Aquafluor Handheld Fluorometer
12/2007 - Laurel Standley - Silent Spring Institute, Newton, MA "The primary barrier to our goal of systematically screening adequate numbers of water samples for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals is expense, with analysis for each sample costing approximately $1,000. To guide our selection of water samples, we must often use indirect measures of potential contamination, including land use designations, such as residential density, and/or the presence of other wastewater contaminants, such as nutrients. These approaches are helpful but limited. The best proxies for EDCs and pharmaceuticals, beyond incurring the cost of measuring them directly, are compounds in wastewater that behave similarly in ground and surface waters. Fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs), which are added to clothes, detergents, and paper products to brighten their appearance, fit these characteristics; thus, we propose to use them as proxies for EDCs and pharmaceuticals in ground and surface waters. Use of a fluorometer to screen for the presence of wastewater-associated FWAs would greatly streamline sample screening and allow us to more accurately select samples to submit to a laboratory for the more costly analysis of EDCs and pharmaceuticals. For example, on a recent sampling trip a colleague used his fluorometer to pinpoint the location of wastewater plumes to ponds, greatly facilitating our sampling efforts. With a donation of your company's fluorometer, we would have this screening capability available for all our projects." Dr. Laurel Standley, Senior Scientist, and Megan McAuliffe, Student Intern, collect samples from a pond on Cape Cod to test for the presence of wastewater-derived endocrine disrupting compounds and pharmaceuticals.
	Trilogy Laboratory Fluorometer

6/2007 - Dr. Brad Taylor - UNELLEZ, Venezuela and Dartmouth College
"I will use a Turner Trilogy for a number of projects including environmental monitoring, ecological research, methods development, and for teaching students and "paralimnologist", or responsible lay persons committed to collecting baseline water quality data. A large portion of my research is conducted in Venezuela, South America, in the ecologically diverse Los Llanos region, that extends from the base of the Andes to the Orinoco River floodplain. My research is based out of the nearby university, the Universidad Nacional Experimental de Los Llanos Ezequiel Zamora (UNELLEZ), located in the city of Guanare, which is where the instrument would be located and shared with Venezuela researchers that do not have access to a fluorometer. My current research projects focus on the effects of human-induced changes in species diversity, either species removals or introductions, on nutrient cycling, particularly nitrogen in Neotropical rivers."

Aquafluor Handheld Fluorometer

6/2007 - Dr. Johan van der Molen - University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
"The St. Lucia lake system is the largest estuarine system in Africa with a water surface of 300 km2 and a shoreline of over 400 km. However, the mouth of this estuary has been closed between July 2002 and March 2007. This has had a major impact on the entire ecosystem. Although the estuary is a World Heritage site, very little research has been undertaken on the lower levels of the food web. Indeed, the algae of the St. Lucia system have received little attention from researchers concerning their biomass and especially their productivity. Phytoplankton productivity in estuaries plays an essential role in element cycling, water quality, and food supply to heterotrophs. The aim of this study is to provide quantitative data of biomass and productivity for phytoplankton and microphytobenthos and to analyse the correlation with biotic and abiotic parameters."

From left to right: Johan van der Molen (Postdoc), Prof Renzo Perissinotto, Deena Pillay (Postdoc)