Along the banks of the Mississippi river, set in an old spillway, a small stream could lead researchers to answers when it comes to understanding rivers.
"We feel like kids in a candy store, because everything we want to do in terms of science we can do it here," said Fotis Fotis Sotiropoulos, Director of the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory.
He says unlike other rivers and streams that have been manipulated one way or another for one reason or another, what he's created is a full scale model of a river.
The water used is taken directly from the Mississippi.
The shoreline consists of plants from the area, and it's already a place the ducks frequent.
"This is a daily thing the experiment is going on here, 24 hours, 7 days a week, throughout the year," Sotiropoulos said.
It's like one giant test tube with dozens of other sample tubes all over the place, testing everything from water quality to river flow to the dirt in the ground.
Among the Streamlabs missions are to understand how erosion happens, what's happened to the water quality of rivers and is it possible for major flooding to be prevented.
"We are trying to build a model of the natural world, we really want to see how everything interacts, the tiny organisms, the tiny bugs that develop in the water naturally, the fish the bugs, everything," said Sotiropoulos
Due to its location, everything outside plays into the experiment.
But the lab is considerably smaller than your average stream or river, which brings up its own problems and questions about how to factor in the scale of things.
(Copyright 2008 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
