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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe city teamed up with Texas-based Company AECOM to take part in a $2.25 million pilot project that removes algae from the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside Bonnet Springs Park, large tanks and pumps have been hard at work since February. Cody O\u2019Gorman, lakes and stormwater supervisor for the city of Lakeland, said the heavy machinery filters more than 100,000 gallons of water each day \u2014 all from Lake Bonnet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis actual lake and part of this lagoon that it is tied to is impaired for nutrients, so it\u2019s a good step in the right direction for helping with water quality reasons on this water body,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the last 10 years, O\u2019Gorman\u2019s focus has been on improving bodies of water like Lake Bonnet. He said AECOM\u2019s algae harvesting system helps do just that \u2014 by removing toxic overgrowth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hydronucleation flotation technology works by pumping large amounts of polluted water into a tank, where it is mixed with a coagulant that clumps the algae together. Microbubbles then lift the algae particles to the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd then from there, the equipment will skim that off and separate the clean water from the algae,\u201d O\u2019Gorman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the filtering process is complete, the treated water returns to the lake, and the algae slurry is used to make biofuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AECOM provides the harvested algae to a company called Genifuel, which uses it to create aviation fuel. But O\u2019Gorman said it doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey can use it as fertilizer, and different things like that and simply in your garden or agricultural purposes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In just a short time, he says the pilot project has met several needs \u2014 while positively impacting Lake Bonnet and water downstream. Though the system is only scheduled to run through the end of the year, he hopes to bring it back on a larger scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEspecially in the city, it\u2019s going to help us tremendously, and any kind of improvements that we can make, we\u2019re obviously going to chase after those,\u201d O\u2019Gorman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says he and his team will continue tracking the harvesting system\u2019s success and see what other bodies of water could benefit from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New cutting-edge technology is helping clean up one of Lakeland\u2019s most polluted lakes. The city teamed up with Texas-based Company AECOM to take part in a $2.25 million pilot project… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDdcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtOTItNC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xODglMkMxMjkmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJOZXcgcGlsb3QgcHJvamVjdCB0dXJucyBMYWtlIEJvbm5ldFx1MjAxOXMgYWxnYWUgaW50byBiaW9mdWVsIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.4krFR-QFxJcLO1sQXt_ULG-2Vz57Ylf35dtbXGN6ZS0MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":56739,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-92-4.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[11812],"class_list":["post-56738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-new-pilot-project-turns-lake-bonnets-algae-into-biofuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56740,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56738\/revisions\/56740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}