Went to Folk Life with Megan, Rebecca and Sarah.  Completely caught off guard when I ran into guess who--Rachael D.  At the mall (why do I always end up in the mall?  I hate the mall)

I guess it was as good a time as any to say goodbye cause I missed her on Friday.

Been spending the weekend with Ellis.  It's been fun, but depressing.  Whatever, nine hour work shifts are gonna suck much worse.

I showed Ellis the garryana and he was soooooooooo interested in them.  Then again, we were both pretty drunkish.  We spent probably like hours discussing girl and boy trees, when everyone knows oaks are hermaphroditic, aduh.  I got myself another bracelet at the fair.  It's different, but not bad at all.  Thinner, more rainbowish.  I guess I ran out of time to help Lisa clean out the room.  Whatever, I'll never see her again.  Yay.

So many things in the news today, but I was stopped by the sound of the wood thrush, which is the sound of home in the summertime.  Thoreau once wrote that the wood thrush makes a few notes, and then sits silent for a moment so the listener can ponder before he makes a few others.  They had replayed one of my favorite Birdnote episodes--actually, the only one that I can remember.

http://www.birdnote.org/birdnote.cfm?id=1756

Lots of drama over the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  At least nobody is making as big of a deal out of it as Prop 8 etc.  Yet.  I mean, the bigotry in this one is way more straightforward--but I'm sure somehow someone could cook up some bullshit about the violation of the rights of the heterosexual.  Also, Gulf spill was just officially crowned "Worst US Offshore Spill."  That's worse than Exxon Valdez.  I wonder why nobody is protesting this yet.  I don't know.  I hope Obama takes advantage of this.  I wonder what Evergreen is doing.  Well, I know that Greenpeace dropped that big banner in England.

"Deepwater Horizon."  That's what Mr. Crites will teach high school students about.  That's not Exxon Valdez.  Maybe everyone will forget about Exxon Valdez now.

Megan offered to come see me at the awards ceremony on Saturday.  That might be nice.  I mean it could definitely not be a huge deal, but if they ask you to repondez s'il vous plait with a guest count ... I don't know.  I never win awards.  It could be cool.  Or intensely lame.

Also, I slept through both alarms this morning and made it to work 20 minutes late.  All I can think is, at least that didn't happen on Tuesday.

[EDIT 10.04am]

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/0/1/1655625/KPLU.Local.News/South.Park.Bridge.Supporters.Scramble.T

Okay, so last night the environmental justice group mentioned that the South Park bridge was what fucked up the whole neighborhood in the first place.  Which is why Marra Farm is so important.  But I'm having a hard time researching the exact facts.

[EDIT 10.24am]

Okay, too difficult now.  Doing phil homework instead.

[EDIT 10.48pm]

Update at 1:15 p.m. ET: According to the Associated Press, the House may not begin voting on the amendment until this evening.

Anyway, this must be what it's like to be a housewife.  Hanging around waiting with anticipation on every update.

[EDIT 10.54pm]

Yeah!!!!! You're done!!!! And you were a raging success at being general manager, taking a very difficult academic load, working at the NPR station and being a general good friend to Megan, the boys, and the folks at the student station.  YOU ARE TOTALLY AWESOME, and I brag about you all the time, especially at how prfessionally you managed the radio station and how you organize your time and get so much work done ahead, despite having the Overby procrastination gene.   I love you lots and lots.  Mom

Oh Mom.  You have no fucking clue.

[EDIT 12.25pm]

"Instead, it gives we in the LGBT community a promise of process to repeal of DADT without a guarantee it actually will ever result in LGB servicemembers being able to serve openly."

Damnit!  No wonder it's not a huge deal.

Thinking about the gulf.

[EDIT 3.40pm]

Walked down to work and took the trail around the flood drainage area where Clover Creek used to run.  I consider it a wild place still, although it's full of invasives.  The spring dandelions are done, and the cranes bill has mostly gone to seed.  Now the grass is high and there are a few hawkbits, and on the other side of the hill the poppies are coming up.  The sky is darkening (outside Neeb's double glass).  Nick says it's going to rain.

I saw camas.  I saw three camas and I could eat them if I wanted to, but they're rare enough as it is, I guess.

After the exam I walked out to the Garries.  My favorite is the one with the rotted lower branch.  If I were full of outdoor friends I would leave them love letters in the wrinkles of the trunk.  There's Stinky Bob everywhere.  The lunaria is giving way to dame's rocket and a few stray blackberry bushes are throwing up new shoots.  I hope that Reed keeps his project running over the summer, because I would like to help for once.

Ellis dropped by and we chit-chatted, him mostly striving to remain positive, me mostly trying to look sympathetic and motherly when I know I just look awkward like that.  Now it's raining tough again.  One hour til the bell rings and I can eat.  He kept telling me that just because he's single now doesn't mean he's going to go after me.  What the fuck Ellis, duh.  I'm not going to get on him about that.  He's trying to celebrate some sort of emancipation, I think.  I guess that if my girlfriend didn't want me to look at someone else's tits I'd have something to celebrate too.

Huh.  Stinky Bob is a mosquito repellant.

And now, cute pictures of baby animals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grus_canadensis8.jpg

That was fun.

Summer books:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/156924300x?&PID=25450
http://www.powells.com/biblio/0865715440?&PID=25450

Four minutes ...

[EDIT 12.35am]

Ha, I switched the bracket keys.  Mindblower.

Why are you always averse to the prompt?!  Follow the fucking prompt you retard.  This is why you never get good grades.  Look, I'm not going to write about something I'm not interested in.  If I had to incorporate salmon into a cut-dry essay on Clover Creek data, then fuck em.  You'll probably get a B in that class anyway.  The final's only 10% of the grade.  And if not, your GPA can take the hit.  You're such a genius.  I love you lady.

In the library.  Been so good--no Facebook at all!!  Though I spent about two hours total this evening chattering with Lady Audra--been seeing her everywhere lately--had to tell her about the mutant dandelions, and tank girl, and bulimia and body images and microbiology and jihad.  The Brie and I got cookies and coffee at 9:30--served free by the Cranky Librarian.  Yummo, caffeine high, and slightly headache.  I could probably end the essay right now, and still get a sweet grade in this class.  Listening to the dance music.  Wanna super party on the tabletops.  2nd floor is sooooo much awesomer than 3rd floor.

Best part about science?  You can shit out the writing part and everyone thinks you've got such poetic Rachel Carson skillzorz.  Man, fuck science.  Nobody cares.

Need to brush teeth.  Badly.  Gonna get cavities.  Gonna die.  Bleh.  Finals is the perfect excuse to wear a skirt, but it's also the perfect excuse to neglect all personal hygeine.  I'm wearing the same thing I wore yesterday, and slept in last night/nap this morning.  Need a shower too.  Thirty minutes til closing (1.27).  Dear God, please don't let me fuck up this phil presentation.  I am the worst.  Oh, fuck.  Oh, who cares.

ENVT350: Methods

May 25, 2010

Final Exam

It is important to study salmon--or the potential for salmon--in Clover Creek because of their status in the Northwest as a unique trademark, almost a “charismatic megafauna,” as established by the Resource Management group for Project One.  Not only this, but their presence, absence and behavior within a watershed act as a direct indicator of watershed health (page 5).  Their past ability to thrive in this watershed offers the potential for Clover Creek to act as a safe harbor for these threatened and endangered species.

According to an interview with resident Peggy Dean, Clover Creek used to be one of the lucky streams where salmon would return to spawn.  However, some time in the late 1930’s, they disappeared (Project One: Resource Management, Page 5).  What caused their disappearance?  In this paper I will explain how geology (as opposed to chemistry or biology) is the main cause for the depletion of salmon in Clover Creek, and the human impacts that caused these problems.  I will also offer potential strategies for the improvement of salmon habitat within Clover Creek.

By looking only through the lenses of chemistry and biology, Clover Creek seems to be a very healthy stream.  The Water Quality Index (WQI) for Clover Creek has improved vastly since 1993 (from the “medium” to “good” range in the mid-sixties), and leveled off around the “good” to “excellent” range (70 to 90) in the past ten years.  Nitrate levels at different sites along the main stream bed fluctuated between 0.4 to 3.4 mg/L, falling entirely within a healthy range.  Dissolved oxygen levels varied between 9 to 15 mg/L, also indicating a healthy level of DO (Project 3: Chemical Cause and Effect in Clover Creek, pages 7-8).  No viable data collected communicated a chemically unhealthy stream.

Biologically, taxa richness levels ranged from 20.0 to 7.0, averaging 10 in the lower watershed and 15.25 in the upper watershed.  IS THIS HEALTHY?!  IT’D BETTER BE!!!!  Biological indicators are good for measuring the long-term health of the stream, whereas chemical indicators only discuss stream health taken at the time.  The relatively healthy biotic data indicates that the stream is stable in its long-term health—otherwise the macroinvertebrates living therein wouldn’t be able to survive for very long.

            The water itself is livable—perhaps even preferable, given the state of many streams region wide and nationwide.  Therefore, water quality is not the problem.  The problem is water quantity.  An important blocking factor to salmon habitation in the upper watershed is the break of flow in the stream bed between 25^th Ave and 133^rd, and very shallow water runs in many sites along the main stream.  As mentioned by Al Schmauder on the watershed tour, there can be no salmon if there is no water for them to breathe and move in (Project One: European Settlement and Land Use History, page 7).  Sometimes the break in the stream is seasonal, and other times it lasts the entire year.  In 1987, the Clover Creek Coalition, later to become the Clover Creek Council, was founded by volunteers in an attempt to “restore perennial stream flow” to the creek in an effort to restore salmon (Project One: Resource Management, Page 9).

As mentioned in Project One, Resource Management, a direct connection was made between dredging projects East of Pacific Avenue and at McChord during the 1930’s and 1940’s and the disappearance of salmon from the creek, through a combination of historical documents and interviews.  Channelization of the creek in 1966 rerouted the water, but also disrupted the natural ecology and slowed natural resilience due to a long-unobstructed concrete bottom (pages 6-9).  Dredging and channelizing the waters provides a very difficult conundrum for salmon to overcome.  These fish rely on relatively undisrupted streambeds with bends, curves, blocks and naturalized bottoms for parents to lay their eggs safely and for fry to hide and live in before their return to the ocean.  Channelization also increases water flows.  We can speculate that the change in velocity after dredging and straightening the creek may have further alienated the salmon because of the ability to sweep young fish away before they are ready to travel downstream.

One component to geology and salmon presence left unresearched is geological obstacles downstream from Clover Creek in Steilacoom Lake and Chambers Creek, leading out to the Puget Sound.  Geological barriers such as dams or other areas of no flow may exist downstream, preventing salmon from migrating all the way up to Clover Creek itself.

If actions were to be taken to restore salmon to Clover Creek, it would be wise to consider a study of geological barriers downstream from Clover Creek.  This would be the first step in waterway restoration for salmon movement upstream.  From there, many opportunities are available to restore salmon habitat.  One good example is that of Parkland Prairie, five blocks south of Pacific Lutheran University, across Tule Lake Road from the golf course.  General restoration of the bends, pools and riffles natural to a Prairie stream allows for friendlier salmon habitat.  Beyond restoration projects, a more concerted effort to discover the causes of and potential fixes to stream breaks, such as that between 133^rd and 25^th, would allow for salmon to move from less fry-hospitable creekbeds as those in the channelized area to more natural, undisturbed creek beds in the upper watershed.