Rozalia Project visits the windy city and gets national press!

Rozalia Project headed out to Chicago for 5 days of debris clean up, outreach, and research from October 9-14.  We began our trip working with 20 colloquium students from the Lindblom Math and Science Academy.  These eager and excited students visit the Judd Goldman Sailing Center, part of the Chicago Parks District, on Burnham Harbor, Lake Michigan each week to learn everything from how to sail, to environmental issue that affect their lake to soon, building their own Sea Perch ROVs! Rachael and I joined them our first full day in Chicago to pick up marine debris, introduce them to our state-of-the-art VideoRay ROV and run some of our STEM activities.

The first piece of debris we removed from the lake was a chair, lifted from the lake floor by the ROV and pulled onto the dock with our own hands to shrieks as mud, cold water, and zebra mussels dripped from this eerie piece of trash.  We continued trash hunting, removing cups, fishing lures, tires, and beach towels, but one of the coolest discoveries was when a crayfish crawled out from inside a tire that we removed.  While the students yelped, I lifted the small creature up to allow everyone to examine the important aquatic animal that had made its home out of marine debris. 

Following our underwater trash hunt, the students removed 731 pieces of debris from off the land and after a wind shift, the students bravely laid on their bellies on the dock unable to stop themselves from picking up over 40 pieces of debris floating on the surface of the water using their hands.  We had so much fun working with these students and look forward to hearing about their continued efforts to pick up marine debris and as they make their own ROVs!

Later that afternoon we worked with 10 more students at the Judd Goldman Sailing Center from the Afterschool Matters program wrapping up the day with a very intact and useable fishing pole recovery.  The next day we journeyed to Philip Rogers Elementary School where we worked with over 200 students and heard some great, intriguing questions from the students about marine debris.  Following the elementary school, Rozalia Project went to Chicago Yacht Club to work with 60 high school sailors.  Again, the enthusiastic students helped us remove over 300 pieces of debris from the land surround the yacht club and about 20 pieces of debris from the water, a majority of it plastic cups (yes, many of them with the CYC logo).  That evening we presented our work to the Chicago Yacht Club members who then joined us to remove even more plastic cups from the water using the ROV.

On Friday, we had the unique opportunity to work with The McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum and The Friends of Chicago River.  Though it was quite cold, and of course very breezy, we removed plastic bags, sunglasses, and a broken street lamp from the Chicago River and worked with close to 100 Chicago residents and visitors who stopped by our tent outside the museum.  The river was a beautiful setting to trash hunt and the museum and Friends of Chicago River were gracious hosts who we can’t wait to work with again in the future!

In the afternoon on Friday, Rachael, our newest intern Carly, Karen from US sailing and I rigged up our neuston net on a whaler from Columbia Yacht Club to research floating microplastics in Chicago’s urban waters of Lake Michigan.  We found very few pieces per square kilometer, though this could be due to the fact that this is not the busy season for the city and there was an onshore breeze instead of an offshore breeze.  As always with Rozalia Project, this work was very eye-opening, rewarding and so much fun.  Lake Michigan is a wonderful place to do research and the shoreline of Chicago is stunning, especially decked out in Fall colors.

That night, NBC Chicago featured our work on the evening news and on their website with this excellent video: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video/#!/multimedia/Underwater-Robot-Collects-Trash/173790191

and then NBCnews.com picked up the story: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/12/14393529-trash-hunting-robotic-submarine-dives-into-chicago-river?lite

Our final two days in Chicago were spent at Coloumbia Yacht Club where we worked with students from Rickover Naval Academy, the yacht club’s junior sailors, and Program Directors who were attending the regional US Sailing Programs Meeting.  Saturday evening we had another great opportunity to set up a table and work with participants as part of the US Sailing Speaker Series where Dave Perry came to discuss racing tactics.  Over two days at Columbia Yacht Club we picked up a shoe, a glove, more plastic bags and cups and rounded out our visit by removing another chair from the waters around the yacht club!

Rozalia Project had a very successful trip to Chicago and we are thankful for the hospitality and collaboration of our hosts: The Lindblom Math and Science Academy, the Judd Goldman Sailing Center, Philip Rogers Elementary School, Chicago Yacht Club, The McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum, The Friends of the Chicago River, Columbia Yacht Club, the Rickover Naval Academy, Carly, Jeanie, Judy and Linda.  We can’t wait to return to the windy city and look forward to continuing our National Trash Tour in California in two weeks! 

Check out photos and videos from our trip on facebook.com/rozaliaproject, youtube.com/rozaliaproject and pinterest.com/rozaliaproject. 

              

Jumping right in: A new Intern's Perspective

I arrived in New York on Sunday evening, joining the Rozalia Project crew, along with another new intern, Zane. We quickly discovered that we have a bit in common, we are both from Michigan, and both go to Eckerd College in Florida. Most importantly, we are both passionate about finding and removing marine debris in any way that we can! The next day, we jumped right into duties as Rozalia Project spent the day at Larchmont Yacht Club. Throughout the day, we educated young sailors on marine debris and its impact on our oceans and waterways. I learned some shocking statistics from Rebecca as she presented- it takes around 450 years for a plastic bottle to break down into tiny microplastic! Kids and adults alike were enthusiastic in taking part in the  ROV navigation and were even more excited to pull up some trash. Our most interesting find was a fire extinguisher (Rachael and I accidentally discovered that it still works!). Zane and I were even able to practice driving the ROV on our very first day!

We spent our second day in New York at Beach Point Yacht Club and American Yacht Club. We had 3-year-olds, our youngest participants ever, at Beach Point in the morning. In the afternoon, we showed more students the ROVat American Yacht Club and pulled up a broom! Zane and I experienced our first Trash Race on shore with the kids and it was a whirlwind of trash and fun!

Wednesday brought a change of scene as we joined sailing students aboard the schooner Quinnipiack in New Haven, Connecticut and launched the ROV from her deck. Overall, we collected more than 286 pieces of marine debris and worked with 300 people of all ages over those three days!

The Rozalia Project crew is now in Portland Maine, where we will be educating, ROV-ing and collecting for the next few days. I am psyched to set sail towards Boston later in the week, as I am a beginner at sailing and I'm curious to see what debris may be awaiting us at the bottom of Boston Harbor.

Sarah Kollar, Rozalia Project Intern

Rozalia Project Intern Blog: What Lies Beneath... The Charles

This post, fifth in our Intern Blog Series, is from Rozalia Project's first intern, Laura Dunphy. Laura worked with Rozalia Project Founder/Director Rachael Miller, in 2010 while she was a senior at Champlain Valley Union HS in Vermont and will be joining American Promise for the second time this summer. Laura is currently studying (and sailing) at MIT on the Charles River in Boston...

Rozalia Project Intern Blog: What Lies Beneath…the Charles 

 I first worked with the Rozalia Project back in the fall of 2010. One drizzly morning, Rachael and I drove the ROV down to Boston for a day of trash pickup on the Charles River. The river had been stirred up by rain, and visibility was so poor that we could barely see the claws of the robot on the monitor despite the fact that they are literally inches away from the camera. Although the water was only 2 or 3 feet deep, from where I stood on the dock, I could not make out the bottom. As the ROV approached the riverbed, Rachael excitedly called me over to the monitor. To my astonishment, the bottom of the river was COVERED in trash. I ran back to the edge of the dock to try and see what the ROV could see. I still saw nothing. It was at that moment that I realized what a powerful tool the Rozalia Project has at their disposal. In mere minutes I had been exposed to an underwater world that would most likely shock most Bostonian pedestrians.

 The Charles River has struggled with pollution for over a century. In the 1960’s submerged cars, raw sewage spills and toxic discharges were not uncommon. As recently as 1995, the EPA gave the river a “D” rating and advised those who fell in it to get a tetanus shot. After decades of effort from groups such as the Charles River Watershed Association, the river is finally looking better. It was most recently rated at a “B+.” (“Charles)

 While the river today is better than it once was, the pile of trash Rachael and I gathered in only a few hours (along with sonar images of larger, irretrievable objects such as tires) proves that the Charles is still polluted. Although waste treatment plants and industrial facilities have gotten better about what they release into the environment, average people still continue to litter. The majority of the (identifiable) objects we recovered that day were common items such as bottles, cans and clothing. It just goes to show that if people did not litter, there would be much less debris in the water. Small actions and slight lifestyle changes can go a long way toward protecting the environment.


 As I blissfully piloted the ROV and collected items covered in black sludge, I had no idea that I would be sailing on the Charles practically every day for the next four years! Now I am even more motivated to keep the river clean. Although I do not have the technology to clean the bottom of the river, I have been making an effort to collect floating debris whenever possible. I am looking forward to reuniting with the Rozalia Project and the underwater world!

 Works Cited: "Charles River Watershed Association." Charles River Watershed Association. Web. 09 Apr. 2012.


Improvements and remaining problems the river faces: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/07/20/the-polluted-past-and-promising-future-of-the-charles-river/

Anemones and not so much marine debris off a tall ship in the Port of LA

Rozalia Project picked up its first piece of Pacific marine debris (the first of many!) with the VideoRay ROV Tuesday! Thanks to Nancy Richardson and the crew of the tall ship Exy Johnson, we had a very cool launch pad as well. The Exy Johnson is docked along the main channel of the Port of Los Angeles and we went aboard to show off the VideoRay Pro 4 and our trash-hunting capabilities to some great people from ReGreen, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, and the LA Maritime Museum.

The tall ship Exy Johnson through the eyes of the VideoRay.

We had the VideoRay in 25-35 feet of water with HUGE container and car carrier ships cruising in and out 50 yards away right after sunset. And we saw some very cool creatures: tube anemones and sea pens as well as crabs and one big fish (not sure what it was). Surprisingly, we did not find a lot of trash in the this part of the river. Some of the locals said that the lack of trash is likely thanks to a local woman who has spent considerable energy instituting an adopt-a-storm-drain program (so clever) and there are surface trash-catching devices up river. Yeah for LA making a good effort.

Exy Johnson's propellor. Looking good and clean.

Next up, tomorrow I will have the VideoRay in another location nearby but this time in a marina. We'll see what we find - hopefully more creatures than trash again, but my bet is we recover more marine debris. Until, then here are some photos from that night and stay tuned for what we find tomorrow!

Tube anemone at the bottom of the main shipping channel in the Port of LA. (there were a lot of these).

A crab who was very unhappy to see us, I think we disturbed his dinner as it was around 6pm . We left him in peace.

Yipppee. Our first (of many) pieces of pacific marine debris coming up to the surface!

A week of many exclamation points!!!!!!!!!

I have always linked big checks (physically as well as numerically big) with people who won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes (if that was real). But thanks to your support and the hard work of James, Sloane, Laura, Laurie, Tom, our families, our partners and everyone who came aboard, voted, spread the word and helped with Rozalia Project this summer, we were selected as the national winners of the Interlux Waterfront Challenge! And with that honor came a big check (physically and numerically) of $20,000 to go toward our programs next year!

Interlux even brought me to the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show for the press conference and presentation of the award. It was a great day. Beyond just receiving the grant, I also got to talk with journalists from different parts of the marine world (from Soundings to Fisherman Magazine) and had the opportunity to tell and show people about Rozalia Project and what we do.

I have to admit that for a bit, we did know about this awesome award and were sworn to secrecy (which was a little tough I have to say) but this past week also brought a surprise honor.

In a smooth twist of scheduling, the VideoRay International Partners Symposium (VIPS) happened to be in Key Largo from Monday-Wednesday of last week. I am a regular attendee and presented about how Rozalia Project uses its quintet of technology together to achieve our goals. I also got to teach the new user workshop which I enjoy. This is a well attended event with incredibly bright people from all over the world and from throughout the underwater world. They use their VideoRay ROV's for everything from keeping our ports safe to search and recovery and underwater crime scene investigation to research and monitoring underwater structures. Our keynote speaker at the awards dinner was Chris Fischer from Ocearch. Those are the guys who catch, tag and release sharks - including great whites. And he uses VideoRay's to film the excitement.

The surprise of the week came right before Chris was about to speak, VideoRay gave out their yearly awards... and Rozalia Project won for Best Public Relations story! Brian Luzzi from VideoRay presented me with a beautiful clock/barometer set that will look great on American Promise (and of course tell us when the weather is about to change).

No time to bask in the glory, I am back in the office hard at work looking for interns, looking for partners, writing grants, sending out press releases, and organizing next year's schedule (and there must be more). But, it is certainly worth every minute now to tell all of you how much your support on Facebook, in the voting contests, by email and in person matters. Thank you for helping make this first full year one worthy of these awards.

Now we are psyched to see what we can do next year!!!

For a Clean Ocean and Lake,

rzm

Rozalia Project

Click here for the press release
Click here for a video interview taken by Fisherman Magazine at FLIBS

If only the fish could vote...

If you are reading this, you likely already know that we were chosen as finalists in the Boat US Grassroots Grants funding contest. And we are holding strong in second which, in this case, is great as more than just the top vote-getter will receive funding to be announced on June 13.

This past week I was in Brownsville, TX representing VideoRay (the makers of the ROV we use) teaching professors from the University of Texas Brownsville and Texas Fish and Wildlife officers how to put their VideoRay and Tritech SeaSprite sonar to use as part of their joint artificial reef program.

Not only was it great working with a group of bright people motivated to learn everything they can about the creatures of the

sea and how to make them thrive, but I got to check out some of the results of their work. Our first ROV dive site was an artificial reef off South Padre Island. We approached along a tag line attached to the superstructure of the wreck that had been painstakingly cleaned (of chemicals and oil) and then put on the bottom ready to be populated. And populated it was. The ROV was surrounded by hundreds of multiple species of fish as soon as we descended to the wreck. It was beautiful and a great bonus that I was with people who could name every fish (and tell me some cool facts about them as well).

As far as marine debris goes, in this case we were looking for fish instead of trash. We found a lot more fish than trash which was nice though I did see some plastic shopping bags floating around and when we were working in the port, there was the usual assortment of bottles and wrappers as well as plastic sheeting. But mostly this trip was about fish...

So many fish. I wish they could vote. If they knew what we were doing (getting trash out of their environment), I bet they would be psyched to vote as well. But they can't and so I want to to say that we are grateful for all of you that have been taking a few seconds each day to vote and to spread the word. We appreciate every effort on our behalf, on behalf of the fishes and on behalf of a clean, trash-free ocean.

rzm

To vote for Rozalia Project's Trash Tour via the web click here

To vote for Rozalia Project's Trash Tour via Facebook, click here

Oohhhh's and Aaahhhhh's = inspiration

I think that audible gasps are the best inspiration for a teacher.

This week I got out from behind the computer to get in front of 50 kids ages 8-15 who are learning to sail (and take care of the lake) at the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. As part of the WAVES initiative, Rozalia Project was the featured lunchtime program for all of the classes that ranged from new level 1 sailors to a SCUBA & Sail class to the more advanced Level 2 sailors.

I was especially excited as this was my first marine debris program - and after all the planning, American Promise excitement, press release-writing, etc. it was great to spring into action. We started with an interactive prese

ntation/discussion about the effects of trash in the water then moved onto a big guessing game: the kids guessed how long various items take to break down in the marine environment. Newspaper: 6 weeks... cotton rope: 1 year (small gasp from the 8 year old sailor sitting right in front of me)... fishing nets: 30-40 years (bigger gasp)... soda can: 80-200 years (big audible gasp)... glass bottle: 1 million years (a full "oh my goodness"). I could have kept going just to hear that sailor's reactions. It was the best.

By then, everyone was paying attention (yes!) and we played a version of Family Feud to name the top 10 items found on beaches in a 10 year collection of data from around the world. In the end each class was able to get on the board with some correct guesses. Cigarettes were the top (the reaction by a small, pink-bathin

g suit clad, maybe 9 year sailor was, "I'm glad I don't smoke). Me too.

Next came what I think was the highlight for a lot of the kids, the introduction to the VideoRay ROV (remotely operated vehicle) and Blueview imaging sonar. Being a fan of the audible gasp, I love taking the little yellow sub out of the box because it always gets lots of ohhhs and aahhhhs.

While the kids separated their lunch debris by organic (into the compost bin), recyclable (into various recycle bins) and trash (into a bin with a lid) and got into their lifejackets, I got the ROV/sonar all plugged in and ready for launch off the dock. Again with the ahhs and some squeals - what is better than seeing yourself on screen through the eyes of a bright yellow robot?? In the end we had a good fly around the docks with the ROV. I was hoping to find and rescue a whole bunch of sunglasses, radios, watches, frisbees and other lost items but the seaweed was too tall to really see the bottom. We did not find any trash right next to the dock which was good. To wrap it up, the kids had a little swim with the VideoRay for some footage of lots of little legs churning away.

Next, I will be heading to the land of my alma mater and Providence Community Boating to work with 70 young sailors right at the foot of the city. I am psyched for this as there was no community boating center when I was at Brown and we had to drive to Bristol for sailing team practice. I have heard nothing but great things about this Center and the city's efforts at making the river an accessible place (though I will not be surprised if we find cars and other suspect items in the river). Those of you around Providence next week, I will be there from around 9-4 on Wednesday August 11.

After that, I am very psyched to head for one of the country's busiest sailing centers, Boston Community Boating on the Charles River. Amy Lyons (who I have had the pleasure to co-teach a US Sailing course with) runs a solid 400+ kid per day program with a zillion boats. We will be running a similar program for somewhere in the range of 300 kids plus adults. If you are in the area, come check it out on Thursday August 12 pretty much all day.

This is a good time to send out a big thank you to our technology partners: VideoRay, Blueview, Tritech (whose Starfish side scan sonar will be put to work soon) and Lyyn for helping us make the bad visibility days good ones - I think we will need it in the rivers.

Please remember to vote every day of August for us www.refresheverything.com/rozaliaproject and please post, tweet and spread the word to other lovers of the ocean.

Next report from Boston/Providence.