The Project will address samples collected from public access lakes and streams in Polk County, Florida. (See “Attachment 1, Figure 1” Location Map). Studies will be conducted on publicly accessible lakes, to gain a better understanding of nutrient loadings and HABs trends in Polk County. The successful Proposer will select and prioritize ten HAB study lakes, the County will review and give a final approval of the lakes selected prior to the study beginning. The goal is to use innovative technology to gain a better insight of HAB threats to Polk County, by creating baseline trends and distribution of HABs. This work provides the foundation for and will build the standard operating procedures to detect, monitor and mitigate HABs. The long-term goal would be to use the findings of this work to address additional waterbodies in Polk County. Innovative technology will be used in primary areas related to HAB: prediction of HAB will use multi-spectral camera with software, HydroCycle-PO4 sonde (or similar technology), YSI EXO2 deployable multi-parameter sondes, and Discrete Analyzer to detect nitrogen and phosphorus in ambient samples; detection of HAB species and toxins using a combination of FloCam Cyano (or similar technology) to identify cyanobacteria, ABRAXIS test kits to identify presence of toxins, and ABRAXIS ELISA or other comparable technology to quantify toxins or other similar methods; and WasteShark autonomous drone.
