Well, folks, all the prep and planning has led to this moment: our team officially got onto Okanagan Lake to trawl for some microplastics.

This day would not have been possible without the support and assistance of several key groups. Let’s give them a round of applause!

• The Okanagan Nation Alliance, for generously contributing their research vessel, and two staff and their time to assist us with sampling. Without them, this day would not have happened!
• Okanagan College, for assisting with the sampling and connecting us with a possible option for analyzing these samples in the fall (and Erin and her tiny microscope – so fun to watch little zooplankton zip around the jars)
• UBCO and Ryland Giebelhaus, who joined us on this journey, helped us get our sampling protocols aligned, and assisted with preliminary analysis.
• FreshWater Life and Gregg Howald, steering the ship on this project
• Copper Sky Productions and Jan Vozenilek, capturing the events of this project through his lens. The beautiful visuals you see here are all his work!
• Fresh Outlook Foundation and Joanne De Vries, supporting the communications aspect of this project
• And of course, the OBWB whose grant made this all possible.

The day turned out to be perfect, despite the ever-present smoky skies. Calm water, reasonable temperatures, and enthusiastic deckhands. 🙂 Interestingly, we pulled up what we assume to be ash particles along with organic materials. Once the samples were pulled on deck, they were quickly transferred to glass jars and preserved with ethanol. The jars have been transferred to Okanagan College where they will await further analysis!

Great news! The manta trawl – a key piece of equipment we’ll need for our surface water sampling in Okanagan Lake – arrived today, all the way from Southern California! We’re really grateful for the speediness of our colleague, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, with The 5 Gyres, who got this in the mail overnight to us.

Mimic Nature For Best Results

What is a “manta trawl” you ask? Well, think of a manta ray and you’ll have a good idea as to what it looks like and what it’s doing in the water. Similar to a manta ray, the trawl will skim the very surface layer of the water, propelled forward by the movement of the boat it’s attached to. The mesh on this net is very, very small (0.335 microns, or 0.000335 millimetres!) so it should do a good job at catching microplastics (if they’re there!). Microplastics, as we’ve learned, are any plastic particles less than 5 millimetres in size.

For more on manta rays and microplastics, check out this audio documentary from the BBC, all about studying the way mantas move and operate to come up with solutions for capturing microplastics in wastewater treatment plants before they get out into our watery environments.

Now that we have the manta, it’s time to find a boat and get on the water!