U P S T R E A M • S P R I N G 2 0 0 1
Prepping for N.Y. project Year 2
Jessie Mathisen, left, and Arlene Casas sample the icy waters of the Esopus Creek in the New York Catskills. |
After a hectic winter of lab work, the Stroud Center is gearing to begin the field work for Year Two of the three-year study of the 2,000-square-mile watersheds that provide New York City's drinking water.
Several field workers have already braved the icy waters of the upstate New York streams to do some winter sampling. Battling ice and sub-zero winter chill factors in February and March, Arlene Casas and Jessie Mathisen sampled stream sites east and west of the Hudson River and in the upper Delaware River.
Back at the Stroud Center, the labs were busy through the winter processing the thousands of samples of water, algae and macroinvertebrates taken from the streams and reservoirs last summer. Several oral and slide presentations were made to the sponsoring New York and federal agencies in January, and a 200-page progress report was delivered in early March.
"The bottom line on New York," said Stroud director Bern Sweeney, "is that we have completed all the sampling and sample processing for all the project elements. We are heavily into the data analysis stage for the first year's data."
He was speaking in the first week of March. By the time Upstream comes off the press, the final report will have been completed and delivered to New York.
Sweeney explained that the same sampling and measurements will have to be repeated for another two seasons.
"From our work in the past," he said, "we have found that we really need to study each site for at least three years to make sure they are not confounded by something unusual that happened, like a major storm. We don't want to rush to
judgment."
He noted that no matter how well the scientists design a research program at their desks, there are always surprises in the field — particularly in the first year of a new project.
The 60 carefully selected sampling sites are spread over a 2,000-square-mile area in rugged terrain in two major watersheds — the Hudson (east and west) and upper Delaware.
"We're looking forward to a more efficient and effective second year — but that is not to say we were disappointed in the first year," said Sweeney.
The New York project involves all the Stroud Center's 40-plus staff members, from scientists and technicians to administrators.
