Q&A: Robert Kortmann

Oct. 23—ROBERT KORTMANN

Occupation: Ecosystem ecologist specializing in limnology. Has coached track and field and boys soccer at Coventry High School for more than 20 years.

Hometown: Coventry. Grew up in New Jersey.

Education: Has a bachelor's degree in environmental science, also teacher

certification, from Rutgers. Has a master's degree in plant ecology botany and a doctorate in ecosystem ecology, specializing in limnology, both from the University of Connecticut.

Background: Founded Ecosystems Consulting, acquired in April by GZA GeoEnvirnomental Inc.

In free time: Likes anything to do with water — fish, scuba dive, kayak; coach, play with his dog.

Q: How did you end up in limnology, and what is it?

A: Limnology is basically the fresh water version of an oceanographer. The chemistry, physics, and biology of freshwater ecosystems.

When I was a student at Rutgers, I was torn between marine biology and limnology. I spent a summer doing research on St. Croix at a lab run by Fairleigh Dickinson for graduate students.

I decided to go more towards fresh water because it was the Jacques Cousteau era where everybody and their brother wanted to be a marine biologist.

When I looked for graduate school, I didn't look at schools. I looked at researchers and professors and found Peter Rich, who was doing similar kinds of research to what I was doing as a senior at Rutgers. I was studying mud, essentially, what comes out of mud into water. It really dovetailed well with Peter Rich's research. That's how I ended up choosing to come to Connecticut.

Q: Coventry has a fascinating, unnatural ecosystem happening at their lake. Are you involved?

A: Yeah. First time I was on Coventry Lake was with Peter Rich at UConn as a graduate student sampling nearby lakes in 1974.

When I got my doctorate in 1980, I didn't want to go into academia. I wanted to do something real-world applied.

One of my goals in the PhD program was to publish in the most prominent limnology journal. I did that as a single author with my master's research. That was "Limnology and Oceanography." I was kind of up and coming, but I didn't want to bounce around from post-doc to post-doc for a decade or more.

My future wife had moved to Connecticut. She was in a very good career at Travelers at the time. I didn't want to uproot that. I started a halftime job with the Town of Suffield doing wetland agency consulting. The other halftime I was trying to fix Lake Waramaug in western Connecticut. It was experiencing really severe blue-green algae blooms.

Section 314 of the Clean Water Act had a cost-sharing funding program that fixed lakes. We were making progress there, and other lakes and especially water supply systems started recognizing the improvements.

I've been monitoring Coventry Lake water quality every year for about 25 years.

My biggest goal is to prevent Coventry Lake from starting to exhibit what some other lakes of similar size and depth do, the blue-green algae that can form, cyanotoxins, a very hot issue these days. It has been since that Toledo episode where a half a million people were told don't use their water, don't boil it, don't shower in it. That brought attention to the potential toxin issue.

I also have worked annually at Columbia Lake, Gardener Lake, usually those lakes that are most concerned with preservation, preventing the algae bloom conditions.

I'm a lot less interested in simply managing places where people think there are too many weeds. I'm more interested in preserving water quality. That's why I do a lot of my work in water supply systems, because if you can make the water that goes into the plant have less contaminants in it, it's more efficient and cost effective to treat the water and water utilities get fewer complaints.

My focus since about 1990 is still the long-term lakes: Waramaug, Columbia, Coventry, Gardner.

Other than that, mostly water supply. There are a few exceptions, some new lakes have expressed an interest in preservation.

I was also on the Coventry Conservation Commission for a decade. Back in the day when the town was ordered to sewer, there was a lot of concern about inducing development in the lake basin. The town has done a really good job overcoming that concern. I'm still a little concerned with what I'm seeing with redevelopment. Some of it recently, in my opinion, has exceeded the reasonable use for which the really small lots were created for.

Q: What are your goals now?

A: My successor is teaching me updated techniques in limnology, and I'm teaching him the applied side, the "what to do about a problem when you find it."

One of the reasons I wanted to find an acquirer like GZA is it's a very unique, very technical niche business and if I just retired, it would evaporate. What I built for 40 years would just end and my staff would be out of work. That's why I was really seeking a way to perpetuate what I had done for 40 years.

So far that's working out really nice.

Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

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