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June 29, 2006
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Welcome
to the newsletter about all things water in Montana!
MONTANA WATER
NEWS will come your way via email every month with fresh news about meetings
and water topics that we hope is of interest to you. If you do not want to receive
this newsletter, please scroll down and follow the directions to unsubscribe.
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the newsletter online in the newsletter archives. |
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| What
Happens When Dams Fail? |
Mystic Lake. |
Montana is home to over 2,300 dams.
What happens when these dams fail? While the construction and architecture of dams has been
chronicled since the early fourth century, the restoration of the environment after a dam has
been removed or failed is speculative. Denine Schmitz, of MSU’s Land Resources and Environmental
Sciences Department, used aerial photographs taken throughout the last century to see how areas
near decommissioned and destroyed dams change with time. Her project compared the restoration
of two dams’ riparian areas.
Mystic Lake Dam’s controlled
removal in 1985 and the failure of the Pattengail Dam in 1927 created diverse impacts. While
forty percent of riparian vegetation near the failure of Pattengail Dam has changed, there
has been little change near Mystic Lake. Her results suggest
not only that response to dam removal depends on the sizing and timing of flow events during
and after dam removal, but also on reach types and their responsiveness to flow regime change.
Schmitz’s research helps build
awareness that many dams are becoming dangerous and need to be removed. As they fill with sediment
over time, they lose strength and ability to hold water. Schmitz tackles the question of whether
decommissioning dams is tool for restoration or a process that is as devastating as the dam
itself. Dam designs are generally re-rated at 50 years; seventy-six percent of Montana’s dams
are over 40 yours old. To review Schmitz’s conclusions, you can download
a report of her work [1.5MB PDF] supported through the Montana Water Center’s water research
program.
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| Dr.
Liz Shanahan |
| The Political
Science Department at Montana State University has a new face—Red Sox fan professor Liz Shanahan.
Raised on the east coast, this ex-Jackson Hole resident comes to Bozeman with a mission. She
focuses her research on how policy makers in the Greater Yellowstone area frame their arguments
about federal public land uses, apply scientific principles, contribute to policy intractability
through New West-Old West attitudes and economies, and reflect the consumer-oriented social
culture.
Shanahan’s specialty
is land issues, which she believes are lightening-rod concerns in the American West. Local
land conservation initiatives, snowmobile access to Yellowstone National Park, and the difference
in land-use policy across the region are all issues Professor Shanahan addresses. She hopes
to link politics and natural science by helping policy makers stay informed and ensuring that
scientists’ voices are heard.
Dr. Shanahan attended Dartmouth
as an undergraduate student before earning her doctorate at Idaho State. She will be teaching
Public Policy next spring term. “I would like to make a difference in communities across the
west, to help policy makers make strategically-planned decisions,” she says. She says Bozeman
was “on top of my list” and that it is a place that engenders a “confluence of smart people
who have varied interests.”
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| Dr.
Lucy Marshall |
Dr. Lucy Marshall. |
Lucy Marshall is the new assistant
professor in the Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Department at MSU where she will
be teaching Watershed Analysis next spring. She and her family hail from Sydney, Australia.
Dr. Marshall comes to Bozeman
after completing a master’s degree in Hydrology and Water Resources, and a PhD in Civil and
Environmental Engineering, both from Sydney’s University of New South Wales. She has a love
for math and statistics which she applies to her specialty: hydrologic modeling under uncertainty.
Her doctoral work centered on finding ways to compare, specify, and combine different conceptual
hydrologic models under uncertainty. Marshall’s current use of Bayesian statistical inference
in hydrology could be a tool in risk management situations. In the fall she will teach a numerical
and statistical analysis class pertaining to this type of modeling.
When she isn’t in her office
Lucy enjoys “hiking, seeing the native wildlife, and being close to Yellowstone.” She says
the main difference between Sydney and Bozeman is the weather and the food. This is her first
encounter with snow. “We watched our neighbors to see what they did; we had never used a scraper
before,” she says, adding that “the people here are more like Australians than anywhere else.”
Stop in and say hello to Professor Marshall at Leon Johnson 724, or check out her webpage at:
http://landresources.Montana.edu/marshall.
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Do
you have more news?
Many
Montana Water News articles are generated by the Montana Water Center’s new student
intern, Evan Tennant. Evan is studying public policy at Montana State University
with a special interest in water policy. He spends what free time he has writing
stories for this e-newsletter. Do you have some stories of interest you would like
him to feature? If so, please contact Evan at ewtennant@montana.edu. He’d like to
hear from you. |
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| More
than $650,000 Awarded for Whirling Disease Studies |
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BOZEMAN -- Whirling disease remains
a high-profile issue even a dozen years after it was discovered in Montana's wild trout and
streams, say officials at the Montana Water Center housed at Montana State University. Continuing
to advance management solutions, six research teams in the West received more than $650,000
total in the latest round of grants from the Whirling Disease Initiative. Two of those studies
are led by Billie Kerans of MSU. The Whirling Disease Initiative is a national whirling disease
research program administered by the Montana Water Center. The research projects will be conducted
between May 15, 2006 and the end of 2008.
Kerans and Thomas McMahon of
MSU received almost $246,000 to carry out a statewide study in Montana of patterns in whirling
disease risk and salmonid population response. In a separate study, Kerans and Todd Koel from
the National Park Service received $68,283 to study whirling disease as it relates to Yellowstone
cutthroat trout in Yellowstone National Park and variations in the aquatic worm, Tubifex
tubifex.
Whirling disease is caused by
the Myxobolus cerebralis parasite. The parasite uses salmonid fish and Tubifex
tubifex worms
as hosts and has been a major contributor to the loss of rainbow trout in the Intermountain
West. Whirling disease was discovered in Montana in 1994.
Other research projects that
received funding this year are based in Colorado, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Arizona and
Utah. Those grants ranged from more than $20,000 to more than $196,000. Those studies deal
with:
- resolving uncertainties in
the introduction of whirling disease and establishment risks.
- evaluating the effect of substratum
on the development and release of a certain stage of the whirling disease parasite in resistant
strains of Tubifex tubifex.
- development of a regional risk
assessment for native salmonids in arid and semi-arid lands of the Southwest.
- testing competition
among Tubifex tubifex lineages and the potential for biological control of whirling disease
in natural streams.
The Whirling Disease Initiative
supports research that looks for practical ways to maintain viable, self-sustaining wild trout
populations. To learn more about whirling disease and past research, go to http://whirlingdisease.montana.edu.
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| Recent
Supreme Court Decision |
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Recently the Supreme Court decided
the Rapanos/Carabell case dealing with the extent of the Clean Water Act on wetlands and intermittent
and ephemeral waters. The Association of State Wetland Managers web site has links to the decisions,
media coverage, press releases, briefs and other material about the case. Visit the web site
at: http://www.aswm.org/fwp/rapanos_state2006.htm#1. |
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| Montana
Section AWRA 23rd Annual Conference |
Just in case you have forgotten,
go to the Montana Section American Water Resources Association web site at
http://awra.org/state/montana/
events/conference.htm
for instructions on submitting your abstract online for the October 12 and 13 meeting in Polson.
Abstract submittals are due on July 12. Online registration will be available in mid-July so
watch for an announcement in the near future. |
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| 2006
Northwest Water Policy and Law Symposium |
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Don’t miss the September 18-20,
2006 Northwest Water Policy and Law Symposium in Bozeman, Montana. For more information, go
to the meeting web site at http://water.montana.edu/policy. |
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| Montana
Hydrology Conference |
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The Montana Hydrology Conference
will be held this year in Great Falls on August 22-24, 2006. Hosted by the National Weather
Service, invited speakers include Dr. Kathleen White from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering
Lab (CRREL) in New Hampshire, Dr. Faye Hicks from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada and Carrie Olheiser from the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC).
Presentations will follow a theme of winter hydrology, with emphasis on river ice and ice jams.
Download the Invitation
and Call for Papers [156KB PDF]. Please call Gina Loss at 406-727-7671 with
further questions. |
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| A
Handbook for Stream Enhancement & Stewardship |
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A Handbook for Stream Enhancement & Stewardship,
prepared by the Izaak Walton League, provides a consolidation of much otherwise-dispersed information
into a well organized single volume. This handbook is a basic resource for those wishing to
carry out cost-effective stream corridor assessment, enhancement, and stewardship programs.
It will be of great value to readers wanting to acquire a solid grasp for the fundamentals
of assessing the physical condition and ecological well-being of streams, and of what might
be done to improve the stability and ecological health of stream corridors in their communities.
This title is more fully described at http://www.mwpubco.com/stream.htm,
or by calling 800-233-8787. |
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So
many meetings, so little time. Take special note of upcoming national and local water
meetings on the Events
Calendar at MONTANA WATER. |
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 Sustainability
Fair 2006, Livingston, July 8, 2006
[INFO]
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Universities
Council on Water Resources: Ph.D. Dissertation Awards, Santa Fe, NM, July 18- 20, 2006
[INFO]
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2006
NIWR Annual Conference: Increasing Freshwater Supplies, Santa Fe, NM, July 18 - 20, 2006
[INFO]
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North
American Surface Water Quality Conference & Exposition, Denver, CO, July 24 - 27, 2006
[INFO]
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Grants
101: Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop, Missoula, July 24 - 26, 2006
[INFO]
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NESC
7th Annual Enivormental Institute, Morgantown, WV, July 25 - 28, 2006
[INFO]
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Hydro
Vision 2006, Portland, OR, July 31 - August 4, 2006
[INFO]
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International
Symposium on Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics, Queensland, Australia, August 6 - 11, 2006
[INFO]
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Montana
Hydrology Conference, Helena, August 22 - 24, 2006
[INFO]
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