In the winter of 1968, a pollution-fed algal bloom on Lake Minnetonka turned the water bright red, causing consternation to people who lived nearby and giving rise to a freshwater biological institute that would have a lasting influence on environmental research in Minnesota.
The institute's co-founder, Dick Gray, died last week at 95 after five decades of environmental study, writing and activism.
Gray co-founded the Freshwater Society in Navarre by raising $4 million and building a state-of-the-art research lab that was donated to the University of Minnesota. His son, Jim Gray, said the project was inspired when his father drilled into Lake Minnetonka's ice for one of his frequent, home-laboratory water clarity checks. The gush of red water wasn't readily explained by area scientists at the time.
"He had an insatiable curiosity and was always entrepreneurial," said Tom Skramstad, a longtime friend and past chairman of the Freshwater Society. "He's created a legacy here that hopefully will last forever."
For 20 years the Gray Freshwater Biological Institute conducted research, published reports and trained more than 45 doctoral students before the U returned the laboratory to the nonprofit Freshwater Society, which continues to influence environmental policymakers. Gray was active on the society's board until shortly before his death from an aggressive brain tumor.
"Every day, all day, he was on the go," said Skramstad.
Richard G. Gray attended Dartmouth College and graduated from the U in 1940 with a degree in petroleum geology, then served as a naval officer on a troop carrier during World War II.
In the late 1940s, '50s and early '60s, Gray's family would summer in a cabin on Lake Minnetonka that he later turned into a year-round home.
