and one you mentioned was the application and design thinking and design methodologies to social problems. Here, where you start with the innovation process is you really want to have a clear definition of the problem. I think that’s what so interesting about the George Barley Prize. They pulled together a group of folks and they have come to some pretty clear problem statements. You want to start with a clear problem of what you want to address.
Carl:
Great, thank you Jay. Now let’s turn to Debora Shore. I really want hear a city’s perspective, then we’re going to go to break-out groups in a minute. Chicago, Debora only a month ago Illinois state officials warned summer swimmers to avoid fresh water lakes and rivers with rapid lake growing algae. How is Chicago responding to this threat?
Debora:
Greetings, and thank you for including me. I want to launch with a quote from Isaac Asimov because it addresses what Tim mentioned about our phosphorus constrained future. Many years ago, Isaac Asimov wrote and I quote, “Life can multiply until all the phosphorus has gone and then there is an inexorable halt which nothing can prevent,” so we are all joined together to try and address in many different ways the need for phosphorous which is absolutely vital for agriculture for our future. There are no substitutes and yet in our waterways it’s a pollutant and a problem. What we are doing at a big waste water utility, and I’m an elected official, not a scientist and not an expert, but I am an enthusiast for a process that our utility has adopted that will allow us to remove phosphorus from the treated wastes water instead of discharging it into rivers and streams. Again, it’s a problem and our Chicago discharge in Cook County Illinois ends up contributing to a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, we’ll be able to remove phosphorus through this new process and turn it into a slow release fertilizer that we can sell that’s not water soluble.
We’ll take a problem in water and turn it into a vital resource on land. This is a company called Ostera but there are other processes that do similar things. In May, our agency launched a facility that will eventually remove more than 1,100 tons a year of phosphorus from the waste stream and turn it into 10 thousand tons a year of phosphorus crystals that will be sold to a commercial fertilizer blender and then used in agriculture here in the Mid-West. Our agency will receive $400 a ton for these crystal, so again we are turning what had been considered a waste product and a problem into a resource and a revenue producer. I would be happy to share more in the break-out session about financing and technical assistance and how we came to decide on this process.
Carl:
Terrific. Thank you Debora, that’s fascinating thinking of phosphorus as a recoverable resource. Now I really want to go to Tim Davis and again, after Tim we’ll go into break-out groups here. Dr. Tim Davis has been studying hazardous algal blooms or by their endearing nickname, HAB’s or HAB’s for your full career. We’ll be talking a lot about Florida in the second half, so give us a sense about how things changed globally in the last five years from your perspective and also your seat here in the Great Lakes.
Tim:
Well, thanks Carl. Again, I’m just like Debora and Jay, I’m very pleased to be with you. Yes, we have been focusing a lot on the events on Florida over the past couple weeks or so because when you have one of these large water bodies, that has one of these blooms in it, that tends to impact socio-economics in the region and you really have a situation that makes national headlines– like the Toledo water crisis. I think it’s important to note that these again are not isolated incidents. The prevalence and duration and toxicity of these events have been increasing all over the globe. As was mentioned earlier in this webinar, these events in China and in India, and I’ve studied these events in Australia and in Canada. They are becoming much more prevalent. The harm from algal blooms themselves, while they are a very serious risk, they are an end product of a larger problem which is nutrient over enrichment in some of our largest most socioeconomically important and precious lakes.
These event occur in the African Great Lakes. They obviously occur in the American Great Lakes. In Canada’s largest freshwater bodies such as Lake Winnipeg, but also these events occur throughout all 50 states in inland lakes. Another example that’s been somewhat overlooked in the past couple of weeks has been the bloom that’s been covering Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake. These are two inland systems that are suffering from large algal blooms as well and have caused beach closures, etc. When we look at these types of events we see that. Over the past five years and even longer we’ve seen this trend of increasing events globally. That’s alarming for many reasons. If we can look into the future, if the status quo remains that same, it’s very likely that climate changes will help make these blooms worse. They will extend the duration, potentially extend the density of these blooms and potentially increase toxicity. These initiatives like the George Barley Water Prize are really key in helping to make sure that this blooms do not continue to proliferate but are mitigated in a way that brings these large socioeconomically important lakes back to a state of good health where we can have diversity.
We can support recreational fisheries and also bring the socioeconomic levels in those regions impacting by those blooms back. This is a great opportunity, so thank you.
Carl:
Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Tim Davis. Bringing up the point, huge economic and environmental impacts and there really isn’t a moment to lose. To capture the moment now comes the fun. You’ve heard from three experts and some sobering and encouraging words from our opening guests including in-depth perspectives from Senator Bob Graham. Now it is time for you to ask the questions and participate in our break-out groups. We’re going to move you to three live break-out groups with each expert will be guest facilitated by Circle of Blue journalists. The choices are on your screen. If you’re in the social you’re on the webinar. If not, if you’re dialed in, here’s what you do. To join Jay Corless of the UN Foundation facilitated by Circle of Blue Brent Walton, press one.
To join Debora Shore of Chicago, facilitated by Coby Cobacheck, press two. To join Dr. Timothy Davis of NOAA facilitated by Keith Schneider of Circle of Blue as well press three. Again, one more time Jay Corless is in room number one, press one. To join Debora Shore, press two. To join Dr. Timothy Davis press three. I also want to underscore the global interest in this and he global interest in the systemic thinking about these challenges. It’s very very interesting. I’m on the Global Counsel for Water Security at the World Economic Forum. The last few years we’ve had much more interest from the fertilizer and the phosphorus community, which was a surprise to us at first, until we started looking at the challenges. As Debora brought up, the real opportunity for taking value out of what is considered waste and what is a trigger for serious pollution and other problems. This is a big, big challenge and the trends toward solutions are, as the Senator said, we’re setting new courses. New latitudes and new longitudes.
Global Innovation for Florida and Beyond: Designing Systemic Responses to a Global Algae Challenge
Jay Corless – Senior Director for Innovation at the UN Foundation
Moderator: Brett Walton, Circle of Blue
Brett Walton:
Again, for everyone listening, I’m Brett Walton, a reporter for Circle of Blue. We have Jay Corless here. He is the senior director of innovation at the UN Foundation. To remind everyone who’s listening in how this works, you see in front of you a shared document. This is something that everyone can type into. If you have a question for Jay you can type that into the document and as I’m in conversation with Jay I will glance down there and glean some of the better questions or some of the broader questions to pose to him.
Just a foundational question to get us started, Jay. As the senior director of innovation at the UN Foundation, how do you define innovation and how does that influence how you do your work?
Jay Corless:
Thank you very much. I think one of the most important things when we start talking about innovation is first realizing that innovation and this movement within the innovation space has been transferred over from the private sector. We’re really looking in the development space and in the social space. We’re really looking at taking these ideas that kind of took root in the private sector and translating those into the social and development space.
The definition that we normally use, I would say it’s a pretty easy one. It’s new ways of doing things but in a sustainable manner, because we are in a transition in this space where we do have to think about the sustainability of these projects. In the social space we rely very much on classic charity or grants. Now we’re starting to think in a sustainable manner. It’s new ways of doing things in a sustainable manner.
Brett:
When you hear the word “innovation,” I think a lot of people think of technology and new gadgets or trinkets to apply to a problem. Are there other forms of innovation that you’re thinking about in this space?
Jay:
Yeah, definitely. We see this across a number of sustainable development goals where technology is definitely a part of it. I would say in the past 15 years or so, I’m a technologist, I’ve evolved with the internet. There are innovations in technology, but there’s also innovations in collaborations and the way that people are working together. There’s innovations in partnerships and the way that we are thinking about how groups of people can come together and partner. There’s innovations in the classic products. There’s innovations in services, so innovation really stretches across the way we do things as people.
Brett:
Can you talk a bit more about innovation and collaboration? I think how those types of circumstances come around, is that different than, say, the process for technological innovation?
Jay:
There are some tweaks to it. If we look at the innovation process, going from an idea, from the first step of it being an idea to developing a prototype, to testing that prototype, when the innovation starts to achieve a certain critical mass, that’s really when the idea of collaboration and partnership becomes much more important in the social space than in the private space. In the private space, Facebook for example, can build a huge database of users and they’ll receive funding and they just need more funding to hire more people to start to build out new innovations of their new product or service.
In the social space it’s not quite that simple. Once you achieve a certain critical mass, you need to start to collaborate with other entities. An influx of capital and hiring staff isn’t going to suffice. You need to bring in governmental partners, for example. Sometimes you’ll need to bring in local government partners. In this case with the George Barley Prize, we can see there’s a variety of different partners that are coming together to collaborate. That’s very much something that we see in the social space that we don’t necessarily see in the private sector.
Brett:
When is it a case where you need an innovation versus where you already have the right tools but they’re just being misapplied or they need to be used better?
Jay:
In innovation speak, I would say there’s iterations. Oftentimes, what we’re seeing is that many of these new approaches to solving problems have been around. A great number of them that I work with outside of the water space but in other areas in development, these are approaches that have been around for 20, 25 years. Sometimes it just takes smaller recognition, smaller ideas of process, a change in process or small pivots than new, disruptive types of things. That’s why I would say innovation is a pretty big word. It’s a new way of doing things. Sometimes it’s very disruptive, and sometimes it’s just small pivots. Oftentimes, with people that have been in this space, with expertise that have been in this space, we’re looking much more at incremental pivots than necessarily big, disruptive steps.
Brett:
Can you give us an example of where a big disruption was necessary versus where a problem came about because of smaller pivots towards a new direction?
Jay:
Yeah. For the audience, I would say there’s classic examples of the internet in terms of innovation speak, the internet was a broad disruption. There was a certain way of doing things before the internet arrived, and once the internet arrived, it disrupted society in a large scale process. Lots of people can associate and identify the internet as a very broad social disrupter. That’s usually one I point to very easily and can be understood quickly.
In a small iterative process, would be the iPhone. There are lots of people that argue that the smartphone disrupted society, but actually this was built on a pre-existing system which was the internet. The iPhone is a smaller iteration on a larger disruption. Sorry to jump into tech, but those are usually much easier examples to point to that people can understand pretty quickly in innovation speak.
Brett:
With water, the UN is pretty intently focused on water. We have the new set of international goals called the Sustainable Development Goals, which were approved last year. How do you see these sorts of processes and design innovation being applied to some of the water problems that are now approved by the UN and the world is now looking at?
Jay:
I’ve been in the development space for 20 years and this is one of the more exciting moments in my career. To have the world come together, the member states of the United Nations, and define 17 goals that we will work towards over the next 15 years. What you really have to think about are these are 17 goals that reach across all of society. Below those 17 goals they came up with targets. In the design thinking, we see those targets as problem sets. You really have to think about the global goals, these sustainable development goals, as a series of problem sets.
Problem set #6, the goal #6, is really about fresh water. It’s about the sustainability of freshwater. Then it goes down to second level into the targets. 6.3 is about improving water quality by reducing pollution. This is something that the George Barley Prize will go right after. 6.6 is restoring water related ecosystems. Then there’s a part in there about expanding international cooperation. That means that the government leaders, the world leaders, have come together and said water and the sustainable management of water is the way forward, that we will only achieve sustainable development if we all come together and manage this.
What that meant for us as individuals and potential social entrepreneurs is that we can start to apply new methodologies to achieving and solving some of these goals. The water prize is exactly one of those, a methodology, I would say, to solving some of these goals.
Brett:
Beyond water prizes, what other methodologies do you see being brought to bare?
Jay:
There’s a large, large movement right now. It’s in the social enterprise space or market-based solutions where it’s a methodology where you identify the problem and you develop a business plan to solve that problem. Social enterprise and social entrepreneurs are starting to look at the global goals across every one of them and they’re starting to launch businesses that solve these problems. I deal with them, and I drug relapse from energy and solar, light bulbs to you name it. I’ve got a solution. I’ve got examples in a variety of these areas.
Brett:
Taking a look at some of the questions that are coming in, a lot of these seem to be dealing with prize, whether certain technologies qualify for the prize. That’s more the focus for the second hour of this call. There are a few questions here that focus on different strategies – prevention versus removal from a system after it’s already in there. Have you seen, Jay, any sort of progress in either of these two types of solutions? Prevention versus taking the phosphorous out once it’s in there.
Jay:
I have to be pretty clear, I’m not a specialist in this particular space, but I can share trends that I’m seeing across the innovation space. In terms of prevention, that’s a pretty tough conversation for me. There are two ways that we could approach this. The prevention aspects would be around campaigns and advocacy, and I have seen innovative campaigns around advocacy. I’m not exactly sure that’s answering the question. Is that helping? I just kind of very difficult there.
Brett:
It does, yeah. I guess you could talk more generally about water and is there any difference in innovation as we transition from the millennium development goals to the sustainable development goals and how countries and individuals are looking at these two sets of targets and any difference in how they’re approaching them?
Jay:
Now, the truth there is the big difference in what we’re seeing in approach to these are that they are happening at the local level. With the MDGs, this was a set of goals that was at the national level where governments were saying okay, these are targets, these are goals that we want to achieve. There was a great difficulty in getting that down to local actors. Huge populations of scientists and academics that wanted to get involved had a very hard time translating their local level work into this international structure.
With sustainable development goals and with the arrival of these new methodologies, I would say people are starting to feel much more empowered to take up the problem sets on their own. That’s where we do see things like the prize starting to appear, starting to incentivize innovation and starting to allow for people to take on these issues. In the water space, we have quite a few things from capturing rainwater into new types of wells and filtering wells, and they’re open-sourcing these models to other areas, to solar energy and solar energy being used in freshwater context. There’s a variety of new methodologies being tested but we’re not really at that space yet where we can say we’re ready to scale any of these. There’s a lot of testing that’s happening.
Brett:
I want to talk a little bit more about the polity innovation and how you can incentivize governments and your local, state, national to change the rules or change the incentives for some of these new ideas to prosper. Basically, how do you take a technological innovation and give it the room to grow or the ability to grow through policy?
Jay:
I think that’s one of the more exciting areas for those of us that are in the policy space. Now we’re starting to see a number of solutions and innovations are starting to pop up. Some of the barriers that they are facing are definitely in the policy environment. This is where the idea of collaboration and coalitions become very important is because once, and this may be part of the process of the water prize, is once you’ve iterated and you’ve come up with a prototype and you’ve tested it, you’re going to need to replicate into new locales. This one, this is where local policy directors, local authorities will have to facilitate policy. They’ll have to write new policies to allow for the uptake of an innovation that may want to be tested in a new geography.
The idea that policy needs to be rewritten will start to be confronted with an innovation once it hits a certain critical mass. Policy will be through regulation. There may be regulatory practices that need to change. It can also be through procurement. Procurement will sometimes need to change. Government and the public sector are large procurers of innovation so you may start to see policy rewritten in terms of procurement. Lastly, tax and tax incentives and the way that the tax law is written. Those are just three areas where we are seeing that policy, and policy is being starting to think about more and more of the uptake of innovation and the scale of innovation.
Brett:
Does the UN Foundation have any leverage in that way, in moving an innovative idea outward?
Jay:
No. What the UN Foundation is, we were put together to support the work of the United Nations. What we can do in certain cases is we can convene a group of governments. This is where we’re starting to look in the area of, I would say, policy acceleration of those governments that have taken on the challenge of working with a new innovation, a new disruptive innovation and have had successes. We will bring them in and potentially bring other ministers around to hear that story and hear those testimonies and understand how one government achieved that. There are convenings around these type of things and I think we’ll start to see that more and more as we go forward with the SDGs.
Brett:
Are there any instructive examples you can think of, of some policy barrier that needed to be lifted in order for a great idea to flourish?
Jay:
Yeah, I think we definitely are seeing that much more in medicine. When we start to look at innovations and government procurement, we’re starting to really see that in the medical sector. Access to medicine, there’s been a number of new medicines that have hit the market and they needed government policy to enter into new markets or enter into new areas where they could be distributed at larger level. The HIV preventive medication is also seeing very similar things like that. New diagnostic tools that have also been tested in one locale and needed to be replicated into new geographies. That’s where we’re seeing the most, and WHO is a platform for that, has had some successes in that space.
Brett:
That chime says we have two more minutes to go. Jay, are there any big thoughts that you have to wrap this up or a way that water innovators who are thinking about phosphorous or other water pollution problems should be thinking about how to take their idea from an idea to an actuality?
Jay:
Just as I do with many social entrepreneurs and private sector organizations, corporations that are interested in this space and want to align this with their CSR, one of the reasons that the Everglades Foundation and this prize interested me so much is that it really has the potential to serve as a model and a process to which we can solve big, complex challenges. This is why I’m keeping a close eye on it, is because the Everglades Foundation has put together a series of partners to begin the collaboration to identify the problem statement, and it looks like the seeds are in place that once we’ve identified the solution, there’s a number of groups and other parties that will be there to help scale and replicate. If you’re looking for an opportunity to have large potential impact, this is the moment to apply and share your technologies with a really, really interesting model and prize.
Brett:
Thank you so much, Jay. We’re a couple seconds away from being taken back into the big, large group, so I want to thank you for your comments.
Charlie Rebich:
Hooray. Thanks, everybody. Thanks so much. Sorry to cut anyone off. We want to bring everyone back into the main room. Carl, I’m going to turn it back over to you and we can do our report-outs from the break-out.
Local Response: Communities React to Water Pollution and Algae
Debra Shore – Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
Moderator: Codi Kozacek), Circle of Blue
Cody:
This is Cody Kozacek. I’m a reporter with Circle of Blue. In this breakout group we’re going to be covering the local response to algal blooms and phosphorus pollution. Looking at the case study of Chicago and what they have done with their water reclamation plants in order to reduce phosphorus and take it out and actually use it as a usable resource. Debra, it looks like you made it into the room. Thank you so much for joining us. Again, this is Commissioner Debra Shore. She’s with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Debra, would you just like to start us off with a little bit about why Chicago decided to pursue the nutrient recovery project at the Stickney plant?
Debra Shore:
Glad to do so. Wastewater utilities throughout the country are facing increasing regulation and more stringent standards to limit the amount of nutrients that are discharged from the waste process into rivers and streams, largely because of the growing problems with nutrient pollution in our waterways. We knew that more stringent regulations are coming. Our plants are considered a point source and here in Cook County we operate what’s considered the world’s largest wastewater treatment plant but also, six other plants. When our discharged water is measured, it’s been estimated to contribute five percent of the loading into the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico because all of our treated wastewater goes downstream and ends up washing out into the Gulf.
Given these new regulations, I believe that regulation can drive innovation. Our staff was tasked with examining phosphorus removal processes. We issued an RFP for a design build approach and selected a process that Ostara Nutrient Technologies developed to remove phosphorus from the treated water using a biological process so that it ends up in form that’s more accessible to plants, growing things, and they need phosphorus to grow. We’re very excited about this but this process can be adopted by much smaller utilities, or even by a cluster of utilities. An adaptation of it may be able to be used in dairy farming.
Cody:
Well, Debra, I know this was a pretty big undertaking for Chicago and it just opened in May. How could maybe some smaller communities or other communities across the country or around the world, how could they emulate this sort of process? What advice would you have for them if they’re looking at ways to increase their phosphorus removal from wastewater?
Debra Shore:
Sure, happy to. This process has already been adopted in Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin, and a number of other places. I’m told that it can be implemented at any wastewater plant that has an average daily flow of about ten million gallons a day, or more that serves a municipality of about seventy-five thousand residents. Again, smaller ones don’t have to install the facility at their own location but may be able to collaborate with nearby utilities to convey the centrate coming off of their digesters and remove the phosphorus through this process.
In terms of financing, I don’t think that should be an obstacle. Our agency was able to finance this project out of our own bonding authority and capital plan but because there’s a return on investment, there’s a lot of interest from the private sector, who can partner with utilities. There are also revolving loan funds from federal and state governments and even a program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service to access loans, grants and loan guarantees in rural areas and in towns with fewer than ten thousand residents to support work in the water and wastewater sector.
Cody:
Debra, could you talk a little bit about how this was viewed in the community in Chicago? How did you present this to your customers?
Debra Shore:
Again, we knew that more stringent regulations were coming and we knew that we would need to make an investment in removing phosphorus. By selecting this process, we’re able to tell an exciting story about resource recovery. We’ll actually be generating revenue for the taxpayers and it will, over time, pay for itself. I think what’s most exciting is that this turns a viscous cycle, that is the discharge of phosphorus into our waterways where it causes algae blooms, into a virtuous cycle where we produce a vital resource, namely fertilizer, that can be used in agriculture. Back to the phosphorus constraints in the future, there’s now more and more attention to what’s being called peak phosphorus because there are only an estimated fifty to seventy years left of phosphate in rock around the world, that can be mined.
As I said, there’s no synthetic phosphorus. Once it’s used up, if we don’t recapture it when we can, then our food production will be constrained. This is an exciting way that, at least at wastewater utilities, we can recapture the phosphorus and turn it into something useful. Everywhere I go people are amazed by this story. They say, “This is terrific. Why didn’t we know about it.”
Cody:
We had a question earlier from Ed Weinberg and he mentioned that no system can really capture 100% of the phosphorus coming through wastewater but how many tons are discharged from Chicago each year and, I think you mentioned a little bit before about how much will be captured, but if you could maybe go over that again?
Debra Shore:
We’ll be able to capture a maximum production, I believe, 1150 tons a year. This is at our Stickney wastewater plant. I don’t know, frankly, what our total discharge amount is. I’d be happy to get back to Ed with that figure. It’s true, we can’t capture 100% but we believe that through the measures at our treatment plants in Cook County, we can significantly reduce the hypoxia loading in the Mississippi just from our efforts. We’ll promote these elsewhere to reduce that loading.
Cody:
We had another question earlier about how this sort of initiative fits into other policies or initiatives that Chicago is either considering or is already a part of in order to address nutrient pollution. Someone mentioned nutrient trading credit programs, I guess are there any, or working with other non-point sources as well as the water utilities, which are point sources, how do you … How are you fitting that all together in Chicago?
Debra Shore:
Well, we are not participating in any nutrient trading programs yet. Years ago we learned about them and considered that. I think it still is a newer arena, a promising one, but not flushed out yet. One thing that George Hawkins, the visionary leader of DC Water has said, that in the utility sector, we’re all in a fierce race to be second. The truth is, we are not always on the cutting edge of innovation. We want to make sure that various technologies and approaches have been tested because we’re stewards of public money. That said, I know that our executive director, David St. Pierre is working on a based in wide approach to reducing hypoxia in the Mississippi watershed. I also believe that some of the larger utilities, the water reclamation district, DC Water, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, are developing technical assistance programs where our skilled and knowledgeable engineers may be able to provide assistance to other locations and to other utilities.
Cody:
I know, Debra, you’ve also been involved in some other conservation work around Chicago for a long time. Someone earlier was also asking about the importance of ecosystem services. How does the wastewater treatment fit into, I guess, why is it important to be addressing these issues right now in Chicago but also relating that to the larger Mississippi River Basin?
Debra Shore:
Well, I think there’s three points there. One is that our utility is in the process of transforming itself from a waste agency into a resource recovery agency. This nutrient recovery process and program is one leg of several in which we are recognizing that all those things that we used to call waste have value. How do we capture and monetize that value? We’re also doing it with bio-gas, with bio-solids, with the treated water itself. I believe that the sewage plants of the past will be the power centers of the future, generating renewable energy, capturing vital nutrients and so forth.
As an ecosystem, water needs to be treated as a single ecosystem and we are trying to move towards one water, where drinking water, used water, storm water, groundwater are managed intelligently and rationally. Our government structures can sometimes, inhibit that because we are separated in different utilities. We need to work on that and we are. There’s a One Water Alliance that in the water sector is trying to move towards managing water as an ecosystem. Our agency isn’t directly working with agriculture but I also serve on the Board of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, which is supporting a range of projects working with agriculture and trying to address how to be smarter about fertilizer application and reduce non-point runoff and conserve this resource.
Cody:
I think it was interesting you just mentioned the policy aspect of this if maybe our cities or our communities aren’t necessarily set up in a way to manage water in the way that we might have to in the future. Did you have any difficulties when you were designing the phosphorus recovery project with trying to navigate some of those policy issues or was it pretty simple?
Debra Shore:
For us, because we’re an independent entity, we did not face a lot of obstacles. I think the State EPA was excited about this process because we were making a significant investment and going to reduce our phosphorus loading. There are conservation organizations that wish we would reduce it even further but I think we want to wait and see how effective this approach is and everybody is going to be pleased, I believe with the reduction in the phosphorus loading in the Chicago waterways.
Cody:
I think I read that eventually, this could create up to two million dollars in revenue for the water district. Is that correct? Is that … How soon do you expect to see those sorts of returns?
Debra Shore:
Yes, I believe it will produce between one and two million dollars a year in revenue. There are some costs associated in some chemicals and other things to produce these phosphorus crystals but there will be a net revenue of between one and two million dollars a year for the district. The district invested about thirty-five million dollars to build the facility but we will be able to repay that amount and generate revenue and meet more stringent standards, and produce a product that will be of use here in the Midwest. Because it’s a not water soluble fertilizer, it will not add to the loading from farms where it’s used. The field tests have shown efficacy with potatoes, and with strawberries and high protein alfalfa. My guess is this will be marketed to potato farmers in Wisconsin and Iowa and elsewhere in the Midwest.
Cody:
I’m not sure how familiar you are with what is going on in Florida right now but how could this sort of … Do you think this sort of project that Chicago undertook, is that something that is applicable in Florida with this Everglades problem?
Debra Shore:
Certainly at wastewater utilities, possibly with dairy farms and I don’t know with respect to other sources of phosphorus loading.
Cody:
What role, I mean obviously, we talked about, you said that, I believe Chicago is about five percent of what’s the pollution that’s going into the Mississippi River Basin and is that … How do we address, how wide of a scale does this need to be adopted on in order to make a big difference in some of these bigger ecosystems, such as the Everglades or the Mississippi River Basin, or in Lake Erie’s case, the Maumee River Basin, for example. Do you have any idea how widely this needs to be adopted?
Debra Shore:
Well, we know this problem has many authors. One interesting approach that might be worth testing, that I’ve thought about is, because we know that a lot of the loading is runoff from agriculture, if we can identify specific watershed or sub-watersheds, and perhaps through a mixture of mandates and incentives, require that this non-water soluble fertilizer might be used in those areas, we could test to see whether that will significantly reduce the non-point loading from agriculture. We will never produce enough of this, these phosphorus crystals to meet the fertilizer demand, but in highly localized and threatened watersheds, it might have some additional efficacy. There are other approaches in terms of farming practices and phosphorus capture at utilities that could be adopted. We need to look in many ways. That’s why the water prize is such an exciting initiative because it will drive innovation in lots of areas.
Cody:
As far as Chicago is concerned, are you considering these sorts of technologies at some of your other treatment plants as well or how are you moving forward with nutrient reduction in the future?
Debra Shore:
We are. I believe we will be able to convey some of the treated effluent from another one of our large plants to our Stickney plant for phosphorus removal. We are implementing what’s called, biological phosphorus removal at most of our plants because it allows for recoverable phosphorus in our bio-solids and it also is a more stable process. We’re doing everything we can to take phosphorus out of the treated water because there will always be some phosphorus loading. It’s in the food we eat so it’s in our human waste and it’s in storm water runoff and fertilizer from lawns and campuses throughout our urban area.
Cody:
I believe we are getting routed back to the main room. I see there’s some other questions still. I will be able to send those to Debra if you are able to maybe answer those in the future, that would be great.
Research in Action: How Toxic Blooms Threaten Global Waterways
Timothy Davis – Ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
Moderator: Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Keith Schneider:
Hey, this is Keith Schneider with Circle of Blue. Thanks so much for participating, Dr. Davis. Great to have you in Michigan. Man, your comments were so interesting. As we wait for questions to come in, I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of things.
Dr. Timothy Davis:
Sure. Absolutely. Please.
Keith:
This linkage between climate change and algal blooms is something that’s come into my mind, as I’ve traveled the world now for, let’s see, 8 years. I’ve been on 6 continents, Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America. I don’t know if that’s 6.
We’ve encountered, as journalists of Circle of Blue, algal blooms. I said to my colleagues, just a sense, that we’re seeing a lot of climate change effects in water quantity, water scarcity, flooding around the world.
I was wondering whether the warming waters combined with phosphorus drainage from land to clean agricultural areas was combining to make these blooms worse. You know that climate change affects this too. Is there a linkage already or is it something that’s coming?
Dr. Davis:
Yes. There is a link between warmer water temperatures and these harmful blue-green algal blooms. There’s been a lot of research conducted into the impacts of warming waters and the growth rate of these harmful algal bloom species. This goes back to the mid ’80s. What they found is that these blue-green algae, they really like warm waters. They grow well. Most of these have a max growth rate between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius.
You get into a situation where as you have warmer summers, if you have more nutrient loading, depending on where you are … That’s one of the tricky things with climate change is that in some regions, climate change is expected to bring larger droughts. In some regions, it’s expected to bring more rainfall. For example, in the Great Lakes, we’re expected to see more rainfall as climate change continues to occur. More rainfall combined with warmer water temperatures, you can potentially expand the growing season of these blooms. These blooms may last longer.
We know that as water temperatures warm … For microcystis, the main organism that has caused the bloom in Lake Erie, that causes the bloom in Lake Okeechobee, also in Lake Taihu in China, it really does well at warmer temperatures. You have a situation where you have warmer water, more nutrients. You’re creating a perfect incubator for growing these organisms. That’s what we’re seeing. Unless something changes, that will continue into the future.
Keith:
We have questions coming in. Thank you. Before we get to the questions, I wanted to ask you one more. When I was a kid, we had 2 water pollution events of enormous magnitude. In 1969, we had the Cuyahoga River catch on fire in Cleveland, and we had a major oil spill in Santa Barbara. Those 2 events galvanized the country to a) begin to form the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, b) lead to the first Earth Day, and c) it galvanized Congress to pass the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act has been very effective certainly in scrubbing pollutants from the Great Lakes and in other water bodies.
Now, we have algae pollution. I’ve told my colleagues that it just seems that this toxic algae bloom crisis or cataclysm that’s occurring globally and certainly in the United States, seems to me to be the 21st century equivalent water pollution marker, water pollution events that should galvanize the country to action, but it hasn’t. It really hasn’t. Congress isn’t responding. State legislatures with the exception of Ohio aren’t responding.
I know you’re a scientist from NOAA. I was wondering if you could talk about whether regulation on phosphorus and other nutrients and in adjusting the Clean Water Act could be a solution at least in the United States.
Dr. Davis:
Sure. That’s a really great question. You mentioned the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969. That was one of the national headlines that did spark a lot of the modern environmental movements including the Clean Water Act. What’s funny is that was actually the 9th time the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. That brings me to the point that I wanted to make was that when you talk about legislation potentially having the impact and the need for legislation in helping reduce phosphorus levels and helping to mitigate these types of events …
One of the things that’s often forgotten is that in the ’60s and early ’70s, Lake Erie was also experiencing algal blooms and hypoxia and blooms that may be as large as some of the blooms that we see today. The phosphorus reduction legislation that was in the Clean Water Act, that really set the stage for the recovery of Lake Erie from the late ’70s in through the ’80s. Lake Erie was considered a dead lake back when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire, 1969. What the Clean Water Act did was it put a level, a cap on the amount of phosphorus load coming into Lake Erie. This was mainly from point sources at that point in time. We saw Lake Erie recover. In the mid ’80s, Lake Erie was actually considered to be a beacon of environmental restoration. It was something that was highlighted as an achievement.
Yes, legislation can positively impact and help facilitate making strides towards a recovery of these large lakes, including the North American Great Lakes. Yeah, I think it’s very important.
What we are seeing is that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the Annex 4 team that put together the 40% phosphorus reduction, right now, Ohio and Michigan are putting together domestic action plans to work towards that goal of a 40% reduction in phosphorus. We are moving. It may not be as fast, again, as people would like. I understand the frustration because with the socio-economic impacts of these blooms, but the research takes time to develop the models necessary, to understand how much phosphorus and how much nitrogen we need to reduce in order to have the impact that we’re looking for in the lake. That’s not something that we can do overnight. That takes time. We’re finally getting there with phosphorus and we’re starting to see that momentum build with nitrogen as well.
Keith:
Let me get to some of these questions. I’m going to put two together, because they both deal with phosphorus and nitrogen. One listener asked, “Is phosphorus more of a concern than nitrogen in terms of nutrient over-enrichment?” Secondly, to what extent is phosphorus an agricultural problem or is it an urban affluent issue?
Dr. Davis:
Sure. Those are both great questions. I’ll actually start with the second part of that and move to the first. That answer is basically, it depends on where you are. That is an individual system. Each watershed is vastly different.
For example, in the Lake Erie watershed, at this point in time, it is mainly a non-point agricultural issue. While that does not by any stretch of the imagination say that other point sources or urban areas are not contributing, they definitely can be contributing and are contributing. When we look at the phosphorus loading from the watershed, it’s very clear in Lake Erie that it’s a mainly agricultural issue. That can change depending on your watershed that’s feeding the particular system that you’re looking at.
Keith:
Is phosphorus or nitrogen more important?
Dr. Davis:
There’s a lot of research. The phosphorus paradigm, that was some great work done by Dave Schindler back in the ’70s in the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, that really set that phosphorus was the primary limiting nutrient.
We are seeing today, when we look at the interaction between nitrogen and phosphorus, that they are both important, because we just don’t … Right now, a lot of the management strategies focus on phosphorus. It’s because we have a lot more information on phosphorus in many of the systems than we do about nitrogen. We have phosphorus budgets. We have models that link phosphorus with algal bloom size.
What we’re seeing now in some of the recent research is that nitrogen can also impact bloom growth. It can impact toxicity, because a lot of the toxins that are produced contain a lot of nitrogen. Nitrogen is very important. We see links between nitrogen and bloom toxicity in several systems, including Lake Erie.
Keith:
Interesting questions here about sort of the transactional pieces of this. Here’s one that I haven’t heard. It says, “Are you aware of the research showing a correlation between increased dust in the atmosphere and the increase of phosphorus occurring everywhere, including high-elevation pristine lakes?” The citation is Dr. John Stoddard at EPA’s ORD. Are you aware of this research?
Dr. Davis:
I am not aware of that research, but that sounds very interesting.
Keith:
John Stoddard at EPA. You might want to look at that one. Okay. Next, there’s a question about the factors involved in algae blooms. I think that’s a good one to describe how they occur and are there differences in where they occur.
Dr. Davis:
There are many different types of blue-green algae that can form these blooms. For example, just in the Great Lakes and in other large systems, for example in Lake Erie, Lake Okeechobee, microcystis tends to dominate the bloom. In some of the tributaries that come into Lake Erie, we see planktothrix, which is another type of blue-green algae that dominates the bloom. Both of those produce the toxin, microcystin. That was the toxin that caused the Toledo water shut down in 2014, also, the Wuxi water crisis in China, back in 2007, and also with the toxin of concern in Lake Okeechobee. In other systems-
Keith:
In Darling River, right? You said you were in Australia. The Darling River had a terrible bloom.
Dr. Davis:
That’s correct.
Keith:
Over there.
Dr. Davis:
Yup. Over 1,200 kilometers long. In the drinking waters, for example, around Brisbane, I was at the Australian Rivers Institute, their drinking reservoirs that supply the city of over 3 million people with their water was contaminated by other type of cyanobacteria called cylindrospermopsis.
The difference is that you have some that can produce their own nitrogen and some that can’t. When we look at the factors that are promoting these algal blooms, what it comes down to is nutrient over-enrichment. These blooms are the symptom of our lakes becoming over-enriched with nutrients. The ratio and types of nutrients, also the water temperature and latitude may influence which organism is dominating the bloom. The fact of the matter is that it’s a nutrient problem. The blooms are visual manifestations of nutrient over-enrichment in these lakes.
Keith:
Question here about the relationship with groundwater withdrawals and algae blooms. Questioner asked, “Is there any research on the relationship between increased groundwater withdrawals for irrigation and the loading of phosphorus in algae blooms?” Certainly not in places that don’t irrigate with groundwater. It’s definitely a movement.
Dr. Davis:
Right.
Keith:
It’s a transport issue, isn’t it?
Dr. Davis:
It is.
Keith:
They have to have water on the surface to transport at least from the agricultural fields into water bodies.
Dr. Davis:
That’s correct. For groundwater and phosphorus loading, no. In Michigan and in the Great Lakes, we have such a plethora of water that … No. The link there is more about what we see as surface runoff. The amount of phosphorus that’s applied and the amount of runoff that transport that phosphorus into the tributaries that feed Lake Erie, that’s what’s dictating the size of the bloom.
Keith:
Right.
Dr. Davis:
It doesn’t really say much about toxicity, because that’s a different factor. In terms of the size of the overall bloom, we look at those runoff, the amount of phosphorus loading. That can give us an idea of how severe we think the bloom will be.
Keith:
There’s a number of questions here that focus around solutions. We learned from Chicago today, the kind of work that they’re doing on point source, wastewater treatment plans to remove phosphorus. There’s one questioner who’s asked, “Is there a chemical that can be added to neutralize the microcystin?” Another one says, “What are the other things that we can use bacteria in some way to neutralize these pollutants or consume these pollutants?” Could you give us a rundown of what you know about the state-of-the-art in preventing algae blooms?
Dr. Davis:
In preventing algae blooms or neutralizing the microcystin?
Keith:
I guess those are 2 questions, right? If you can prevent the blooms, you can neutralize the microcystis, right?
Dr. Davis:
Yeah. Exactly. There are many different ways in which people are trying to mitigate blooms after they occur. The most sure-fire way of making sure that a bloom does not occur is to have a healthy balance of nitrogen and phosphorus in your system. However, lakes that are already being impacted by blooms, there are several different ways. Some people try clay flocculation. There’s methods they use such as Phoslock and alum to strip the phosphorus from the water column. I know there are researchers … I have colleagues in the Netherlands who are looking at the use of hydrogen peroxide to kill the cyanobacteria as they’re much more susceptible to hydrogen peroxide than other types of algae that are in the system.
To briefly wrap up, there are many methods that can be used. However, when you look at these larger lakes like a system like Lake Erie or a system like Lake Okeechobee or Lake Winnipeg, those bloom mitigation strategies that may work well on small ponds or the smaller inland lakes will not be effective in these large systems. The only way that we will be able to deal and reduce and mitigate the blooms in these large lakes is by controlling the nutrients that are coming into them. That is the only way.
Keith:
Presumably, if much of this is due to agriculture … It reminds me, years ago, Dow Chemical Company, which had a fairly miserable reputation among folks as a major polluter and the toxic risk, took a hard look at its operations and completely changed around how the company practiced its business, because they realize that if they’re polluting, they’re letting valuable resources get loose. They’re not efficiently using those resources.
Is agriculture beginning to look hard at its practices to change how it addresses its phosphorus needs?
Dr. Davis:
Yes. We want to be clear not to demonize the agricultural community. They’re not sitting around with piles of phosphorus just waiting to disperse it. It’s a cost to them to put phosphorus on their fields. When we look at that, we have to make sure that we recognize that.
Just to quickly wrap up, we do work with farmers. There’s multiple researchers and agencies that are working with farmers to develop best management practices in order to reduce phosphorus application timing on their fields, because a) it will save them money, b) it will help protect the environment. There are a lot of farmers that are actively working with researchers to develop those methods.
Breakout Session Summaries
Carl:
We’re going to take about 8 minutes left here. We’ll run over the top of the hour for just a bit, and just want to remind you that this is only the first half. Now we’re really going to dive into the solutions, and you’ll be invited to join the Everglades Foundation, and the folks from Verb, who will take the controls, explain how you can participate. Take these ideas and challenges much further into real funded solutions with a $10 million prize. The George Barley Water Prize. Now we’re going to take a few minutes and hear a quick 2 minute report from each of our Circle of Blue reporters. I think we’ll start with how we started. We’ll start with Brett Walton. Brett, can you give us some highlights from your group? What did you hear?
Brett:
I can. Thanks, Carl. Jay and I, we talked about innovation, and how innovation doesn’t necessarily mean technology. A lot of people think about innovation, they think about the newest gadget that they might hold in their hands. We talked about how innovation can come in different flavors and forms. We have innovation in collaboration in partnerships, and innovation in policy, and often times a lot of these other forms of innovation are needed in order to expand a market, or to allow some of these technological innovations to flourish. Governments might need to drop certain legislative or legal barriers to allowing a new idea to come to market. An innovator might need more partnerships, and more members in its group to allow a new idea to be able to spread.
We talked about these changes in innovation. We also talked about how innovation is not necessarily a big, disruptive event. Sometimes innovation happens in small pivots and small steps. Jay said that the moment right now is one of the more exciting in his career because of the sustainable development goals, one of which is clean water, and reducing water pollution, and making sure water and sanitation are available for all. One of 17 sustainable development goals, all of which can have an innovative component to them.
Carl:
Great. Thank you. Circle of Blue’s Brett Walton. Appreciated that, and great points. Of course tracking along the sustainable development goals this is a global challenge. Cody. Cody Kasochek, a quick recap from your group with Debra Shore.
Codi:
Thanks, Carl. Yes, we talked with Debra Shore with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. She talked a little bit about why Chicago decided to take the steps to implement a nutrient recovery project at the Stickney Water Plant, which is the largest wastewater plant in the world. That just opened in May, and basically they’ve decided to take that step as a preemptive step ahead of regulations that might be coming down the line to reduce phosphorus further. Of course, Chicago discharges into the Mississippi River Watershed, and that can be a problem downstream in the Gulf of Mexico where it can fuel algal blooms, and the dead zone that appears there every year.
Basically she said that they were able to present to their customers, and to their board as an initiative that is really going to end up paying for itself. Eventually they are going to get phosphorus recovered from that process that can be used as fertilizer, and she talked about how that’s an important resource. Phosphorus isn’t just a waste product. It’s something that’s necessary for agriculture, and it will be into the future, and you really can’t get a synthetic version of it. It’s important to recycle that resource. She also mentioned that they would be happy to talk with other communities who are looking into doing something like this. It’s been tested out in some other communities in the US. Portland, Oregon for one, so they are looking towards that, and then also initiatives are a part of reducing phosphorus. Including the non-point source from agriculture storm water run-off, that sort of thing, that’s not going through a wastewater plant.
Carl:
Great. Thank you, Cody Kasochek of Circle of Blue. It tracks really well with the whole movement around the circular economy. There’s a major push to close the loop, so to speak. Closing the waste stream in China, and the US, and well beyond. Now to bring us home to the final group with Keith Schneider. Keith, give us a few final words from your session with Dr. Timothy Davis.
Keith:
Thanks, Carl. We had a really good conversation with Dr. Davis, who’s a molecular ecologist here in Michigan at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. He has global experience with algae blooms, and I think our conversation went in four ways. One, we talked about climate change. Two, we talked about distinguishing between phosphorus and nitrogen, which is more important. Three, we talked about regulation, and we ended up by talking about changing agricultural practices.
The climate change piece was interesting because I noted how in our work around the world on the many continents that we go to we’ve noticed that higher temperatures, more algae blooms. I asked him whether climate change was already affecting these algae blooms, and his answer was, “Yes, they are because the water is warming, and that chemical, biological interaction is producing more and larger algae blooms,” which he had noted in his original remarks. Distinguishing between phosphorus and nitrogen depends upon where you are. Both are very important. phosphorus is a powerful ingredient in the chemistry that produces algae blooms.
We talked a bit about regulation. I note that when I was a kid we had two seminal water pollution events. The Cuyahoga River catching on fire in Cleveland, and an oil spill in Santa Barbara that galvanized the country to form the Environmental Protection Agency, and Congress to pass the Clean Water Act, which would solve the initial algae problem in Lake Erie. I noted how in the 21st Century algae blooms, to me, seem to be signature Seminole water pollution event of its time, but hasn’t nearly produced the kind of galvanizing effect in legislatures or Congress, with the exception of a few states. He seemed to agree with that. He is a NOAA scientist, so I think he needs to be cautious about what he might say on the policy point. He did note that when the river that caught fire in Cleveland in ’69 there were eight fires that occurred before it before people paid attention, so I think that’s an interesting piece of history and we’ll see how the country responds.
Lastly, in agriculture, we talked about what kind of practices are available to reduce phosphorus loading off of agriculture. He cautioned not to demonize farmers. I think that’s a very good point, and secondly that he and other researchers are working closely with farmers to try to reduce the amount of phosphorus and nutrients that flow into rivers, and lakes, and streams on a non-point solution, but the phosphorus is a vital element to ensure that there’s enough food and enough productivity in the agriculture sector. I had a really interesting conversation with Dr. Davis.
Carl:
Great. Thank you. That’s Keith Schneider from Circle of Blue, and as Keith notes our coverage is global, and this is all part of that global water story. One of the key ones that on the radar ranging from the Stockholm International Water Institute, which has World Water Week coming in the end of August all the way to the World Economic forum and their annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland. Don’t step away. We’re only just getting started. I’d recommend that you stay at your desk, keep your phone on, keep your headset on, but just stand up for about 30 seconds, while I say some necessary thank yous.
We’ll hand the call off to the Everglades Foundation’s, George Barley Water Prize team, and to Verb, which will take you through the details of the solutions because as reporters we often cover the bad news around the world, and we rarely get to talk about, or hand off, or spotlight the solutions. The spotlight will be on you. First, I want to thank you to our guests and the team at Circle of Blue, and behind the scenes at the Everglades Foundation. For the ongoing coverage of the world’s most important story, I hope you’ll turn to Circle of Blue.org.
George Barley Water Prize Questions & Answers
Sarah:
If you have any questions at any time before we go into the Q&A, I just want to make sure you know that you can reach out to Barley Prize at goverb.com at any time. Or even myself, sarah@goverb.com. We have our handles here for Facebook, Twitter, and we also have a LinkedIn group for the Barley Prize there. We’d like to thank you all for listening to our presentation there. At this point, we’d like to open for Q&A. I’m sure there are many, many questions that you have as we’ve been going through this presentation. I’d like to point out that we’ll be taking the questions from the everyone chat box. If you start to see that you would like to put up a question, you can type into the everyone box and myself as well as my colleague Laura [Broderick 00:52], Dr. Melanie [Anaja 00:55] and Dr. Tom [Finland 00:00:57] and Dr. [Krober 00:00:58] will be able to take your questions.
Charlie:
This is Charlie from MaestroConference as well. Just for participants, you’ll notice down in the bottom left hand corner is that little chat icon. You can click on that chat icon. A couple of boxes will pop open. If you click on the everyone chat, you can just chat your questions there, and then that will get them to Sarah and the team.
Sarah:
I think this is the question here from Ed. It says, “Does the [inaudible 00:01:30] WTP for testing have an anaerobic digester and a CFC plant? Does it have a waste water treatment lagoon on site?” That’s a great question, Ed. I don’t think that we … We may still have someone from the Ministry of Ontario on, but I’d like to see if Dr. Melanie [Anaja 00:01:49], if you have any insights into Ed’s question here.
Tom:
This is Tom Van Lance.
Sarah:
Hi, Tom.
Tom:
I guess the short answer is yes, they do have those facilities, so it does have anaerobic digester and a lagoon.
Sarah:
Thanks, Tom. I have another question from Eric here. Can patented bacterias be used? Those that not only eat pollutants but the bad environmental consequences don’t occur. Eric, you’d like to know if you can [inaudible 00:02:30] directly in large waterways in the Everglades. We are looking for a variety of different solutions, especially in the earlier stages of the prize. Yeah, we’re looking for a variety of solutions, especially in earlier stages of the prize. Tom, I know we lost Melanie, but if you’d like to expand upon that, I’m happy to have you jump in there.
Laura:
The question is, can patented bacterias be used?
Tom:
Sorry, I was on mute there. We’ve tried to design the prize to be neutral with respect to the technology. We hope that any technology that people come up with that fits the footprint of what we had to do for the permit getting process will be [inaudible 00:03:12] for investigations. Really, the technology that you apply, use is [inaudible 00:03:17].
Sarah:
Thank you, Tom. I have a great question here from Hillary about the intellectual property rights. Would you like to share with her?
Laura:
Sure. Hillary, thank you for your question. I would recommend everyone download the detailed prize design document at barleyprize.com in the ‘about’ section. You’ll be able to download it. It’s a 50-page document. In section 9, it talks about the intellectual property and commercialization of the winning prize solution. The contestants will control and own all IP. The grand prize winner and the secondary prize winners’ technologies, if they fail to make the technology solution commercially available within 3 years of winning the prize, the Everglades Foundation will gain a right to license the technology to further develop it, but the technology still sits with the contestants who basically apply to the prize.
Sarah:
Thank you for the question, Hillary. That was a great one. I’m seeing here from Iris asking where you can get copies of the PowerPoint presentation and the various questions and comments made here, not only in this presentation but also in the breakout sessions. I believe Circle of Blue is handling that, but we will certainly ensure that this presentation is available to you, the competitors. As I mentioned, if you sign up on the George Barley Prize website, that is really a great place where you can continue to stay connected with us, get the latest news on the prize. We have a blog as well that we’ll be sending out. We will be in very strong email communication with you as well, so we’re looking for you to stay connected through that and continue to send you additional resources there.
I’m getting a question here from Stephen saying, “It appears from the description that the prize is really looking for treatment technologies of algae [inaudible 00:05:18] itself. Would the prize be interested in technologies that are about social networking and modeling to limit [inaudible 00:05:26]?” That’s a great question, Stephen. As Tom had mentioned, we really are looking .. We’ve looked to design this prize in such a way that we can remain neutral to the types applicants that we’re receiving, especially in the earlier stages. I think we would be able to even take this question offline if you would like and have a more technical deep dive with you, if you would like, on the George Barley Prize site.
Laura:
Just to add clarity to that too, Sarah. In addition to the prize for removing the phosphorous from water, there will be a sub-prize called the Phoenix Prize that grants the winning technology solution that demonstrates the best potential sale of recovered byproducts. There will be a prize for that. There will be additional work going on regarding driving conversation and social media around this topic. There’s not right now at present a specific sub-prize associated with social networking, but I love your feedback. If it’s something we can work with the Everglades Foundation to …
Sarah:
Thanks, Laura. I have a question here of why we have endeavored to include cold water and warm water weather technology and why we feel it’s combined. Tom, I think as we were designing this prize, it was really important for us to be able to have a globally applicable solution at the final stage as the $10 million winner. I think Tom, you can even provide some color to why we felt like that was important. I think just given the nature of the talks that we’ve listened to earlier on in this broadcast, because phosphorous solution is such a huge issue in various parts of the world beyond the Everglades, we felt like it was an important point to ensure that whatever team is able to secure the $10 million prize, that their solution works in both cold and warm water. Tom, would you like to add some color to that at all?
Tom:
Just to add, well 2 things. First, we recognize that to make this a globally applicable solution, a big part of where the phosphorous problems are are in temperate climates. Making sure that we have a solution that works in temperate climates as well is a very important part in making sure that the solutions are globally applicable. Secondly, I’d point out is that if the technology doesn’t necessarily work well in cold climates, there’s still an opportunity to go to grand prize, the final stage, and the $10 million will be awarded based on how your technology works in effectively a subtropical climate.
Sarah:
At any time during the next 4 years, or even all day today, if you have any additional questions for us, you can reach out at barleyprize@goverb.com and ask any questions that you have. I’m getting a question from Donald. Is the PowerPoint available online? We’re actually going to be able to send that out, as I mentioned before. From Chris here. It says, “It is necessary to enter all 4 stages?” Chris, that’s a great question. It’s not necessary to enter all 4 stages. You could enter starting in phase 1, excuse me, stage 1, or you could also bypass that stage of the competition and enter into stage 2 if you feel like you are ready for that when the time comes. You may also try to qualify directly from the pilot stage. The only requirement that we are looking for in terms of continuous application into the prize is from the pilot stage into the grand prize. We must have you enter the pilot stage in order to have you advance into the grand stage. That was a great question.
Melanie:
Melanie.
Sarah:
Yeah, great. You’re back. Thanks, Melanie. I’m glad you’re back.
Melanie:
I have a phone problem here.
Sarah:
That’s okay.
Melanie:
We decided to basically have a target as a total phosphorous, even though we know that [inaudible 00:09:43] phosphorous is the main factor that is leading to algae bloom. To make it easier for competitors, we decided to focus only on total phosphorous and not to distinguish between the [inaudible 00:10:00] or the phosphorous.
Sarah:
Thank you, Melanie. From Luca, can the proposed project solutions include socioeconomic aspects tackling these broader issues, or does it have to be a technology solution? No. It does not have to be a technology solution in the first stage. We of course are looking for something that actually will remove phosphorous from freshwater bodies in the later stages of the prize. We’re interested in hearing various aspects and ideas in the first stage. You’re welcome, Luca. Any other questions? Even as we’re looking at questions, you know, Melanie, I’m so glad you’re able to jump back in and join. Was there anything else that maybe perhaps you wanted to add?
I’m seeing here, “Could information that would demonstrate that it could graduate to further stages?” Yes, we would be looking for that. Again, that video pitch is an opportunity for you to be creative and show your personality. If you feel that part of the script you would like to include that information, we would be more than happy to see that.
Laura:
Sorry. This is Laura again. I realized that people couldn’t hear my last answer, so I just want to repeat it, the question being covering the costs to run the technologies. For the stage 1, stage 2 costs, those are very low cost. The contestant will bear the cost of participation. For the pilot prize, the Everglades Foundation will be covering the cost of setting up effectively the stage or the lab, whereby the pilot contestants will participate. The expected cost for them are the operating costs, the cost to actually run the solution over the test frame, test period for the grand stage in Florida. Again, the Foundation will be prepping the land and the site. The contestants will bear the operating costs to specifically run their solution over the 14-month test period, as well as provide a business plan that details the cost to scale the technology beyond the grand stage costs, as well as just give a capital and operating cost estimate to run the prize beyond the initial test phase.
Again, the Everglades will be covering through the setup costs to get physically going on the 2, the pilot stage and the grand stage. The contestants will bear the cost of specifically running and operating technology over the test frame.
Sarah:
Great question. Thank you for that. Thank you, Luca, for providing this article. Any other questions? Again, just would like to reiterate that at any time, you can reach out to barleyprize@goverb.com to have any of your more specific questions answered related to your own technologies or solutions if you have additional questions. I would just again like to encourage everyone to please go to the George Barley Prize site today, where you can also download as Laura and I have both mentioned many times the entire prize design report, which goes through in very great detail each of the scoring criteria, all of you judging criteria and information related to the terms and conditions and the legal and IP requirements for the prize.
On behalf of the Everglades Foundation and Verb and the entire Ministry, really want to thank everyone for participating in the call and for showing great interest, both in the breakout sessions. If there’s not any other questions, I really want to thank again the Everglades Foundation and really appreciate everyone’s participation and look forward to an amazing 4 years as we truly tackle this very important problem. Thank you so much.
J. Carl Ganter:
Hi there. Carl here. Just wanted to say thank you as well to Verb and to the Everglades Foundation and to our reporters and everybody working on this issue. This truly is probably one of the biggest stories on the planet unfolding now, so thank you.
Host: J. Carl Ganter
J. Carl Ganter is co-founder and director of Circle of Blue, the internationally recognized center for original frontline reporting, research, and analysis on resource issues with a focus on the intersection between water, food, and energy. He earned his MSJ in investigative and magazine writing at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism after graduating with honors from the university’s American Studies Program. Carl — an award-winning photojournalist, reporter, and broadcaster — is recognized for developing the keen skills that helped to shape the multimedia journalism era. He received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Innovation Award (2012), and he shared 2nd place in the Society of Environmental Journalist’s annual awards competition for photography with two other Circle of Blue photographers (2014). Carl is vice-chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water Security. For more than five years, he has served on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Navigating Peace Water Working Group. Carl lives with his wife and daughter in Traverse City, where he was raised and which now serves as the base of his global travel for Circle of Blue.
Senator Bob Graham
Senator Bob Graham is the former two–term governor of Florida and served for 18 years in the United States Senate. This is combined with 12 years in the Florida legislature for a total of 38 years of public service. As Governor and Senator, Bob Graham was a centrist, committed to bringing his colleagues together behind programs that served the broadest public interest. He was recognized by the people of Florida when he received an 83% approval ranking as he concluded eight years as Governor. Bob Graham is recognized for his leadership on issues ranging from education, economic development, health care and environmental preservation to his ten years of service on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — including eighteen months as chairman in 2001–2002. On July 15, 2016, the Obama administration declassified the previously secret “28 pages” of the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks that may shed light on the connection between Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., co-chaired the 911 Congressional Inquiry and has pursued the declassification since 2002.
Eric Eikenberg
Appointed to the position of CEO by the Everglades Foundation’s Board of Directors in July of 2012, Eric Eikenberg has extensive policy and political experience in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. During his time in public service, Eikenberg served as Chief of Staff to former Governor Charlie Crist and former U.S. Representative E. Clay Shaw. Immediately preceding his joining the Everglades Foundation, Eikenberg served as senior policy advisor at the law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP, co-chairing the firm’s Florida Government Advocacy Team with former Governor Bob Martinez. As the CEO of the Everglades Foundation, Eikenberg leads the Foundation’s science, advocacy, communications, and legal teams, which are nationally recognized for their expertise in Everglades restoration. A graduate of the American University and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Eric and his family live in Miami.
Debra Shore
Debra Shore was elected to the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago in 2006, and was re-elected in 2012. A strong advocate for resource recovery and cleaning up the Chicago waterways, she received the Public Officials Award from the Water Environment Federation in 2013. Debra is president of the board of directors for the Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership (IWIL) and president of the board for Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette; she also serves on the boards of the Great Lakes Protection Fund and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute. She lives with her partner-in-life, Kathleen Gillespie, in Skokie, Illinois. She has climbed 42 of Colorado’s 54 mountains more than 14,000’ high.
Maurice R. Ferré MD
Maurice R. Ferré MD is a Board Member of the Everglades Foundation and is the Chair of the George Barley Water Prize Committee. Dr. Ferré is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors for INSIGHTEC. He brings over 20 years of experience in the medical device industry. Before INSIGHTEC, Dr. Ferré served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of MAKO Surgical Corp, a transformational robotic surgical company that he co-founded in 2004. The company was IPO’d in 2008 and sold to Stryker Corp. for $1.65 billion in 2013. Prior to MAKO, Dr. Ferré was Founder, CEO and President of Visualization Technology Inc. (1993-2002). VTI became the world leader in image guided surgery for ENT, cranial and orthopedic procedures. The Company was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2002. Dr. Ferré received his Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health from Boston University in 1992. He was also the recipient of the prestigious Ernest & Young 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Dr Ferré is an active board member with the Everglades Foundation, and the boards of Advamed, Boston University and Endeavor.
Tom Kaszas
Tom Kaszas, P.Eng., Director, Environmental Innovations Branch (EIB), Environmental Programs Division (EPD), Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change . As the Director of Environmental Innovations Branch Tom leads a wide variety of initiatives that bridge the gap between regulatory policy development and field implementation. Projects include the development of implementation of programs, new Regulations, and pilot projects designed to test regulatory concepts and approaches as well as projects supporting the implementation and deployment of innovative Environmental technologies in Ontario. Tom joined the ministry from McCain Foods where he was Director, Global Environmental Sustainability, responsible for developing and implementing McCain’s environmental sustainability strategy as well as the day to day environmental management of the company’s 50 facilities located in 18 countries. He has broad experience and significant technical expertise in the areas of energy and water management, green energy, wastewater treatment and recycling across a wide variety of industries. Tom holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Chemical Engineering) from the University of Ottawa and is a licensed member of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). Tom is known for his ability to work across organizations and with internal and external stakeholders on a wide variety of environmental projects to develop and achieve mutually beneficial goals and objectives.
Jay Corless
Jay Corless BIO Jay Corless is Senior Director for Innovation at the UN Foundation. In this position he seeks to identify, showcase, and scale innovations that deliver impact on international development goals. His professional work spans two decades within the UN System and the private sector. He has broad work experience in communication, online technologies, cultural diplomacy, design innovations, policy development, and project management. At UNESCO, in 1995, he launched the organization’s first generation website, oversaw the deployment of the agency’s first content management system, and developed both the internal and external communication strategies for the agency. In 2002, he devised the organization’s U.S. re-entry public information campaign. The successful campaign contributed to the U.S. Government’s decision to rejoin UNESCO after an 18-year absence. On U.S. re-entry, he joined the Office of the Spokesperson to then Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. He also coordinated two United Nations Pavilions at the World Expos of 1998 and 2005. After a 13-year career with UNESCO, Jay decided to leave the organization determined to find new ways to address global development challenges. His research led to an M.A. from London’s University of the Arts. After his studies, he held management and development roles with the London Design Festival, Design Miami, and Design Philadelphia. He also filmed, edited and authored an online documentary on the role of design in shaping the future of American cities entitled Cities x Design. More recently he has contributed to UN publications on policy design, project design and the Creative Economy.
