The vessel, named the Lake Guardian, departed Monday afternoon to start an annual mission to monitor and collect samples of trout, small organisms, and more in Lake Huron.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Lake Guardian is the EPA’s largest research vessel and is participating this year in the EPA’s 40th annual spring and summer Great Lakes water quality survey of all five of Michigan’s Great Lakes.

A news release from the EPA indicates the Lake Guardian began this year’s survey in mid-April.

Researchers and scientists plan to stay on the ship for about three to four days to take their Lake Huron samples this week with the many labs and pieces of equipment on deck. According to the scientists, the group’s main mission is to analyze chemical contamination in plankton and bottom-dwellers to understand the contamination’s effect on the entire food web.

News Photo by Michael Gonzalez The benthic sled sits on the main deck of the Lake Guardian, ready for use on Monday.

Those contaminants are older chemicals, also known as legacy contaminants, that may still remain in the air, sediment, and the water. As scientists continue to monitor levels of those contaminants, it gives the Great Lakes National Program Office — a branch of the EPA — a better idea of Lake Huron’s water quality.

Mike Milligan, a biochemistry professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is part of the team for the mission. He’s interested in seeing how contaminants cycle through life in the Great Lakes.

“Well, the small fish eat the plankton and small mysis, and the bigger fish eats the smaller fish,” Milligan said. “This continues, so on and so forth, then these contaminants come to us when we eat those fish. We need to see what they’re eating from the start.”

Some of the gear used to capture and collect samples of those organisms are simple concepts such as sleds and nets.

One piece of equipment on board is the benthic sled — a yellow metal sled fashioned with lights and two GoPro cameras so researchers can see what is on the bottom of the lake. It goes on the lake floor and grabs different organisms as the boat slowly moves across. Great Lakes National Program Office scientist Brian Lenell said the sled can obtain items like fauna and smaller creatures.

News Photo by Michael Gonzalez Megan O’Brien looks at the chemistry lab aboard the Lake Guardian on Monday.

Megan O’Brien, a research participant of the Great Lakes National Program Office, explained that the vertical net is used for tiny creatures called mysis — small, shrimp-like crustaceans that live at the bottom of the lake.

As O’Brien and Lenell went further into the vessel, Lenell said that researchers and scientists like Milligan and Bernard Crimmins, research associate professor of Clarkson University, are funded through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That fund goes through the EPA and brings researchers together to study, monitor, and bring attention to the Great Lakes.

“In addition to monitoring, there’s habitat restoration work,” O’Brien added. “There’s invasive species work, nutrient reduction work, storm runoff projects … Some of it is emerging contaminants, but, mostly, we study the contaminants that are well documented.”

The Lake Guardian has more than one dozen rooms filled with laboratories, living spaces, a lounge, and a kitchen. Fourteen crewmembers are on board from March to October and up to 28 other people can stay on the ship, totaling 42 passengers. Multiple graduate and undergraduate students of Clarkson University are also a part of the current mission for on-hand experience as scientists.

The research team also plans to stop by Port Austin and Rockport State Recreation Area as part of its mission.