Florida International University is leading this Community Directed Spending project which aims to enhance current Biscayne Bay water quality monitoring, adding capabilities to document phytoplankton, algal toxins and related water quality characteristics. The effort will establish a baseline that will be used to evaluate future observations under changing conditions. Biscayne Bay PhycoNet builds on two of EPA's longest coastal water quality monitoring programs in Biscayne and Florida Bays, and proposed monitoring and research are part of a larger Greater Biscayne Bay Monitoring Program involving multiple universities, Federal, state and local agencies, and nonprofits focused on water quality, bacteria, oxygen, seagrass beds, fisheries and marine mammals and turtles. The monitoring program has three components: