EPA’s Reactive Fish Sculpture Turns Water Quality Data into Art
Published April 26, 2022
EPA’s Village Blue Lake Pontchartrain project is showcasing science through art in New Orleans. Meet “Gil,” the reactive fish sculpture that’s translating water sensor measurements into color and motion at the New Canal Lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain.
Gil is part of Village Blue Lake Pontchartrain, a real-time water quality monitoring project initiated by EPA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at the New Canal Lighthouse. Village Blue water sensors are taking hourly measurements of algae, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, specific conductance, salinity, turbidity, and nitrate to be displayed in near real-time on the USGS National Water Information System website.
EPA scientists engineered Gil using electronics and LED lights to show changes in water quality data from two different USGS sensor sites – one on Lake Pontchartrain and the other on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, La. The height of the sculpture changes with the water’s turbidity (amount of cloudiness in the water); its ribcage color represents salinity concentrations; its base color indicates algae concentrations; and its tail paddles faster or slower to reflect dissolved oxygen levels.
Connecting with the Community
Lake Pontchartrain, which is technically an estuary covering 630 square miles, is frequently used by residents of the greater New Orleans area for recreational and commercial activities like camping, swimming, boating, and fishing. The New Canal Lighthouse – operated by Village Blue’s project partner, Pontchartrain Conservancy – serves as both a museum and education center for the community, teaching locals and visitors about water quality, habitats of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin, and critical coastal issues facing south Louisiana.
Chris Barnett, Outreach Coordinator at Pontchartrain Conservancy, said it’s been great to see families with young kids interacting with the sculpture. “Gil displays complex and important information, but makes it easy for them to understand,” Barnett explained. Local teachers have spent time with Gil too. “They hope to use the sculpture as inspiration for something similar in their own classrooms and schools,” he said.
The Village Blue team hopes Gil will create greater awareness of the complex connections between human activity and water quality in Lake Pontchartrain and looks forward to future collaboration with more community and academic partners in the region.
“We hope that the data produced in this project will be used by regional entities alone or in combination with additional data sources to expand our scientific knowledge about broader water quality issues in Lake Pontchartrain,” said Village Blue EPA team member, Mike Schaub. “We also remain interested in expanding our relationships with other state and regional environmental resource agencies in south Louisiana to make use of the data outputs from this project.”