Skip to main content
Menu

News

Washington State Municipal Stormwater Conference, May 16 & 17, 2017

The Day 1 half day schedule and agenda is complete. Day one provides three workshops/ training sessions options.  Day 1 Pre-Conference Activity (organized and hosted by the Eastern Washington Stormwater Group) Join the Eastern Washington Stormwater Group during this 2-hour open house as they present posters of their BMP Effectiveness Studies.

The Day 2 schedule is complete. The Day 2 agenda tracks are completing the review process by the municipal advisory committee (comprised of municipal stormwater managers statewide) and Ecology with the goal of completion March 2nd.

Visit our  web-page dedicated to bring you the most up-to date details regarding his event. 

If you have further questions, please call Laurie Larson at 253-445-4593 or Email.

 

African roots inspire professor’s varied water research

RICHLAND, Wash. – After growing up in drought-afflicted Ethiopia, Yonas Demissie values water. His research to manage the life-sustaining resource reaches from the U.S. military to the Nile River basin, from Washington’s Hanford nuclear site to biofuels crops and the Gulf of Mexico.

“Here in the U.S., we take water for granted,” said Demissie, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Washington State University Tri-Cities. “Our daily water use is as much as 10 times that of a person in other countries where water is in limited supply” – in Ethiopia, for example, where just 42 percent of the country’s 94 million people have access to clean water.

“Having a good understanding of water as a resource and coming up with a better management strategy is critical for most societies,” he said.

Full Story  by Maegan Murray, WSU Tri-Cities

 

 

Student Water Club Informational Meeting & Pizza Friday, February 10 @ 12:00 in Paccar 305

On behalf of the water sciences and engineering groups at Washington State University, I’d like to announce the formation of the Water Club at WSU, where undergraduate and graduate students interested in water-related sciences can have a hands-on opportunity to experience each other’s research, share in new opportunities, and socialize in a relaxed environment. 

This contingent will largely be run by graduate and undergraduate students, meaning that we are in control of what its mission, function, vitality and visibility. Potential activities may include, but are not limited to student-run research projects, opportunities to get involved in and acquainted with water related studies across sciences and humanities, and opportunities for professional development, social activities, and volunteer opportunities. Above all, this will be a contingent run by students and for students. No prior background with water-related study is required! 

We will have a brown-bag informational meeting with pizza courtesy of the Water Research Center on Friday, February 10 12:00-1:00 pm in VCEA Paccar Building, Room 305. 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to email Michael Meyer (michael.f.meyer@wsu.edu) or Julie Padowski (julie.padowski@wsu.edu). 

 

Opportunity at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

This research is part of a larger effort to understand, model, and improve drought resilience, especially in the face of changing water demands and changing climate. This fellowship will focus on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) aspects of drought resilience, building on existing approaches. LCA is a tool to avoid shifting impacts in time, space, or environmental media, and there is a need to improve characterization of water use in this systems framework.

Location: Cincinnati, OH.

For more information

 

MODFLOW and More 2017 “Modeling for Sustainability and Adaptation”

Abstracts are due Friday, January 20th.

This conference covers a wide range of topics related to simulating eco-hydro-bio-geochemical systems and offers opportunities to interact with some of the most prominent figures in numerical modeling of hydrologic systems.  Sessions will focus on groundwater quality and quantity, including aquifer recharge, mining, contaminant transport, as well as modeling methods and analysis and data visualization.
Conference and abstract submission information

Pacific Northwest Water Research Symposium

Hosted by the Oregon State University Hydrophiles, on March 6th-7th 2017

The abstract deadline is this Friday, Feb 1! Registration is free!

The purpose of this symposium is to foster connections between students and professionals across a variety of water resources fields. The symposium offers interactive learning opportunities through workshops, networking, and presentations of current student research in the fields of water resources science, engineering, and policy. This year’s keynote speaker will be Tom Byler, Director of the Oregon Water Resources Department. Graduate and undergraduate students from universities across the Pacific Northwest and beyond have the opportunity to share their research with a diverse audience. Conference website

Skagit Basin Water Mitigation Feasibility Assessment Seminar

Dr. Michael Brady, School of Economic Sciences, WSU

Wednesday, Feb 1, 2017 PACCAR room 202, 3:10pm WSU Pullman

In 2013, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled against a 2001 amendment that set aside groundwater reservations for development within the Skagit River Basin.  As a consequence, hundreds of properties no longer have a secure, uninterruptible water right. The objective of this study is to identify the least cost mitigation option in a spatially explicit manner for  all of the properties whose groundwater rights  were invalidated by the 2013 Supreme Court ruling. The core analysis focuses on piping and trucking water for streamflow augmentation, but we provide coarse comparisons to other alternatives, such as storage reservoirs for winter flow capture, trucking and piping for direct consumption, and rainwater capture based on information from existing studies. Further, while we focus on mitigation for the 451 properties developed since April of 2001, we provide several general results relating to water provision for future development in the otherwise closed sub-basins. This project was funded through the Engrossed Senate Bill No. 6589 and administered through the Department of Ecology, State of Washington Water Research Center and WSU. Co-authors include: J. Padowski, Q. Yang, E. Jessup, and J. Yoder. Project development, coordination, and review was accomplished with the help of David Christensen, Thomas Buroker, John Rose, Tom Culhane and Barb Anderson at the WA Department of Ecology.

 

AMS Connections: Puyallup REC, WSU Tri-Cities, WSU Vancouver The dial up number for all sites to dial for this event is 5701907. Meeting ID 01907 http://ams.wsu.edu/Events/Events.aspx For technical assistance call 509-335-6575

Sponsor:

CEREO – The Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach (http://cereo.wsu.edu/) or check our online calendar for all environmental talks and events happening around campus:  http://cereo.wsu.edu/seminars/

SWWRC – State of Washington Water Research Center: ( https://wrc.wsu.edu/)

REMINDER: Water Internship Deadline Jan 13th

The State of Washington Water Research Center (WRC) is pleased to be partnering with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to offer undergraduate internship opportunities to WSU undergraduates who are interested in water resources.

This new internship experience operates within the existing Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) Program, but aims to facilitate water-related learning opportunities specifically between WSU undergraduates and PNNL researchers.

Deadline for Summer 2017: Jan 13, 2017 at 5:00 PM ET
Notification by: Feb 3, 2017

For more information and to apply, visit: https://wrc.wsu.edu/news/wrc-pnnl-water-internship/

Water Resources Research National Competitive Grants Program: Announcement No. G17AS00027 104(g)

Deadline: Feb 15, 2017

Proposals are sought on the topic of improving and enhancing the nation’s water supply and availability, and promoting the exploration of new ideas that address or expand our understanding of water problems, including the following specific areas of inquiry (levels of priority are not assigned, and the order of listing does not indicate the level of priority):

  • Evaluation of innovative approaches to water treatment, infrastructure design, retrofitting, maintenance, management and replacement.
  • Exploration and advancement of our understanding of changes in the quantity and quality of water resources in response to a changing climate, population shifts, and land use changes; including associated economic, environmental, social, and/or infrastructure costs.
  • Development of methods for better estimation of water supply, both surface and groundwater, including estimation of the physical and/or economic supply of water.
  • Development and evaluation of processes and governance mechanisms for integrated surface/ground water management.
  • Evaluation and assessment of the effects of water conservation practices, as well as adoption, penetration and permanence.

For more information and to apply.