FGCU and Mote Marine join forces to fight red tide and toxic blue-green algae
Amy Bennett WilliamsIn the wake of last year’s unprecedented water crisis, Florida Gulf Coast University and Sarasota-based Mote Marine are joining forces to battle toxic algae.
FGCU President Mike Martin and Mote President and CEO Michael Crosby signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday that formally binds them in the fight against red tide and cyanobacteria, which periodically foul Southwest Florida’s inland and coastal waterways.
No money changes hands in the renewable five-year agreement, but each institution pledges to collaborate on research and education while developing technology to combat the outbreaks’ damages.
The recent virulent red tide and cyanobacteria emergencies were “a transformative moment – one people aren't going to forget for a long time,” said Greg Tolley, department chair of FGCU’s Department of Marine and Ecological Sciences, calling the relationship an opportunity to “pool our resources and bring them to bear on one of the most pressing water issues of our time.”
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The idea to partner occurred to both institutions nearly simultaneously, said James L. Llorens, FGCU's interim provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.
"We were both thinking about it at the same time," Llorens said, "And I happened to make a call to Michael Crosby, and it was like we'd both been thinking about it ... so he came down to FGCU and we quickly came to the conclusion that this alliance would be mutually beneficial."
The partnership with 64-year-old Mote is a major first step for the university’s new Water School, announced last month.
“We look at this as part of building partnerships, part of building brain trust and expertise in the region as we try to apply an even more interdisciplinary approach to solving some of these water issues, which I view as very, very connected,” Tolley said. “It's by seeing them as part of a greater system that we can have much more success in terms of getting the water right.”
The nonprofit Mote and the university have collaborated before – “one-on-one, scientist-to-scientist in the past, and had a great relationship,” Tolley said, “and now we're looking towards partnering more comprehensively and in a more interdisciplinary fashion to try and address some of the issues.”
Though the day-to-day logistics are still taking shape, he expects scientists will share space, funding and even some teaching responsibilities.
“We've got language we're writing in that allows us to have kind of affiliate appointments,” Tolley said. “So a faculty member at FGCU might also hold an appointment with Mote and vice versa.”
Rather than have territorial divisions, Crosby said working together will be paramount.
“It's not a ‘You get this, and we get that,’ idea, but more of a ‘What can we do together with every aspect of this?’ Us working in their facilities, them working in our facilities, us jointly conducting field research, field monitoring, field testing new technologies. I see us working very, very closely with each other,” Crosby said. “If anything, this (agreement) is trying to bring down those artificial silos that often separate research institutions.”
With a $22 million annual budget, Mote has developed expertise in fundraising over its 64-year history, which it can leverage to help both institutions, he said, which will be key to finding solutions.
“The problems we're facing, and any initiatives that we're developing – they're bigger than a single institution can handle bigger than any one individual. It's bigger than any one field of science. And the only way that we are going to be able to attack red tide impacts, and the impacts of other harmful algae blooms is if we all work together and partner,” Crosby said. “I think the bottom line is this is another very significant step forward with two premier organizations coming together to address major environmental challenges that the state of Florida is facing.”