H₂OSU is available at http://water.oregonstate.edu/newsletter/.
March 2007

The View from 210

As I mentioned last month, the IWW Collaboratory, now housed in Gilmore 206, will be moving to the Forest Sciences Lab (FSL) come April 1. John Bolte has been kind enough to let us use Gilmore 206 but now that space is needed. The move will make it easy for Lab Director Kathy Motter to perform her duties both at CCAL (Cooperative Chemical Analytical Laboratory) and the Collaboratory without shuttling between buildings. Kathy is 0.25 FTE in IWW and 0.75 FTE in CCAL and will be in the same general area during work hours so she will be more available should the need for help arise. We also just submitted a request to purchase a gas chromatograph through the RERF.

Flyers for upcoming meetings are on the IWW WWW site (Scroll down to “Community”, then click on “Calendar”). Take a look at Desiree Tullos’ Symposium on Modeling of Dams; the Sixth Washington Hydrogeology Symposium; and the Ground Water Summit. Abstracts are also being solicited for the Water in the Pacific Northwest: Moving Science into Policy and Action and the AWRA Annual Conference, both of which fall in November. For the latter, we are also seeking proposals for topical sessions or panel discussions.

We awarded Diversity and Excellence Scholarships to Elina Lin and Joshua Owens. Congratulations to both! Thanks are due to Denise Lach, D&E Scholarship Committee Chair, and her committee of Mary Santelmann and Todd Jarvis.  

Yesterday’s Water Resources Graduate Program Open House went very well; kudos to WRGP Director Dr. Mary Santelmann and the WRGP faculty and students for all their hard work. Faculty presentations by Anne Nolin and Gordon Grant were excellent. New upcoming courses were highlighted. Student posters were extremely well-done and the oral explanations were equally as good. Three student awards were given. Jay Zarnetske (Hyporheic Geophysics: DC Resistivity Imaging of Valley-Bottom Alluvium in a 3rd Order Mountain Stream, H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon, USA) and Barbara Burkholder (Can Gravel Augmentation Reduce Temperature in a Large Gravel-Bed River?) won awards from the WRGP and the IWW. Mark Porter (Investigating the Role of the Capillary Pressure-Saturation Relationship in Subsurface Flow and Transport) won the inaugural USGS Oregon Water Science Center Award, presented by OSU alumnus Erick Burns. Congratulations to these three students and all the other presenters: Cara Walter, Jay Frentress, Eva Lieberherr, Kelley Thomas, Shannon Peterson, Laura Moscowitz, Cody Hale, David Callery and Drew Bryenton. The award decisions were indeed very difficult.

The Open House concluded with a surprise appearance by the fabulous a cappella group The Aviators, comprised of local high-school students (including the aforementioned Dr. Grant’s son) who sang tunes so old that I doubt their parents knew them. We were treated to superb renditions of such classics as the doo-wop anthem Come Go With Me (originally recorded by The Del Vikings in 1956) and the timeless quirkiness of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the best-known version of which was recorded by the Boys from Brooklyn, The Tokens, in 1961. Hearing those tunes transported me back to my DJ days, and even further back in time to the days of transistor radios, Top-40 AM radio, and the halcyon days of NYC DJs Bruce “Cousin Brucie” Morrow, Alan Freed, and Murray the K. But I digress.

Good news – the USGS grant money should be here next week.

With that, I think it’s definitely time to go.

Till next month,
Michael

“You are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights for there is not sufficient water to supply the land". -- John Wesley Powell, 1893.

Featured Group: Engineers Without Borders - OSU

Engineers without Borders (EWB) is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide to improve their quality of life. EWB-OSU is a student chapter and has the additional goals of creating a sense of excitement and enthusiasm about solving technical development problems, organizing project teams to design and implement engineering projects, and working with the professional engineering community to develop and strengthen the engineering skills of student members.

EWB-OSU's current focus is on installation of an efficient water filtration and delivery system in the mountain communities of Las Mercedes and El Naranjito of El Salvador. These rural mountain communities have a difficult time accessing potable water. Supplies exist in natural springs but residents must hike long distances and carry the water over rough terrain. The lack of easy access to clean water leads to many health problems, especially for children. Students from EWB-OSU have made two trips to El Salvador and are currently working on a design for a water delivery system that will include in-home filtration using pots designed by Potters For Peace. Key challenges are water storage during a long dry season and distribution across a widely dispersed community.

To learn more about EWB-OSU and the El Salvador project, visit their Web site or read one of the articles about them in the Corvallis Gazette Times, the OSU News Service , and OSU Engineering's Momentum.

Funding Opportunities

NSF Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Projects (DDEP) - NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering supports dissertation research conducted by graduate students at a foreign site. Students are expected to work in close cooperation with a host country institution and investigator. The applicant is responsible for making all necessary arrangements with the host country institution and scientist. The doctoral faculty advisor, on behalf of the student, submits the dissertation enhancement proposal. Proposals may be submitted at any time.

NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences - Research Coordination Networks in Biological Sciences (RCN) - The goal of this program is to encourage and foster interactions among scientists to create new research directions or advance a field. Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies are especially encouraged. Groups of investigators will be supported to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, and geographical boundaries. The proposed networking activities should have a theme as a focus of its collaboration. The focus could be on a broad research question, a specific group of organisms, or particular technologies or approaches. This program has recently made $500k awards to place-based (e.g. the Elwha Basin) and topic-based (e.g. denitrification) projects. Proposals are due June 25, 2007.

NSF Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) - This program aims to synergize university-industry partnerships by making project funds or fellowships/traineeships available to support an eclectic mix of industry-university linkages. This solicitation targets high-risk/high-gain research with a focus on fundamental topics, new approaches to solving generic problems, development of innovative collaborative industry-university educational programs, and direct transfer of new knowledge between academe and industry. GOALI seeks to fund research that lies beyond that which industry would normally fund by themselves. Deadline variable depending on NSF directorate.

Get Involved

Are you a Portland-based water scientist or professional? John Metta (a soon-to-be OSU-water alum) is organizing a monthly gathering of students, professionals and others interested in water issues. It's called "The Mixing Zone" and will take place at a local eatery or brewery on the last Thursday of every month. Come mix with others working in water, meet new friends and stay connected with old ones. Details are disseminated via a single email each month containing location and times. To get on the list contact John at 503.229.6629, METTA.John<at>deq.state.or.us.

Upcoming Events

Sunday, March 25 - Saturday, March 31. Spring Break 2007: FE 538 Field Hydrology at the Andrews Experimental Forest. Field exercises and measurements will focus on how to measure, understand and interpret: the energy balance components of snowmelt, stream flow-groundwater interactions, isotope analysis, hyporheic exchange, movement of water in the riparian area. Link to info on last year’s class. FMI: contact Jeff McDonnell or download the course flyer.

Thursday, April 5 4:00 p.m., LaSells Stewart Center C&E Auditorium. Preparing Resource Professionals for an Uncertain World (Starker Lecture Series). Speaker: Jerry Franklin, Professor of Ecosystem Science, University of Washington. FMI: http://www.cof.orst.edu/starkerlectures/.

Tuesday, April 3 - Thursday, April 5. Pathways to Resilience: Sustaining Pacific Salmon in a Changing World (Oregon Sea Grant Conference). The meeting is a forum for exploring the concept of resilience and its application to ecosystem management and salmon recovery. Held at the Marriott Portland Downtown Waterfront Hotel. FMI: http://oregonstate.edu/conferences/resilience/.

Link to a calendar of other upcoming water-related events...