A Few Meetings to Talk About

So the big NASA meeting happened last week. We had a meeting first in Sequim with some of the major players in the project including the engineers from Batelle, those managing the grant, and other agencies that will benefit from the project.

I was surprised to learn that the project covers a much larger scope than I expected. The $1.6 million NASA grant is one of two major projects in the country and this one is to benefit the North Olympic Peninsula. They are looking to get as much input as they can in terms of data that is needed from any of the satellites that are in use or projected to be launched. The goal is to make the information that is requested by public, private and tribal agencies available in an easy to use web format. The snowmelt and runoff is just one piece of the puzzle that we, as REU students are field testing. We were given a presentation by one of the model builders and it looks like we will be gathering information on snow pack, vegetation and soil characteristics at the mid elevations where data sensors are limited.

We were also approached by a NRCS representative to possibly help install the new SNOTEL site that is going to be going into the back country, so we are hoping for a few good days of weather in November to get flown out there and dig some holes.

The next day the NASA project manager came to PA and did a talk at the college to discuss the potential for the project. It sounds like they hope for everything to be functional in about two years. The hardware of the model will be housed on the PC campus and managed by the IT department (including students) which will give them an opportunity to build a website that is the interface to the public.

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On Friday, Erin and I went to a meeting at city hall that was put on by Washington State Department of Ecology to get public input for their new Industrial Footprint program they are starting. The state received a grant from the EPA to examine the impact of industry and the state has chosen to look at pulp mills because of their history of data and monitoring of the industry within the state. Five mills volunteered including Nippon Paper here in Port Angeles.

The goal of the meeting was to tell us about the project hopes to make the pulp mill industry more sustainable in Washington State and to get public opinion of “what is sustainable.” Specifically, they were looking for what was sustainable in terms of three indicators: social, economic and environmental. We were broken into groups to brainstorm ideas and generated a lot of them.

Toward the end of the meeting we were asked to pick our top indicators which would be brought forth for further consideration by DOE. At that point the dichotomy between the people “with an association to the mill” and those who were not became clear. Those who did not support the mill’s presence did not think it was appropriate to rank the indicators because the group that would be ranking had a bias toward the mill and that the group was not representative of the community.

I really didn’t think that the mill created such a conflict in Port Angeles, but I have only been here for a little while…we will see how it unfolds. DOE is maintaining a website to show the public their process and will have public meetings in the future as the project continues.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/PROGRAMS/SWFA/industrial/IndFootprint.html