Researchers develop tools to test for airborne blue-green algae toxins in Southwest Florida

This is Gulf Coast Life I’m Mike Kiniry. Thanks for joining us. Southwest Florida in recent years has been prone to harmful algae blooms. Both red tides offshore and blue green algae or cyanobacteria blooms. And freshwater. Lake Okeechobee is experiencing a large bloom right now. The Florida Department of Health says water from areas with blue green algae can make people an animal sick, and it invites people to stay away from these waters. But it does not say clearly what kinds of sick people might get, just that toxins can cause irritation. Recent research found Alzheimer's like brain changes in dolphins linked to cyanobacteria blooms in the Indian River lagoon on the other coast, and decades of research have found associations with proximity to blue green algae blooms and neurodegenerative disorders like ALS and Alzheimer's disease. Brand new research from the Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in partnership with Calusa Waterkeeper, tested whether these toxins can be aerosolized or travel in the air. The data shows that while very few large scale cyanobacterial bloom events were observed at sampling locations across southwest Florida, cyanobacterial and algae toxins were present in low concentrations in the majority of the samples. This means Southwest Floridians may be chronically exposed to low concentrations of cyanobacterial toxins. Joining me today to dig into this new research is the study's lead scientist, Doctor James Metcalf. He's a senior scientist focusing on cyano toxins at brain chemistry labs. Welcome to the show, Doctor Metcalf. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. And also joining me is Jason Pim. He's Board President of Calusa Waterkeeper. Thanks for your time. Jason. It's good to meet you. Hi. Good to meet you. And thanks for having us on. So for starters, Doctor Metcalf, tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do. You've been studying cyano toxins pretty much your whole career. If I've got it right. Yes. So I've been studying these compounds for about 30 years, all over the world, in different places, from the UK through to the deserts of Qatar, Florida, up into Montana, Utah. And obviously, I've been very interested in how people expose what they're exposed to. And so as a result of that research, I ended up in Jackson Hole as a scientist looking at the occurrence of these toxins and the potential issues surrounding exposure to these toxins. How long have you been with brain chemistry labs? I think since before it was called that. Right. Yeah. So I mean, it's been over ten years working with the brain chemistry labs. It was previously called the Institute for Ethno Medicine. But we've we've had a we have a great lab here in Wyoming being able to do lots of fundamental and important research. And being nonprofit means that we can really drive the research without having to worry about other things that may affect other organizations by just being having that free hand answer those scientific questions that we are so curious about. Jason, tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do with Calusa Waterkeeper. Yeah, so I grew up here in Southwest Florida in Cape Coral, boating and fishing, and I became a pretty active volunteer kind of from the start. In 2017. The Waterkeeper, Coosa Waterkeeper used to be called CRC, the River watch. And about 2016 is when they rechartered as a water keeper member organization. And we have a Ranger program and a lot of very passionate volunteers in addition to a team of staff. So we've dealt with some serious blue green algae blooms here. Listeners will remember if they've been around the 2018 2019 bad ones that started up in the lake and wound up in the river and in the canals in Cape Coral. Research on airborne toxins was done a little bit back then, but it wasn't very robust. Doctor Metcalf, this new paper is titled Developing Tools to assess Airborne Cyanobacterial Toxins in Southwest Florida. Can you just start by explaining broadly the approach taken for this study? So I originally met the Calusa Waterkeeper when we had the 2018 bloom in the Caloosahatchee, and it was a very significant bloom as everyone who was there remembers. It was certainly contained a lot of toxins. And, you know, you can see the bloom in the water. You can see, you know, people fishing and taking samples of that of fish and other organisms from that, that bloom area. And we've known for many years that if you consume water that's contaminated, if you eat fish that's contaminated, then you too can end up having some toxic effects as a result of that exposure. But we also known for many years that these organisms are in the air. I mean, there are plenty of papers out there describing that they can survive. I mean, there are some scientists that have actually strapped to the outside of spacecraft and put them into low Earth orbit, and they survive that environment. So this leads into the question of, well, if I'm walking past a bloom in a river or on a lake, you can certainly smell it. And after a few years of being around these organisms, you kind of get very sensitized to the smell of them and know that they're there. So that leads on to, well, are they in the air around those blooms, and if so, would there be any toxic compounds either present within the cells or present as just free chemicals in that air sample, and which you can then breathe in? Because if you have contaminated water, you don't have to drink it. If you have contaminated fish, you don't have to eat those either. But if there's toxins in the air, then unfortunately we have to breathe. There is no way of avoiding that particular process. So having worked with the collusive Waterkeeper since the 2018 bloom, and because of how significant that bloom actually was, the close of Waterkeeper and Doctor Aparicio decided that we needed some kind of device that sort of standardized the collection of air samples. Scientists themselves tend to be very creative when it comes to making devices like air samplers. So in this case, we created a device that had a filter at the front. And the idea there is that in the air, obviously you've got free chemicals, you've got particles, you've got all kinds of stuff that's floating around. The filter traps a certain fraction of that air sample, and then the air passes through into a liquid. That vessel of liquid then dissolves all the chemicals that are in the air. And then the rest of the outcomes out in the air pump. So we wanted to create a device that would take the particles in the air, the free chemicals in the air, something that was portable, that you had a carrying case, you're not sort of carrying lots of bags and boxes. It's sort of self-contained. And we found locations where we could set up the device for 24 hours and take these air samples at the locations. And at the same time, we also took a water sample, sort of represent what was in the immediate vicinity of that air sample to compare our analyzes to. And this led to the creation of what we call the atom device, this sampling device that is the focus of that publication. Is this device novel? I mean, I know that there's been other air sampling done before. Doctor Mike Parsons did some back in 2019. Is this a new approach that might provide greater clarity? I think it's more putting out the idea of we want to be able to start comparing air samples. I mean, it isn't exactly novel, but it's certainly a device that brings in these two fractions. And some people don't put a filter on, some people do put a filter on, some don't have the impinge or the liquid in that device. So I think we're trying to start this conversation of, I want to know what's in the air. So therefore how do I compare my findings to, say, someone like Professor Parsons or, or the people saying around Lake Erie or the Great Lakes. So now we can start getting accurate assessment and accurate quantification of these compounds. In addition, the the machinery and the equipment we have here in the brain chemistry labs means that we can do some very exact analyzes of these toxins that are present in these air samples, again, to provide robustness and reassurance that we are seeing accurate quantification and identification of these toxins. Jason, what role did clues Waterkeeper play in this research? Did you guys help facilitate placing the devices or something like that? Well, really, the whole design of the units were for some of the from some of the volunteers and our Waterkeeper at the time, John Cassini, James mentioned Manuel Aparicio, and we had really about 4 or 5 team members, volunteers with the Waterkeeper, who kind of went through some different iterations of designing these kits. You know, a few people with engineering backgrounds, I think you see the impingement and like the Fritz, some of this kind of inspired by some aquarium hobby work that one of the engineers had done. So it is like you mentioned, Doctor Parsons, his he had different cassettes and filters, levels of filters to, to sample the air. And we just kind of just a different approach to trying to capture. The air samples and kind of the approximate what a person breathes. Like they get set up at about about head height and sample for 24 hours to try and mimic an exposure by. It's funny that you mentioned the the aquarium thing because when I, when I, you know, dug into what in pinger means, it's basically bubbling bubbles through water if I've got it right. And that reminded me of my aquariums and even, you know, efforts to put CO2 into the water using bubblers and things like that. So where where were these things located? There's 21 of them. Can you give me a breakdown? Either one of you on the locations around southwest Florida where they were. There's an approximate map if you look at the study, but in general, it's along waterfront properties along the Caloosahatchee Pass and Sanibel area. Doctor Metcalf, how far is it possible to say, like where toxins that were found originated? Are you able to determine if a toxin was found in a sample on Matlab where it came from? Well, I think that's where the research needs to go next, is that we know that there's a risk, but we don't really understand the significance of that risk. We know, for example, I also do work at Lake Erie with Bowling Green State University. And we know there, for example, that the sprays can be generated from wind action on the lake itself. So those can create aerosols, and those aerosols can certainly travel some distance. It's really difficult to sort of say which toxin came from which location, because many of these compounds are also widely produced in a number of blooms. But we started to think about how can we include, you know, aspects of meteorology looking, having the right number of samples in the right place. We also talked about the fact that with the the bubble of the impinge that we have on that device, it is possible that you could actually take test kits out with you and start doing very rapid monitoring. I mean, we need to build up a large data set of the types, the concentrations of these compounds in our samples. I mean, that's really what we need to do so that we can start to map out what's going on. I mean, it's kind of put it in a way that we're talking about toxins in air when we've just had these, you know, massive wildfires that have been bringing changing the poor, changing the air quality to a really poor air quality across large swathes of the country. So I think it's bringing home this idea of what is in the air. I mean, the air is something that we take for granted. We don't really think about it as a we think it's always generally clean and we breathe fine. But I think we need to start now. Looking at the research of, like you mentioned and say, well, how far are these things traveling, where are they coming from? Where are they going to? Who is in the path of the the actual exposure route of that of that air sample? And again, having standardized collection devices like the atom means that we can really start to compare different sites and different locations by having a mouth high height, having it run for a certain period of time, having a certain volume of liquid, it allows scientists to really begin to understand the data, understand the occurrence of these toxins in This is Gulf Coast Life, I'm joined today by Doctor James Metcalf. He's a senior scientist focusing on cyano toxins at Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was the lead scientist on a new paper titled Developing Tools to Assess Airborne Cyanobacterial Toxins in Southwest Florida, published earlier this month in the journal toxins. It presents evidence that toxins produced by cyanobacterial blooms are aerosolized and potentially being inhaled by people far from the actual contaminated water bodies. I'm also joined by Jason Pimm. He's Board President at Calusa Waterkeeper. They worked with Brain Chemistry Labs on this research. The paper said that the samples found cyanobacterial toxins, even though there wasn't really a pronounced bloom at the time. Presumably that means either they travel far, or it doesn't really take much of a bloom to put toxins in the air. I guess, Doctor Metcalf. Yeah, I mean, you're correct. We found out of all the samples we had one sample, which was a balloon that you would say would be, you know, a significant health risk. So the question arises of where are these toxins coming from? So one possibility is that they can travel long distances or as you also alluded to, maybe they can be easily aerosolized from a bloom sample. And certainly, you know, down in Southwest Florida, you can get certainly winds that can create these lake spray aerosols. And some data suggests that they can travel significant distances. And I think again, we need to we need to know what is what is the reality of that situation. Do they actually travel far or not? I mean, no one can really definitively say yes or no. Whether that's the case. The paper also mentioned nasal swabs showing people who had no direct water contact still had the presence of these toxins. Can you talk some about that? Yeah, that's a previous study, but I think Adam Schafer, he's down down in Florida as well. And again, trying to understand the exposure routes. Obviously when you're breathing and natal swab very is very easy to take. It can be uncomfortable, as we all remember from the Covid era, that it's not the most pleasant. But if in those studies they were taking nasal swabs before and after recreation and finding that there were no increases in concentrations of toxins in those swabs, again, suggesting that there is toxins present in the air, people are breathing them in, you know, and certainly try to understand the effect of those toxins on lungs is, is is increasingly becoming important. There are many researchers who are actively investigating what actually happens when your lungs are exposed to these things. So I think it's one of the last sort of frontiers of this science is that we need to understand chronic exposure. Inhalation, I think, is a is an important piece of that puzzle that we have to have a better handle on to actually work out whether air quality needs to be improved. And ultimately, if we can improve the the environment, if we can reduce the blooms themselves, then they'll reduce the concentration in the air. So I think we need to start having more of a holistic approach and thinking of, well, the environmental health and the human health are extremely important, very intricately intertwined. So if we can improve environmental health, then my hope is that the human health will also improve as well. I talked to Doctor Paul Cox from Brain Chemistry Labs recently on the show. We did a whole show on the concept of the exposure, and he mentioned a neurologist named Doctor Elijah, I think is how you say it. He's at Dartmouth Medical School, and he's done some really interesting research showing proximity to blue green algae and increased risk of ALS. But correct me if I'm wrong. Or maybe you don't know this, but I don't think his research is really focused as much on aerosolized as it is on direct exposure. Or is that correct? So doctor stumbles, work is looking. So he's an ALS physician. Dartmouth Medical School and his well, what he did was many years ago was he started mapping where his patients lived. And he found that many of them lived around lakes with something about tears or blooms. We did some other work. He said. He had other patients that ate lots of blue crabs, so he didn't look at exposure route. It was more of the fact that there is seems to be a connection between where a person was living, potentially some of their lifestyle issues or attributes that they had. And that kind of led this idea of, well, there is something in the environment. It could be one thing like breathing, it could be a multiple things, it could be from water, it could be from contact sports, it could be from inhalation. And again, that would be fascinating to follow up to say, well, what kinds of bacterial toxins are present around these lakes where we have these sort of high densities of ALS patients? Are these detectors, you know, how much do they cost? I'm what I'm trying to get at is, is I can imagine a citizen science effort where people volunteer to have them, you know, at their homes or place them or something like that. Right. We built six atom units so far. In the grand scheme of things, they don't cost that much to to buy all the equipment and put them together. The, the, the expense is the process of processing the samples, doing all this, all the testing, which James and Brain Chemistry Labs were a phenomenal partner in, in helping a small organization like ours be able to process those samples that we took. That's the bulk of the expense. And, you know, but it's it's really important that we continue to do that testing to provide more baseline data both away and during harmful algal blooms to try and better understand the exposure. As I understand it, our environmental reporter Tom Bayles just did a story about Lake O's. Got a lot of algae in it right now. Have you tried these detectors? You know, very close, very proximate to an active bloom? Yes. There is one active bloom in the samples that are in this study. That's kind of the thing that we're you know, we're working on our protocols as to how far we're, you know, we're resource limited, how far we're willing to travel to a bloom. But I think as more people, if more people get interested in this science, you know, we have other Waterkeeper organizations even like one is in Nantucket and then other Florida water keepers who are may be interested in this work. And, you know, the the nice milestone that this study does is, is document the methodology we use and start to create a repeatable method to get a lot more data, as James was mentioning, just, you know, more deployments, that's more data and informs science. We're pretty much out of time. I'm going to give you the last word, Doctor Metcalf. I mean, what's next for this research? Just, you know, trying to get more data collected? Yeah, I think certainly the Southwest Florida, I think is a very important location. And, you know, you have different you have a very unique climate compared to a lot of other parts of the country. I would like to take it up to the Great Lakes. They also have very significant bacterial blooms, and I think that would be a natural progression to try new locations. From what we've experienced with the Calusa Waterkeeper, I think the Waterkeeper Network is essential. I think if we can galvanize that network into identifying locations or or, you know, particular blooms, particular lakes where there are significant water issues, then they could really advance that research and sort of become sentinels for clean water and protecting water and ultimately reducing these blooms to control the problem of airborne toxins. Doctor James Metcalf is a senior scientist focusing on cyano toxins at Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Thank you so much for your time, Doctor Metcalf. Thank you. And Jason Pim is board president of Calusa Waterkeeper. Thanks for your time as well, Jason. Thank you so much. Our show today was produced by yours truly, with audio production by Matt Krause and video production by David Oquendo. For now, thanks for listening. I'm Mike Kiniry This is WGCU-FM, Fort Myers 90.1 WMKO Marco Island 91.7 FM. We are NPR. For Southwest Florida.