H₂OSU is also available at: http://water.oregonstate.edu/newsletter/.
October 8, 2007

The View from 210

Note: This column is Britney Spears-free!

Despite the presence of at least one inept chef, the Hydrophiles BBQ at Avery Park was a great success, thanks to Jay-F, Monica-H, Jay-Z, Todd-J, and others.

The IWW Collaboratory is having an Open House on October 19, 2007, 2-4 p.m. Director Kathy Motter has done an incredible job establishing the lab and assembling an excellent suite of equipment. She has been so successful that the Collaboratory is already running out of space! Please join Kathy and the rest of us – refreshments will be served (but not in the lab!). The Collaboratory is located in Room 379, Forest Sciences Lab (FSL), 3200 SW Jefferson Way, just west of Richardson Hall. The Open House is open to everyone, not just OSU folks. For more information visit http://water.oregonstate.edu/collaboratory or contact Kathy at kathryn.motter@oregonstate,edu, 758-8764. I may bring my antique Bunsen burner and slide rule.

Some of you have inquired about the white paper from the Snake/Columbia Basin Water-Energy Summit held in Boise last June. Well, it fell down a black hole, but has been reconstituted out the back side and is now in preparation. Stay tuned.

There are a number of conferences/workshops involving the IWW and/or Oregonians in the near future.

• Physical Evaluations for Small River Projects, Short Course Series, 5-9 November, 2007, LaSells Stewart Center, OSU, Corvallis. This series is organized as four individual 1-day short courses and a 1-day workshop. Attend one, attend all, or some number in between. Visit: cce.oregonstate.edu/workshops/water/water07.html

• At The Crossroads: Sustaining Oregon’s Forests in a Rapidly Changing World, 6-7 November, CH2M Hill Alumni Center, OSU, Corvallis. This is being convened by our sister institute, the Institute for Natural Resources. Visit: inr.oregonstate.edu/atthecrossroads.

• Water in the Pacific Northwest: Moving Science into Policy and Action, 7-9 November, Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, WA. Featured speakers: Rep. Jackie Dingfelder and Dr. Pat Leahy, Executive Director of the American Geological Institute and former Associate Director for Geology, USGS. Visit: capps.wsu.edu/WaterPolicy/index.html.

• American Water Resources Association Annual Conference, 12-15 November, Albuquerque, NM, Embassy Suites Hotel. There will be 81 concurrent sessions/panels, 300 oral and 100 poster presentations. Over 420 abstracts were received, an all-time record. I am serving as conference chair, and Rep. Jackie Dingfelder will be the luncheon keynoter. Visit: www.awra.org/meetings/New_Mexico2007/index.html.

• 2007 Watershed Council Gathering, 13-16 November 2007, Hood River, OR. Former Governor John Kitzhaber is a keynoter. For more information, go to: www.oregonwatersheds.org.

• Annual Stream Restoration Symposium, 5-7 February 2008, River Restoration Northwest, Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, WA. See: rrnw.org

We also have two meetings in the planning stages:

• Aquifer Storage and Recovery and Artificial Recharge in Oregon, 28 February 2008, LaSells Stewart Center, OSU, Corvallis. IWW (Todd Jarvis and I) and OWRD (Doug Woodcock, Debbie Colbert, and Jerry Rodgers) will sponsor this one-day symposium. The aforementioned individuals plus OSU’s Jenn Woody and Jeff Barry of GSI Water Solutions, Inc., have developed a preliminary program. We plan to get David Pyne as the keynoter. ASR-AR and ground water storage (GWS) are hot topics – GWS is the cover story of the current issue of Western Water. We have scheduled this meeting so it is juxtaposed to the Water Resources Graduate Program’s Open House on 27 February.

• First International Conference on Non-Renewable Ground Water, 15-16 October 2008, Portland, OR. The National Ground Water Association will be organizing this meeting, based on a concept by Todd Jarvis and me. Along with the IWW, co-sponsors will be The World Bank and UNESCO-IHP. A Call for Abstracts should be on the NGWA WWW site soon. 

On 20 September we hosted a visit from Robert (Bob) Pietrowsky, Director of the Institute for Water Resources (IWR), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bob was here to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Dr. John Cassady, Vice President for Research. The MOU is a prelude to the submission of a proposal to UNESCO by the IWR that seeks designation as a UNESCO Category II Center. Along with OSU, the partners in this venture will be the Universities of New Hampshire and Arizona, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. The proposal is due later this year, and will likely take up to two years to work its way through the UN system.  

Some other IWW projects in various stages include: 1) working with the Corvallis School District 509J to use the Inavale School (down past the airport) as a place-based learning center and research facility in conjunction with a proposed charter school; 2) assisting Benton County with its water plan development; 3) developing a stream restoration synthesis team (Todd Jarvis, John Selker, Hiram Li, Roy Haggerty and I are taking the lead on this); 4) working with the City of Corvallis on its drinking-water quality plan; and 5) assisting the Oregon Business Council in developing recommendations for water policy changes during the 2009 legislative session.

Associate Director Todd Jarvis continues on his trajectory to stardom with his Measure 37, dowsing, and bottled water presentations. He’s probably coming soon to a venue near you.

Our fall seminar series has started – Wednesdays at 4 PM, Owen Hall 102. Todd Jarvis has assembled a great selection of speakers (see water.oregonstate.edu/news/seminar_fall07.htm). See you there.

The RFP for the USGS Small Grants Program is out – the deadline is 16 November. Visit http://water.oregonstate.edu/funding/index.htm.

We’re trying something new this month – a podcast. Maria Wright interviewed Dr. Roy Haggerty of OSU’s Department of Geosciences about his recent sabbatical in Spain where he worked on “smart” water tracers. It’s about six minutes. Let us know what you think (click on the podcast icon below to play it).

I am heading to the South Caucasus (Tbilisi, Georgia) for the annual meeting of our NATO-funded South Caucasus River Monitoring project. I always have an enjoyable time, working with some remarkable people who don’t have the best of facilities. Besides, I am glad to do my part, however insignificant, as a tool of Western foreign policy. One advantage: the project is funded in euros. This column’s quote (below) is not a fabrication but a relic from the “wild West” days after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Things are somewhat calmer now (famous last words).

Till next month (by which time the Klamath Basin report should be finished),
Michael

“Handguns are acceptable; semi-automatic weapons must be checked at reception.”

– sign on the door of the Metechi Palace Hotel in Tbilisi, Georgia
(the sign was removed when the hotel became a Sheraton)

Featured Research

Roy Haggerty, professor of Geosciences, returned this summer from a year-long sabbatical in Spain. He agreed to be our guinea pig for something new, a research feature in the form of a podcast. Click on the icon to download a six minute interview where Roy describes a little about his experiences in Spain and his research on smart hydrologic tracers. (Click on the orange icon to play it.)

The podcast is a preview to Roy's upcoming seminar on October 11, at 4 p.m. in Wilkinson 108. He will speak then on the: "Development of a Smart Tracer for Hydrology: Measuring Biological Activity and Water-Sediment Interaction with Resazurin".

Congratulations

Holly Barnard, graduate student in Forest Science and Forest Engineering, recently won the AGU Horton Research Grant, a prestigious award given to an outstanding PhD proposal in hydrology. Congratulations to Holly!

Get Involved

Consider submitting an abstract for the 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources. The conference focuses on national trends in curricular issues and innovative teaching methods in natural resource fields. It will be held March 13-15, 2008 at OSU. Abstracts are due October 31, 2007.

Upcoming Events

Wednesdays Fall Term 2007, 4-5:30 p.m., 102 Owen Hall, OSU. OSU Fall Water Resources Seminar Series. The theme is: Revisiting Restoration, Reconstruction, and Renaturalization of Engineered Landscapes: Technical, Political, Legal and Natural Resistance. FMI: Todd Jarvis, 737-4032.

Thursday, October 11, 4:00 p.m., Wilkinson 108. Development of a Smart Tracer for Hydrology: Measuring Biological Activity and Water-Sediment Interaction with Resazurin (Geology Seminar Series). Speaker: Roy Haggerty, Geosciences.

Thursday, October 18, 4:00 p.m., Wilkinson 108. Geologically Mediated Response of Streamflow to Climate Warming in the Western U.S. (Geology Seminar Series). Speaker: Gordon Grant, USFS PNW Research Lab.

October 19, 2007, 2-4 p.m., Room 379, Forest Sciences Lab (FSL), 3200 SW Jefferson Way. IWW Collaboratory Open House. Come check out the facilities and enjoy refreshments - everyone is welcome, from OSU and beyond.

Monday, October 29, 4:00 p.m., ALS 4000. The Soil Warming Experiment at the Harvard Forest LTER in Petersham, Massachusetts (Crop and Soil Science Seminar). Presented by: Joe Blanchard, OSU Crop and Soil Science M.S. Candidate.

The upcoming conferences Michael mentioned in his column are also listed on the IWW calendar of water-related events...

Funding Opportunities for Students

Sigma Xi, Research Grants for Undergraduate and Graduate Students. Sigma Xi, a scientific organization, offers grants-in-aid to fund research in science and engineering disciplines. Grant amounts range from $100 to $1,000 (with an average award of $600). Deadlines are October 15 and March 15.

NSF and EPA Graduate Fellowships. Applications for these prestigious fellowships are due in November. NSF awards Graduate Research Fellowships and EPA awards Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowships. Both are intended for individuals in the early stages of their graduate career and provide three years of stipend and tuition funding. EPA Fellowship applications are due October 23, 2007 and NSF Fellowship applications are due in Early November (date dependant on subject area).

Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship and Creativity (URISC). The Research Office is accepting applications for the for the Winter/Spring 2007-08 solicitation. Deadline is Monday, Oct. 29. Info: Debbie Delmore at 737-8390 or debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu.

EPA 5th Annual P3 Award: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity, and the Planet - This program will fund student design projects from around the country during the 2008-2009 academic year to research and develop sustainable designs. This program will fund 55 teams of undergraduates or graduates with $10,000 to research and develop sustainable designs during the 2008-2009 academic year. At the end of the year, EPA will select six teams to receive additional Phase II funding of up to $75,000 to further develop their idea. Several water-related topics are among the research categories including: irrigation practices; public health information related environmental decision-making; water quality, quantity, conservation, availability, and access; innovative green buildings; ways to reduce storm water runoff. Proposals due: December 20, 2007.

Funding Opportunities for Faculty

OSU General Research Fund (GRF) Fall 2007-08 Solicitation - Up to $10,000 of funding for pilot research, emergency funding, emerging research opportunities. Proposals due: Monday, October 15. 

NSF Geosciences Education - The GeoEd Program includes a Pilot Projects track. Proposals for projects that will make use of current geoscience research results and/or methods are sought, as are proposals that will promote the geosciences and geoscience careers as highly relevant to modern society. Projects that are informed by the results of current education-related research or will conduct new educational research within a geoscience education venue will be considered under this solicitation. Awards are intended to provide start-up or proof-of-concept funding to enable projects to reach a level of maturity that will allow them to compete for longer-term funding from other sources or become self-sustaining. All proposed projects should have strong evaluation and dissemination plans. Proposals due: November 15, 2007.

IWW-USGS 2007 Small Grants - Up to $30K grants available for faculty and, new this year, up to $10K grants available for graduate students. Projects should emphasize long-term water and watershed management issues. Proposals are due November 16.

NSF Hydrologic Science - Hydrologic Sciences focuses on the flow of water and transport processes within streams, soils, and aquifers. Particular attention is given to spatial and temporal heterogeneity of fluxes and storages of water and chemicals over a wide range of scales, to geolimnology and to interfaces with the landscape, microbial communities, and coastal areas. Studies may also deal with processes in aqueous geochemistry and with the physical, chemical, and biological processes within water bodies. Study of these processes requires expertise from many basic sciences and mathematics, and proposals often require joint review with related programs. Proposals due December 1, 2007.

Don't forget, a list of water-related external funding opportunities is available on the IWW Web site.

H₂OSU is a periodic e-mail news briefing provided by the Institute for Water and Watersheds. It is distributed through the OSU hydro e-mail lists -- to subscribe or unsubscribe, go to http://oregonstate.edu/groups/hydro/email.htm. Questions, comments and ideas for news briefs may be sent to the IWW at iww@oregonstate.edu. More news from the IWW is available at http://water.oregonstate.edu/news/index.htm.