Fence Pull at the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge

            I just got back from a little trip to the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in northern Nevada. ONDA sponsors these volunteer trips several times a year to the various places where they’re working. Some are for wilderness inventories, and this particular trip was for a barbed wire fence pull. Sounds exciting, huh? Well, it was! I met some great ONDA volunteers who kept me laughing and a VERY hardworking crew who pull fence all summer on the refuge. And let me tell you, that is no walk in the park. They work 10 hours a day in the high desert heat for 4 days in a row, then get a little 3 day break before starting again. We only pulled for 2 days, and I was pretty beat but definitely impressed with these guys for doing it all summer.

Just a small portion of the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge.

Our camp on the refuge.

            Like I said, we worked for 2 days pulling as much barbed wire fence as we could. I think we got over 3 miles with a group of 12 of us, which apparently is pretty good! These fences were put in years and years ago by homesteaders and also the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Since it’s now a wildlife refuge, these fences are no longer needed. To take the fences out, you have to cut it at several spots, then remove the fence posts and spool the wire. It sounds easy enough, and we even had a nifty spooling machine the first day, but it broke on our second day of work, forcing us to spool all the wire by hand, making things a little more difficult. Sadly, I am not the most skilled barbed wire spooler; I ended up with a few holes in my clothes and scratches all over. Thankfully, the rest of my team was pretty skilled, and we were able to tackle A LOT of fence.

Joe, one of the volunteers, tying up some barbed wire while our group leader Anna works the spooler.

Miles and miles of fence and sagebrush all over. The sage smells so good, but, in combination with all the dust, it gave us some sniffles and sneezes.

Tackling a “rock jack.” These were kind of a pain to dismantle.

Several of many spools of wire we removed.

Although I enjoyed the whole experience, one of my favorite parts of being out on the refuge was seeing wild horses. I think we saw about 20 in total, and they are just an awesome sight. Seeing the wild stallions fight, I was just amazed at how strong they are. The Department of Fish and Wildlife is actually in the process of rounding up the wild horses and burros at the refuge in order to protect habitat for other native wildlife, such as sage grouse and pronghorn antelope.

Wild horses, way off in the distance.

We had the opportunity to drive out to another part of the refuge and take a little dip in some hot springs to clean up a bit, and we also stopped to check out Thousand Creeks Gorge, which was spectacular.

Thousand Creeks Gorge. Pictures really don’t do it justice.

The view beyond the gorge.

Overall, I had a great time out at the refuge. This type of environment is one that I've never been able to experience before. It's such a contrast to what we have in Lexington, but I loved it!

Working on the Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness

            It looks like you're having a good time in Connecticut! I hope your project is coming along well!

I cannot believe that we are almost halfway through July, or that I am halfway through my internship! Everything’s in full swing here at ONDA, and I’ve been keeping pretty busy with my project. I’m working on the Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness Proposal this summer. The Whychus-Deschutes wilderness is an area about 19,000 acres large located about 45 minutes north of Bend. It includes parts of Whychus Creek and its confluence with the Deschutes River, which also flows through Bend. You can read more about the proposal here.

Whychus Creek. You have to ford the creek to continue on one of the trails, and it’s pretty cold!

The confluence of Whychus Creek and the Deschutes River

My first rattlesnake! It’s a baby that we spotted under a rock while looking for pictographs.

It’s an amazing area with steep canyons, waterfalls, Native American pictographs, and plenty of wildlife. It’s currently being managed as a Wilderness Study Area, but that doesn’t necessarily offer permanent protection. A federal Wilderness designation would ensure permanence and preserve the area for future generations, so that’s the goal!

Steelhead Falls, a popular and easily accessible spot in the proposed Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness.

A little gopher snake we found on the way to the falls.

Sadly these aren’t pictographs. Just some graffiti on the trail to Steelhead Falls. Yuck

My main job is community outreach. I have been working in Sisters, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Bend, talking to business and residents about the proposal and the area in an effort to garner support for it. I have also been working with my coordinator out at Crooked River Ranch, a rural community with many landowners that border the proposed area. We’ve been door-to-door talking to families and asking them to sign on to a support letter. The board at Crooked River Ranch is sending out a survey to residents in a couple of weeks to get a sense of how everyone is feeling about the proposal; we are hoping to have at least 250 supporters by then. There are some very vocal opponents, though. Some have concerns about what they perceive as more government interference, even though the proposal wouldn’t drastically change the way the area is managed. Others have voiced (quite aggressively) that a Wilderness designation would influence wildfire management, resulting in greater risk to them and their property. That’s actually false, but I’ve learned there’s almost no point arguing with the people that believe it’s true. They aren't going to change their minds anytime soon. For us, it’s just a matter of fighting the misinformation and getting in touch with the people that haven’t already made up their minds against the proposal.

Thankfully, we have a stellar group of volunteers who live on the ranch and support the proposal, and they’ve also been working hard to raise awareness about it. One of these volunteers has property that borders the proposed area, and he cares deeply about it. He loves to explore the canyons behind his house and he says that when he’s down there, it feels as though no other human has been there in hundreds of years.

A nice spot behind his property. We ran down and back up this canyon once before a landowner meeting. It was brutal but worth it.

It makes him angry, and rightfully so, to see people trash the area, which they have in some places. People dump their garbage in some spots and even graffiti the rocks. You just have to wonder what they're thinking. Why do they find it necessary to In his eyes, a Wilderness designation will promote a greater sense of respect for the land; he even has ideas about creating a type of neighborhood watch to help maintain the integrity of area by reporting people they see trashing it. It’s awesome to have people that care so much about this place, and this work wouldn’t be possible without them!

Connecticut Week 3- The Environment

         Since I’ve been here I’ve clearly been doing a lot of geology, but I’ve also been learning a lot about the surrounding environment. Peter, one of our professors, is, as far as I can tell, an expert on almost everything. As a result I’ve heard stories ranging from the history of local homes and legendary restaurants to the breakdown of the community’s favorite endangered species and despised invasive ones. Here are a few of the things I’ve seen on and around the river…

This wetland grass, phragmites, is an invasive species that is taking over the banks of the Connecticut River. Phragmites is used to thatch roofs in Europe, but in the United States, it has become a pest. Because it thrives in water contaminated by fertilizers, it is spreading quickly in the U.S., preventing cattails, an important food source in wetland ecosystems, from growing in their rightful habitat. 

 I've always thought of swans as beautiful, if somewhat aggressive, birds and was surprised to learn that these mute swans are an invasive species in Connecticut. Because they are very territorial and share common food sources with the native waterfowl, they are becoming a threat to the natives. Their beauty often leads to humans feeding them and resisting removal efforts, making the mute swan a particularly difficult nuisance to get rid of.

This bank of sand is an old dump site for spoils collected as the channel of the Connecticut River was dredged to keep it deep enough for boat navigation. As evidence (our group is working on this!) is emerging that the bottom sediment contains high levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals, the question of where to dispose of dredged sediment is being asked. While it has not been dumped on the banks of the river for years, since it is detrimental to the surrounding ecosystem, sands with detectable levels of toxic substances from the Hudson Bay and Long Island Sound are rumored to have been used in public parks and school playgrounds. 

When my group was invited to a party at Peter’s house (built in 1760 and absolutely gorgeous!) to celebrate one of the professors getting tenure, we had the privilege of seeing and exploring his beautiful garden. Growing vegetables that are a summer staple as well as canned and dried to last through the winter, Peter and his wife are creating and using a food source that’s about as local as you can get. This is good for the environment, saves money, and is a beautiful form of landscaping- not to mention the fact that the kids at the party couldn’t have been happier picking sugar snap peas and eating them on the spot. 

Brownstone Quarry, opened in 1690, was once a prominent building stone supplier in New England. It now functions as waterpark, kayaking and canoeing facility, and scuba diving center (the highlight being an old plane wreck a few dozen meters below the surface). While I’m not sure that this technically qualifies as an environmental issue, I thought that it was interesting that the site is classified as a National Historic Landmark while simultaneously being used as a waterpark. In terms of geology, the Brownstone Quarry is also famous for its amazing fossils. Several schools and museums in the area boast impressive collections of dinosaur footprints found quarry. The stone itself is a dark brown, relatively soft stone that was used to build many of the buildings on Wesleyan’s campus as well as in many New England cities and others scattered around the country. 

Last weekend I went to Miya’s sushi in New Haven, CT for a friend’s birthday dinner. I can’t say I was overly impressed by the food, although it has won countless national awards from food critics with much finer palates than mine, I loved the effort that they are making to be environmentally friendly. Miya’s sushi is sustainable, refusing to use fish that are overfished or whose harvest has negative environmental impacts. Rather than using traditional sushi ingredients such as tuna, snapper, sea urchin, or octopus, Miya’s focuses on vegetables and species that can be raised in a healthy and sustainable manner, such as catfish. A unique twist on the usual sushi roll, Miya's mixes everything from dried cranberries and papaya to broccoli and potatoes to brie and goat cheese, creating a confusing but exciting culinary experience. I must commend this restaurant on it’s trailblazing (hopefully!) eco-friendly attitude, wonderful atmosphere, and creative menu (which the adventurous eaters of the group loved).

Picture from: http://www.mynameisyeh.com/2010/05/week-18-miyas-sushi-and-caseus-cheese.html 

Connecticut Week 2- The Project

           Wow, the past two weeks have been amazingly busy! I’ve been back out on the boat to collect more data, filtered and weighed hundreds of samples, travelled around the area both for geology and environmental studies and for fun, and most importantly decided on my project topic!

            In addition to continuing the CTD and water samples data collection from last week, we got to go out and get a few core samples. Collecting cores is a process that involves hammering a hollow plastic and metal cylinder, or core barrel, several meters into a river, pond, or lake bed and pulling it back up. The result is a cylinder full of mud and sand layers that are preserved in the same order that they exist in the ground. Because these cores are the result of hundreds or thousands of years of sediment deposition, they can be dated and examined for a variety of chemical, biological, and environmental changes through time.

           Our group got cores from an entirely freshwater cove of the Connecticut River last week and tomorrow we’ll be getting some from South Cove, which is in the saltwater section of the river.

A core that was just pulled out of Selden Cove.

Cutting open the core barrel to expose the sediment.

An opened core from Hamburg Cove. Some color and compositional changes are visible.

            How do these cores relate to my thesis project? Well after about a week of library research, talking to all experts that I could find, and a slew of trial and error test runs, I decided that studying the plastic particles in the Connecticut River wasn’t the project for me. Although all of the researchers that I talked to thought it would be a great project if it worked, each of their emails began by informing me that they had no experience with such small particles of plastic or a river setting and that while they wished me luck, they couldn’t be of much assistance in developing a protocol to use since it has never been done before. While I would love to be able to claim that I invented a new method of plastic diagnostics and came across groundbreaking results, the sad truth is that I simply do not have the time or persistence to do an innovative but potentially unsuccessful project.

            Instead, I decided to pursue a project studying diatoms, single-cell phytoplankton algae with complex silica cell walls. Their skeletons are well preserved in cores and because each species lives in a very specific environment, they can tell us about the environmental conditions at they time that they formed. I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but I’ve decided to do an analysis of the marine diatoms in the saltwater cores in hopes of finding evidence of changes in sea level and water quality.

Several species of diatoms. Cool huh?
From: http://www.urbanrivers.org/drawingdiatoms/diatoms.html

I’ll keep you updated on my progress!

Liz

Getting Started in Connecticut

             Now that Kelly has gotten our blog off to a great start, I’ll tell you a bit about myself and my summer geology project in Connecticut- a beautiful place but definitely different from Bend, Oregon!

            I’m Liz George. I’m a rising senior majoring in Geology and Environmental Studies. This summer I’m doing a project with the Keck Geology Consortium, a program that joins eighteen universities in an effort to provide enriching research experiences in the geological sciences to undergraduate students. I’m working with geology professors at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT as well as five other students from Beloit College, Wesleyan University, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Our project is a study of the dynamics of the lower Connecticut River in terms of salinity, tidal characteristics, and sediment transport. We’ll all end up doing slightly different projects using the data that we’ll be collecting together during the four-week program.

I'm here! 

            I’ve been here for a whole week already (sorry for being so slow to blog!) and the experience has gotten off to a great start. After a painfully long drive up here from Atlanta, GA, I got settled in the dorms and familiarized myself with Wesleyan’s beautiful campus. We spent the beginning of last week learning about the river, hearing about previous research projects, and figuring out all the high-tech equipment that we’re using to collect our data.

            The Connecticut River is 650 km long, flowing from Quebec to Long Island Sound. We’re studying the lowest section of the Connecticut River, the tidal river channel and estuary, where the salt water from Long Island Sound and fresh water from the river mix. Environmental organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy, protect some stretches of the river, but the 400 towns and cities along the river’s banks have taken a toll on the quality of the river, despite it maintaining a remarkably pristine appearance. The area that we’re studying contains important biological habitats but suffers from human efforts to make the channel navigable for boats and resistant to flooding as well as from pollution due to the extensive industrialization that has occurred in New England in the past two hundred years. Hopefully our research this summer will help us to better understand how the Connecticut River functions and responds to human activity, which will be useful in efforts to protect it.  

A marsh on the bank of the river, home to Osprey, eagles, and many other species of wildlife

A marina near the mouth of the Connecticut River

A lighthouse near the entrance to Long Island Sound

            Finally, on Thursday, the real fun began- spending the day on the river collecting samples! Since we still haven’t picked which individual projects we’ll be working on (I’m hoping to study the amount of plastic and other man-made materials being transported as sediment in the river), we all got to have a turn using all of the equipment.

To collect dredge samples, this clamp is lowered using a pulley. When it hits the riverbed, it fills with sediment which we then pull back up to the surface and take to the lab to analyze.

The CTD sensor which takes temperature, salinity, and depth measurements.

            After collecting over 200 water and sediment samples as well as CTD data, we got to work analyzing it in the lab. Hopefully we’ll get through the lab work quickly and have another day out on the water again soon!

          Liz

The journey to Bend

Since this is my first post, I figure I should introduce myself a bit and talk a little about where I'm working this summer. I'm Kelly, a rising senior Environmental Studies major with minors in Poverty and Education. This summer I will be working with the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) in Bend, Oregon. ONDA’s mission is to “protect, defend, and restore forever the health of Oregon’s native deserts.” With the help of dedicated volunteers, they work to identify and protect wilderness areas throughout the state. Their ultimate goal for most of these areas is to have them officially designated as wilderness by Congress. This ensures they are protected forever. 

Getting to Bend was the first part of this summer adventure. I had the opportunity to drive out to Oregon from Houston with my friend Karen, and it was amazing! It took a little over 10 hours to actually get out of Texas, but once we made it out west, we had a great time.

Our route to Bend

Snow-capped peaks on the drive from Durango, CO, to Utah

My favorite stops were definitely in Utah. We visited Arches National Park and Canyonlands, and they were both spectacular. We had a great little hike around Arches and got a little lost at one point, but we were able to see some amazing stuff!

Landscape Arch

One "O" of Double O Arch

Canyonlands

La Sal Mountains

After a night in Salt Lake City and then Boise, we finally arrived in Bend. It was a lot colder than we Texans are used to in the summertime! We went on a drive up to explore around Mt. Bachelor, but we were turned back because of snow. Then it was on to Portland so Karen could catch her flight home.

Mt. Bachelor

Starting to snow on Mt. Bachelor

Three Sisters - Faith, Hope, and Charity

Mt. Hood

And that was the end of our adventure! I just finished up my first week at ONDA, and it's been great so far. We're going on a hike and outreach visit tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that goes and tell you more about the project I'll be working on for the summer!

Kelly