Going out and getting my hands dirty...I mean wet.

One of the great things about the REU program is that you are not just boxed into one project. A few weeks ago, Dwight asked for volunteers to go out on a NOAA project that was placing salmon carcasses in the Elwha to study marine derived nutrient diffusion. I figured, why not, it is field time doing something I had never done before. That worked in the past when I put on the dry suit and went out with WDFW for some sampling.

I volunteered for one day, having no clue what I was getting into. All I knew is that I needed chest waders, which in January usually spells some sort of trouble. So I showed up at the hotel the researchers were staying at with my waders, boots, lunch and a whole bunch of extra clothes.

We rolled out to the hatchery near the mouth of the Elwha and talked with some of the workers there and were out in the field within a half hour. NOAA has been monthly visiting the site collecting baseline data for their reference and treatment sites. The treatment sites will have salmon carcasses placed in them starting next week, data collection for the MDN will start after that.

A little bit of an update on the river after the December storms…it did some damage. The bluffs on the west side of the river were cut back pretty far, in one spot it is about 25 ft (as best we can tell) from a house on top of the bluff. The research crew had placed rebar in the side channels to tack the salmon carcasses to, but the river buried, moved, or plucked out the pieces of rebar so we pounded more into place.

In terms of research work there were to side channels we worked in, each with a reference and treatment reach of the stream. At each site we collected fish to take blood and tissue samples (the fish gurus worked on that) and I helped on the habitat information including sampling benthic invertebrates (clean off rocks and scrape the bottom of the stream to collect bugs in a net), capture terrestrial invertebrates (dance around along the stream banks with a net…one of the hatchery workers asked that no photos be taken while he does it because he looks like he is a little girl running through the tulips). This actually takes a lot of coordination because you have to keep the net moving so you don’t let bugs fly out, but you also have to stay on your feet while walking through the stream, which you can’t see the bottom of.

We collected rock samples for analysis as well as recorded flow characteristics including channel width, depth and velocity. That was fun because that is more my gig, got to use the laser range finder (thank you USFS for introducing me to that over the summer) as well as a flow meter which I haven’t even seen since freshman year at Green River in geology. We used a densitometer to calculate canopy coverage. A weird simple little convex mirror with a grid on it…look at it correctly and wherever you see canopy on an intersection counts towards canopy cover.

One of the jobs that I didn’t work on was shock fishing…one of the guys wore a proton-pack looking thing that had a rod that went into the water. The rod shocks the fish and another guy picks them up with a net.

The NOAA scientists were very nice and very willing to share their knowledge, no question went unanswered and they were a very efficient crew.

A swell start to winter 1/4

Well it has been a really long time since I have posted a blog…a lot has happened since January.

We finally got to go out in the field and do some snow sampling. The crew was trained by a few fellows from the NRCS in how to setup and sample a snow course. The field day was pretty fun; we got to test out our new field equipment, play/work in a few different types of snow, and best of all take in a nice cool day in the mountains. In all we sampled two sites, as the third on our day’s itinerary had not snow, but we scouted it to setup the next snow course.

Sampling will be on a weekly rotation with samplings days on Tuesday and Friday. Each day we will sample three of our six sample sites, with the possible of an additional site on Mt. Zion pending decision from the folks at Battelle who are developing the model and using our data.

Over break, each group member worked on a piece of our sampling methodology and project protocol to build one document. My portion of the project included sampling procedure, data recording, and sample site characteristics.

With the start of the new quarter, we were going to start our regular sampling routine yesterday (January 8), but it was cancelled because of a snow and avalanche advisory for the area. So instead of field work, I got to help set up the GIS lab. We finished installing software on the computers and handheld GPS units as well as program the GPS units for field use. We even got some decorating done in the lab. We hope to go out this Friday, the 11^th to actually conduct some sampling (pending weather as usual).

Work on the sediment project is getting moving also. Because of my schedule w/ work and other projects I have not been able to do much sediment sampling with the crew since November. However, I have been putting in some time with our resident geologist, Dave Parks to work on our sampling protocol. The project is kind of frustrating because one of our main players is not available for communication and we are having to solve problems on our own…it’s not such a big deal except that we don’t know if the answer are what will be needed in the end, but it will work for our component of the project.

Pending a few more questions being answered, I can start the digital photo analysis and finally crank out some data. I am anxious to get some data moving because we will be presenting it at a few conventions, one is Pacific Estuarine Research Society (PERS) in Newport, OR Feb 28 - March 1 the other is American Fisheries Society (AFS) in Bellingham, WA Mar 4-6. I am hoping to present a poster, and may do both, but that is kind if up on the air right now…I can’t decide.

Nearing the end of Fall.

The season are definitely starting to change. Got the first taste of Port Angeles snow while we were in Poulsbo…Got 4 inches in the afternoon while we were at the grant writing workshop (which was a good workshop). Speaking of workshops, roommates and I went to Olympia this week for a day long SEPA workshop, learned a bit about the process and the challenges of jumping through the hoops for SEPA, but not much about the environmental side which I am sure we will get a good taste of in environmental impact assessment next quarter. I might need to spend some more time in Olympia, might be a good place to live post college…there has got to be some sort of work down there.

We are playing in the show a bit more! We are getting feedback about the snow sampling sites and we are getting better places to look…Better means more accessible by foot and more acceptable for sampling conditions. Only a few sites were difficult to get to, but with some snow pack and proper clothing we will be alright. The sites that the engineers are picking are pretty good, the biggest challenge is staying close to their sites, but staying away from where off road vehicles won’t be to disturb the equipment. We get to go back out on Tuesday to check a few more sites, can’t wait to see how much more snow is out there.

The quarter is winding down, just two more official weeks until it is over, but in the mean time lots of work to do, plus I get to start an internship (pending final paperwork) with the local public utilities district. Don’t quite know what my exact tasks will be, but they will be involving GIS and hopefully some field work. Tomorrow is prospectively my first day.

Dependence on technology is starting to bug me. My laptop has been on the fritz and I did a backup today and restored the laptop to factory settings, looks like everything transferred well, but it is really making me realize how we live and die by technology. I would love to say to hell with it, but I don’t want to write things by hand or search through libraries. Hopefully the end of the quarter will bring some much needed play time and some recreational reading.

Not a whole lot has happened lately. A few weeks ago we got to go out and check out a few of the potential sample sites for the hydro project. The day was pretty fun. It entailed mapping the coordinates for the locations and (attempting) to pay them each a visit. All of the sites were in the Dungeness watershed, which was interesting because the vegetation there was different than what I am used to on the west side of the Cascades.

The sites needed to be relatively flat and have 0-20% canopy cover, away from avalanche danger zones, and at the elevation bands that are needed to fill the gaps in the model…yeah, that was a joke. The sites that were picked by the engineers were done by remote sensing. What was not on the ground is not what we saw, some locations had thick canopy cover, others could barely be accessed by foot (and repelling equipment) on a dry autumn afternoon, let alone with snowshoes and field gear. Needless to say we need new sites.

We are getting started on the sediment sampling with the near shore group. Tomorrow is the first day of sampling with the camera, so we will be going out and getting some sand, getting down a system for taking the photos to capture grain size and will do two afternoons of work before Thanksgiving. Today’s task is rigging a tripod with an arm to take a picture of the ground.

Will see how things go.

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

Weeks 3 & 4

Things are starting to get rolling, seems like a slow start, but both projects are just getting underway.

Last week I had a phone conference with Anne with WDFW and Jon with USGS to discuss the methodologies and goals for the sediment project, it was pretty productive. We decided that our sampling techniques will be a combination of the methods WDFW uses to collect the forage fish eggs and how the USGS calculates sediment statistics. The overall goal of the project is to determine what conditions forage fish favor for spawning areas.

We will be sampling a surface layer of sediment as well as a subsurface layer. It will be sampled in two ways, first each layer will be photographed digitally and we will collect sediment to sieve at the lab. The purpose of the photograph is to import it into a program like Photoshop and we will have good enough resolution to determine mean grain size in the spawning areas. We will calculate the same information using a sieve, but the digital method is much quicker and is relatively accurate.

Anne also says our project should be presented at the American Fisheries Society conference in Bellingham next March. We will not have results by then, but she recommended a presentation or poster on our methods and purpose.

Jon will be in Port Angeles in early November to go out in the field with us an analyze sites. He will be helping us get our technique and processes down so we can start collecting the data in the months to come. Tides are going to be a challenge in November and December, so we may be sampling at night. Swells may be forcing us to go to the beaches from land instead of from a boat as planned.

The hydrology project is getting started. We are conducting research into past studies (or at least should be researching, pretty swamped right now, need to get back into good time management) and getting a feel for what is out there. Erin, one of the other REU students on the project and I hiked into Royal Basin to do some recon for the project. It drains from Olympic National Park into the Dungeness River. The hike was 6.25 miles each way and had some great scenery. Need to ask if it is going to be a study site and the logistics of getting in and out due to the number of drainages that may be avalanche prone. Also, it took us 6 hours to do the round trip and we were moving to beat sunset.

This week there are two meetings setup with NASA to discuss the project. Hopefully we can get out there soon (just want to get outside). Today Hurricane Ridge reported 6 inches of snow on the ground!

Weeks 1 & 2...The Beginning.

Very excited to be here in the REU program at Peninsula College...It feels like the first time to really apply what I have been learning in school and get a chance to dive right into it. Two weeks into the program I can already tell it is going to be a really good opportunity to research and learn.

By the end of the first week, I was wearing my first wet suit and going into the Strait for seining and snorkeling for fish inventories working on the WDFW’s look at the Elwha near shore. I overcame my fear of the ocean quickly by jumping into a small boat and going out into the surf, but the 10 ft. waves were too strong for us to row out into, so we worked from the shore. None the less the shore based work was a great experience and the water was a bit too dangerous/turbid for snorkeling so we bagged that. It was probably the biggest “first week of school” event I have ever had.

After learning about the different projects we can work on in the REU program I am working on two projects. The primary project I am working on is led by Dwight Barry of PC. We are working with a snow/hydrology model developed by NASA that was designed to work for the Dungeness watershed, but will be working to tweaking it so it will work on the Elwha watershed. This involves visiting sites in the field to collect soil data, then as snow falls we will be taking measurements of the snow pack and along the snowline. Things sound a bit hazy so far, but that is about the gist of it.

The other project I am involved in will be an extension of the WDFW near shore project and will be working with Jon Warrick of the USGS to map beach sediments in the study areas. It is going to be a “part time” project so it will not be as often. One of the big perks to it is that I will get to go out on the boat as we did last Friday and do more boat based seining, so I get to hop into a dry suit on occasion and get into the water throughout the winter and spring.

Also, my roommate Ben is working on an independent project with professors from WWU to try and reconstruct past salmon returns in the Elwha by looking at tree rings. I will get to go tromping through the woods with him to take tree core samples.

All in all lots of opportunities here. I will have a chance to use and grow my geography/GIS skills within the projects I am working on so I will get to stick with geography even though I am not taking any geography classes, but get to expand into relating fields as well.

I hope this blog will be a good window for friends/family/instructors to see what I am doing out here on the Peninsula.