January’s Environmental Professionals Network “Breakfast Club” program features Sustaining Scioto, a new planning study to ensure clean, secure water for central Ohioans. Registration is open. A reduced rate for students, which includes breakfast, is available. Learn more …
watershed management
Watch: Teaming to help restore rivers
John Navarro talks about CFAES research on the benefits of removing old dams in a new YouTube video (2:17). Navarro is a program administrator with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife and is a sponsor of the study. Read a previous post on the work here.
Workshop aims to cut nutrient exports into Great Lakes, Mississippi waters
CFAES and Chicago’s Greenleaf Advisors are teaming up to host a new workshop and symposium, Healthy Soils for Healthy Waters, Sept. 15-16 in Columbus. The event is “dedicated to the development of multidisciplinary and whole system management practices for the agricultural lands that impact our nation’s waters,” its website says. Farm, agency and university experts will be among the speakers. Set to take place annually, the event aims to cut nutrient exports (such as of algal bloom-fueling phosphorus) in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. The website includes the agenda, case studies, and online registration and payment.
What happens to a river when a dam comes down?
Tear down a dam and a river will change. But just how much? And what will it do to what lives in the river? To find out, CFAES’s Kristin Jaeger, pictured, and Mazeika Sullivan are looking no farther than their own backyard. Read the story. (Photo: K.D. Chamberlain.)
CFAES prof to testify before U.S. House on water quality
Richard Moore of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources will testify before the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment tomorrow (March 25) in a hearing titled “The Role of Water Quality Trading in Achieving Clean Water Objectives.” His achievements include leading the Sugar Creek Headwaters Ecosystem Study, which produced the Sugar Creek Method, a community-based approach to watershed management emphasizing local action and decision-making based on scientific data. He also serves as executive director of Ohio State’s Environmental Sciences Network. U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs of northeast Ohio is the subcommittee’s chairman. Watch the live stream here.
Streams of conscientiousness
OSU Extension, CFAES’s outreach arm, offers three new online guides for streamside landowners in suburban, rural residential and agricultural areas. Each guide gives details on best practices for meeting a landowner’s goals while improving a stream’s health. The authors, who are members of Extension’s Ohio Watershed Network, wrote the guides based on their interviews with 24 streamside landowners in two urbanizing Ohio watersheds.
Watch: ‘There’s beginning to be hope’
Watch the trailer for “Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West” here (video, 2:02). The film gets a free public screening this Sunday, Sept. 29, at CFAES’s Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park in Columbus. Get details in our previous post.
See award-winning ‘Watershed’ film at Ohio State wetland this Sunday
CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources hosts a screening of the award-winning film “Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West” from 6-8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, at the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, 352 West Dodridge St., Columbus. Jerry Tinianow, Denver’s chief sustainability officer, will provide introductory remarks. David Rutter, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, will give a local perspective on the impacts of climate change in the Scioto River watershed. An optional tour of the park takes place at 5 p.m. Admission and parking are free, but freewill donations will be accepted. Whole Foods will provide refreshments. Details: mccready.20@osu.edu. Watch the trailer (2:02).
Sign up soon for watershed leaders conference
The registration deadline for next week’s Ohio Watershed Leaders Conference is Friday (Aug. 30). Sign up soon if you’re interested. At last report, only nine slots were left. The conference is being presented by CFAES’s statewide outreach arm, OSU Extension.
Innovative ditch design: Two stages, many benefits
You may think there’s only one way to dig a ditch. But Andy Ward has a better idea. And farms, farmers, soils, plants, animals, and water are all better for it. Story plus video link …