Protecting Florida’s Water Resources

Abstract

Florida’s water resources face significant challenges, including harmful algal blooms, polluted lakes and estuaries, and red tide events. These issues are driven in part by nutrient pollution from urban stormwater runoff, aging sewer infrastructure, and legacy loading from the sediments. This presentation will explore the current state of water quality in Florida and highlight key solutions. We will also focus on our partnership with SiREM for the assessment of nutrient flux from lake sediments. This work utilizes established fractionation methods and sediment core column testing to enhance our understanding of nutrient flux so that appropriate lake restoration plans can be developed.

The Presenters

Kevin TyreScientist
Kevin Tyre is a scientist with Geosyntec Consultants specializing in surface water and pollutant source tracking studies to address water quality challenges related to excess nutrient loading and bacterial contamination. With 11 years of experience in Florida water quality, he has led a variety of projects to evaluate water quality, monitor flow, conduct sampling, assess stormwater BMPs, develop lake budgets, mitigate harmful algal blooms, and identify pollution sources.
Jacques Smith, Ph.D.Senior Scientist and Laboratory Manager
Jacques has over five years of experience in environmental laboratory testing and now manages the SiREM Knoxville laboratory. Primarily schooled in molecular biotechnology, he broadened his technical skill set at SiREM by becoming proficient at planning and executing bench-scale treatability studies to generate innovative and unbiased remedial solutions. Areas of expertise include next generation sequencing, CCR waste reclamation, leaching studies, settling and dewatering and wastewater treatment processes. Jacques also has extensive field experience that includes ground- and surface water sampling, site clearing and drilling oversight, soil core and sediment sampling, PFAS sampling and stream inspections.