Blasts of tiny bubbles may be new tool in SWFL algae crisis

As Lee County begins its effort to remove and destroy the blue-green algae that has poisoned Southwest Florida waterways, some scientists and entrepreneurs are testing a new technology on an 8-acre pond bordering a south Fort Myers golf course.

At the Lexington Country Club, the algae infecting Southwest Florida has marred the scenery, turning water hazards from blue to a soupy green. 

Solitude Lake Management, a Virginia-based company that manages lakes in communities such as Lexington in Southwest Florida, brought in nanobubble techology to attack the algae problem. 

Developed in South Korea, the technology blasts millions of tiny bubbles filled with oxygen or ozone into a body of water. The bubbles collapse, releasing a payload of oxygen and ozone that kills the algae. 

At Lexington, a portable pump force-fed nanobubbles into the lake at a rate of about 66 gallons per minute over the past few days. Once the bubbles are introduced, the pressure of the lakewater overwhelms the nanobubbles, and they burst. Bigger bubbles on the other hand, pop as they rise to the surface, which results in waste.

"It's a technology what was developed and has been working very successfully for many years in South Korea," said Roger Strelow, who served as assistant administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a presidential appointee in the 1970s.

"All the research says it stands apart very clearly as the most outstanding solution," Strelow said.

Nabas Technology of Maryland, which holds the rights to use the patented technology, has been called in to attack the algae in Lexington's ponds, a small-scale project that company CEO Ben Lee sees as a demonstration.

The key lies in the microscopic side the nanobubble walls.

"Your hair measures 40-50 microns on average, " Lee said. "If a bubble is less than 20 microns, it implodes from the pressure of water."

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Lee's company has developed a mixing panel that regulates the oxygen, ozone and air in the tiny bubbles. The oxygen and ozone are key to killing the algae and treating the water.

Work at the golf course off Bass Road began early this week. By late Wednesday a scum of killed algae had blown into a small cove.

When the algae is killed, it often releases the poison it carries into the water. Those toxins pose a significant health risk and can mean permanent liver damage and other problems.

Ozone, which is used to disinfect water supplies, works to kill the toxins remaining in the water, Lee said.

There are skeptics about the process in the scientific community, a skepticism rooted in years of grappling with the complexity of trying to kill algae and obliterate its poisons without leaving a residue that could feed another outbreak. 

Scientists are looking for longer-term benefits on a larger scale.

Larry Brand, professor of marine biology at the University of Miami, said he's heard of many solutions over the years for out-of control algae, organisms he refers to as "some of the toughest things around." 

One problem he has seen in the practice of dousing the algae with chemicals is that it sometimes means taking down the good stuff in the water as well. 

"People have been trying for a long time to solve this problem; so far we have not come up with a good way of doing this in natural waters," Brand said. "That's why I'm a bit skeptical of a brand-new idea that's going to come along and be better than all the ideas I've heard, but I'm open to new ideas — you just have to test it."

One concern is over the removal of the residue left as the algae dies. 

"You can very easily get spectacular results," said Serge Thomas, an aquatic ecologist and assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. "It will be temporary because you haven't solved the problem, which is the nutrients that fuel the algae — we want technology that would not only remove the algae but also remove the nutrients."

FGCU biologists are involved in researching ways to attack algae infestations. A graduate student has come up with a theory for making better use of hydrogen peroxide, every mother's remedy for a cut, as a durable tool against bacteria.

The small-scale success of the nanobubbles gives rise to speculation over its application to larger bodies of water. The test lake in Southwest Florida is 8 acres. Lake Okechobee is 470,000 acres.

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Releases from Lake O bring water down the Caloosahatchee River, where it picks up more nutrients, creating sun-warmed water ripe for bad algae blooms to multiply. Treating the moving water is a challenge that may be surpassed only by the challenge of effectively reducing the nutrients that flow into the water.

"It will be 20 years before we can fix nutrient problems, so we have to do something about the algae to lessen the impact on wildlife and humans," said Bill Kurth, of Cape Coral, Florida regional director for Solitude Lake Management. "The long-term goal should be remediating the nutrients."

Brand, the University of Miami expert, agrees that attacking the cause is a better solution than fueling vast arrays of energy-consuming pumps to churn bubbles as a solution to a man-made problem.

"The volumes of water coming down the Caloosahatchee is huge," Brand said. "We have ways of killing algae; we can do it in the lab or in a swimming pool, things like that, but on a scale that we're talking about, I'm skeptical."

Lee said the technology his company provides can be expanded to a greater scale on larger bodies of water. Smaller nanobubble infusing units could be rotated among different bodies of water where the nanobubbles can treat and eventually help prevent algae blooms.

Larger units have been built and could be deployed for bigger bodies of water. Some are the size of tractor-trailer units and have been used to clean water used for fracking petroleum, which involves reaching underground oil fields through application of immense water pressure.

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Employees of Lee County's Department of Natural Resources visited the south Fort Myers site this week. The county has said it is interested in learning more about the technology.

State Department of Environmental Protection officials gave the county a $700,000 grant to attack the algae crisis. The county's contractor will use a water plant to treat the algae and deep injection wells to dispose of it.  

County officials have variously referred to the effort as a "test project" or a "pilot project" to stress that the solution to the algae infestation is developing as the problem is attacked. 

Strelow, the former Estreo resident who has consulted with Nabas, said expanded use of the technology is well worth trying in Southwest Florida. 

"Sometimes here in the U.S., we only look at our own experience,"  Strelow said. "This has a substantial history in Korea."