Busy, busy, busy! Well it's been some time since updating the progress page, but we've been very busy making progress, nonetheless!
We worked on projects on our three favorite wetlands this last summer: Wood River Wetland (WRW), Williamson River Delta (WRW), and Hank's Marsh (HM). We gathered many samples and took many measurements and all has now been processed and analyzed. We hope to get a publication or two in one of the wetland journals this summer. We got a large dataset of plant nutrient composition from three of the dominant species in the wetlands: cattails, tule bulrush and broadfruit bur-reed. We also got a several additional relevee surveys done on the three wetlands to be added to our surveys from previous years, as well as returning to all thirty of the WRW plots sampled two years previously. We obtained observational data from all of those thirty WRW plots for comparsion to previous years and collected biomass and soil samples from the five plots showing the most obvious changes.
We've begun in earnest our mapping project, obtaining GIS software, images from NAIP and much other relevant data from avaialble sources. We've produced a preliminary map of HM vegetation and are now working to do the same for WRW. Unfortunately, the NAIP image of WRD is of little value as the flooding in recent years resulted in water levels that left the 2009 NAIP image of WRD largely a picture of water surface. The good news, however, is that the USFWS and TNC have a contract out to get a veg map of WRD, so we hope to get that data soon anyway. We've also contacted our partner Lighthawk, and they are still willing to fly routes over the wetlands in July or August. This will help us interpret the NAIP imagery and adjust the computer generated stand identifications. Field work will also be necessary to validate the maps, so when we can get funding, we will begin this effort.
Combining our vegetation maps with the sampling data will allow us to estimate biomass accumulation totals and nutrient standing stocks across the wetlands. Once we have those, we can begin implementing routine measurements over the years to monitor changes and this will begin to give ourselves and the land managers in the federal agencies and at The Nature Conservancy data to facilitate their management efforts.
We also cooperated with Sage Community School for a Wetland Kayaking Day last fall. That was great fun for us and I think the kids enjoyed the adventure immensely. We'll be returning with them in the spring to observe changes with the season.
Finally, we've been working on the administrative needs of KWERI, having incorporated in the State of Oregon and begun the process of drafting bylaws and organizational operating guidelines, as well as getting the application to the IRS for nonprofit 501c3 status. That is the next big hurdle to our being able to really open our doors and begin operations fully. We've recruited a fine start-up Board of Directors with expertise in organization development, science and research, education, and specifically, outdoor education. We're very happy with the quality of individuals we've been able to recruit and we believe this is a promising sign for our future recruiting efforts.
Stay tuned!
Today we launched our updated web site! We hope it provides more information and we hope it's in a style more conducive to browsing. We've much more to do, but it's a start...
As stated in our Vision Statement, our strategic planning process is underway. We're in the process of interviews with potential partners helping us to delineate the needs that exist and the urgency of various roles. If you would be interested in participating in that survey or have a suggestion, please contact us! We're anxious to build an organization around what is needed.
We just finished up at the Pacific Northwest Chapter Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists in Bellingham, WA. The keynote address was from Robert Michael Pyle and it was fantastic. He delivered a comfortable, engaging talk and brought home the point to all present that their roots were in childhoods where they had free time to wander in places where "The Wild Things Were!" He emphasized that our culture was leaving this out of the environment of our children and that this could have substantial consequences for developing the cadre of land managers, biological scientists and naturalists of the future. Bob cited the book The Last Child Left in the Woods as a good presentation of this thesis and encouraged all to consider the ramifications.
The PNW SWS is a good group, though apparently academics are underrepresented. And given the critical interface between wetlands and urban/suburban development, there was a noticeable lack of developers present. There was a pretty good turnout from consulting firms, agricultural concerns, state and local land managers and federal agency land managers. We couldn't get to all the sessions, but found good sessions discussing restoration practices, wetland mapping, agricultural interfaces with wetland restoration and preservation and a nice presentation by EPA's Mary Thiesing on the EPA Wetland Assessment Survey.
