Overview

The Upstate Freshwater Institute (UFI) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation approved by the New York State Board of Regents, dedicated to the improvement of water quality in New York and the advancement of freshwater research.  Since its formation in 1981, UFI has actively pursued its mission by conducting interdisciplinary (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering) research on more than 100 of New York’s lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, and by the development of monitoring programs and simulation models to support the protection and effective management of those systems.  UFI scientists and engineers have prepared more than 320 articles for the peer-reviewed scientific and engineering literature.  These articles have appeared in 35 different national and international journals.  The Institute has received a number of awards for its research, including an Environmental Quality Award from Region 2 USEPA in 2008, which named specifically UFI’s research contributions for Onondaga Lake and the reservoirs of New York City’s water supply. In 2012 formalized an institutional partnership with SUNY/ESF, establishing a synergistic alliance that will advance freshwater research in New York State.

Staff

UFI maintains a technical staff which holds advanced degrees in the fields of biology, chemistry, hydrogeology, and environmental  and mechanical engineering.  UFI also cooperates with scientists and engineers from local colleges and universities in conducting its research programs.

Research

UFI is a leader in the implementation of innovative technologies to meet the contemporary challenges of providing important scientific information in a timely manner, which supports ecosystem protection and management for multiple water bodies.  UFI designed and implemented robotic monitoring networks for Onondaga Lake/Three Rivers System and the New York City water supply reservoirs. Water quality models, developed and tested by UFI, have been integrated with the robotic monitoring network to form a unique, real-time, operations support tool that continuously protects the water quality of the New York City water supply.

Research areas include:

• physics of lakes and rivers
• nutrient cycling
• aquatic chemistry
• food web dynamics
• sediment-water interactions
• fate and transport of toxic substances
• underwater optics and remote sensing
• origins and characteristics of inorganic particles
• application and development of automated monitoring technology
• water quality assessment
• environmental impact evaluation
• mathematical model development and application
• restoration strategies development
• primary production/trophic state

Laboratory

UFI is a National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC/NELAP) accredited laboratory (accreditation held since 1994); NY Laboratory ID No. 11462; EPA Laboratory Code NY01276. The laboratory is well equipped to measure a wide array of constituents that are important to water quality and aquatic ecology.

Projects

UFI has earned the reputation of successfully taking on the highest profile, most difficult, water quality problems of New York, including

• New York City water supply reservoirs -- Filtration Avoidance Determination and turbidity issues for the nation largest water supply
• Onondaga Lake -- once the most polluted lake in the nation
• Three Rivers System -- the largest U.S. river entering Lake Ontario
• Cornell University’s Lake Source Cooling facility on Cayuga Lake
• The Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Champlain -- advancing the national initiative to improve capabilities for remote sensing of water quality