February 11, 2003

Environmental Watch: NW snowpack water content declining

SEATTLE -- A warming climate over the last 50 years has, through early melting, dramatically reduced the water content of the Pacific Northwest's springtime snowpack, new research at the University of Washington has found.

"I was surprised at the size of the result," said Philip Mote, a research scientist with the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at the UW. "There's already a clearer regional signal of warming in the mountains than we expected."

The research shows that from 1950 through 1992, the amount of water contained in snowpack declined steadily throughout the region, as much as 60 percent in some places, Mote said.

In measurements taken each year on April 1 at 145 sites throughout the region, 141 sites registered decreases in the water content of the snowpack, and 90 of them had declines of at least 25 percent.

Readings were taken for another five years at the U.S. sites and those supported the previous data, Mote said. In addition, a computer model that simulated snowpack for part of the region by using actual weather readings from 1915 through 1998 confirms the results.

Most of the decline in water content of the snowpack -- called snow-water equivalent -- is directly attributable to higher temperatures that cause the snowpack to melt earlier, he said. At the nine sites with the sharpest decreases, the cause was a combination of rising temperatures and declining precipitation.

"The losses generally decrease with elevation, especially in the Cascades, which is consistent with a temperature effect," said Mote, who will present his findings tomorrow at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

"These trends have profound and disturbing implications for water resources in the region, where conflicts over water have already drawn national attention," Mote said.

Turner exec gets new term at GBC

SEATTLE -- Turner Construction's James H. Goldman, a project executive in the company's Northwest business unit in Seattle, has been re-elected to the U.S. Green Building Council's National Board of Directors for a two-year term.

The council is a coalition that promotes buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.

Goldman currently serves on the council's Finance Committee and is a frequent speaker on green issues at building industry forums.

He has spent 23 years of his 28-year career in the construction industry at Turner. He is presently managing two construction projects in Boise. One is the Idaho Water Center, an environmental academic, research and institutional office building. The other is Idaho Place, a three-building urban academic campus for the University of Idaho and Idaho State University.

Turner has more than 20 green building projects either completed or under construction in the U.S.

Working with Goldman in Turner's council activities is Michael Iker, Turner's manager of the San Francisco Interiors Group. Iker played a key role in creation of the Bay Area chapter of the USGBC.

NEBC picks officers for 2003

PORTLAND -- Sean Ragin of GeoEngineers Inc. has been elected president of the Northwest Environmental Business Council's 2003 Board of Directors.

Other officers are Vice President Steve Gill of TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, Treasurer Mark Hanson of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Secretary Craig Trueblood of Preston Gates & Ellis. In addition to the new officers, Tracy Barton of Bio-Reaction Industries was elected to the board.

The NEBC was formed in 1996 as the Northwest regional trade association for the environmental technology and service industry. It has more than 150 member companies in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

City seeks citizen input on water, waste

SEATTLE -- Seattle Public Utilities is offering citizens the opportunity to serve on one of three citizen advisory committees: Solid Waste, Water System, and Creeks and Drainage.

The committees are designed to keep SPU’s director in touch with the community's viewpoints on key issues and advise SPU management on issues related to its primary lines of business.

The committees meet monthly between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. SPU provides staff support to each group. Committee members can anticipate spending between four to five hours per month on issues during their two-year terms.

SPU seeks a diverse representation of residential and business communities, committed volunteers with the interest and skills to advance the issues facing their communities.

Applications should be returned by Feb. 24. Applications are available by calling (206) 684-7666.

PNNL honored for 2 innovations

SAN DIEGO -- The Environmental Business Journal has selected the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as the winner of two 2002 Technology Merit Awards. The Department of Energy lab was the only group to be recognized with more than one award.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's first honor is for the development of Sensor Fish, a 6-inch-long waterproof package of accelerometers, pressure sensors and digital memory. Researchers send the device through the turbines of Columbia River dams to collect never-berfore-captured data on hydraulic conditions that salmon and other species experience.

The lab, along with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, also is being honored for developing a breakthrough application of remote sensing to enable BLM to monitor 262 million acres of Western rangelands.

Remote sensing provides color images to convey information about overgrazing, weed invasion or fire damage.

OSU helping to turn cowboys green

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -- Students can still learn to be cowboys at Oregon State University.

The school has decided to continue its Department of Rangeland Resources, a college of agriculture specialty that focuses on soils, watersheds, and the ecology of grazing.

The university's plans to disband the program had brought an angry response from the agriculture industry, which claimed the school was bending to pressure from environmentalists.

"We threatened, we kicked, we cussed, and they finally came to their senses," said Glen Stonebrink, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association.

The program's roughly 20 students learn the science of being a cowboy, studying noxious weeds, the effect of grazing on watersheds and other topics related to cattle rearing, such as the amount of grass consumed by wild geese as they migrate.

Conservation groups have complained that the program's research often favors the state's $422 million beef industry.

OSU's program is the second largest in the country after Texas A&M's. The major is also offered at Eastern Oregon University.

To keep rangeland studies, Oregon State will take money from other programs in the college of agriculture and extension programs, said Thayne Dutson, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Training center offering two workshops

SEATTLE -- The Northwest Environmental Training Center will offer two workshops this month.

Fundamental Chemistry for Environmental Professionals will be Feb. 18 and 19 at the Mountaineers Conference Center in Seattle. The course is for environmental professionals who are not chemists but who are involved in groundwater monitoring, site assessment and remediation, chemical handling and disposal and other issues related to contaminants.

Environmental Applications of GIS will be Feb. 25-27 at Allied Business Systems in Kirkland. The course introduces participants to the environmental application of ESRI's ArcView 8.1 software.

For more information about either course, call Erick McWayne at (206) 762-1976 or see www.nwetc.org.