UCFWG Topic Discussion Meetings
The UCFWG is meeting the second Thursday of every month from 12pm – 1pm MST to discuss ongoing and new projects on the Upper Clark Fork River. Topics and meeting invitations are sent to interested participants via our email list. If you are interested in joining these discussions or learning more about the Upper Clark Fork Working Group please sign up for communications using the form at the bottom of this page, or by using the email link in the Navigation Menu.
UCFWG November 2021 Meeting
November 18, 2021
From minerals to spinnerets: Geologic controls on water quality and aquatic-terrestrial linkages
Dr. Travis S. Schmidt, Research Ecologist USGS, will present, From minerals to spinnerets: Geologic controls on water quality and aquatic-terrestrial linkages, at the November Topic Discussion Meeting.
Travis Schmidt, Ph.D., is a Research Ecologist for the Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center. He has degrees from The Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Tech, and Colorado State University. He joined the USGS as a Mendenhall Fellow in 2007 and has devoted his career to understanding how stressors shape aquatic and riparian ecosystems. His work focuses on using a combination of field observations, models, and laboratory experimentation to discover how ecosystems work.
Presentation:
2021 Annual Clark Fork Basin Meeting
October 20 - 21, 2021
The USGS facilitated the Annual Clark Fork Basin Meeting inviting researchers working on the Clark Fork River to present findings and studies which they are undertaking in the Basin. The meeting was presented over two days online, hosted by Melissa Schaar, P.G. Groudwater and Water Quality Studies Chief, USGS.
Agenda
Presentations
Day 1
Day 2
UCFWG October 2021 Meeting
Oct. 14, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Overview of ARCO Monitoring Activities and Projects
Loren Burmeister and Dave Griffis, Liability Managers Atlantic Richfield Company, will present an overview of the monitoring activities and projects ARCO is working on in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. This will be a high-level overview of the monitoring and projects ARCO is implementing. Working Group members will have time for Q&A following Loren and Dave’s presentations.
Loren Burmeister is a Liability Manager for Atlantic Richfield Company and has worked on the Clark Fork basin Superfund sites for over a decade. Loren grew up in Big Timber, graduated with a Mechanical Engineering Degree from MSU-Bozeman in 2007, and moved to Butte in 2009. His early career focused on managing remedial projects primarily in Butte and Anaconda until 2017, when he transitioned to leading settlement negotiations. Recent settlements include the Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit consent decree, Anaconda NPL partial consent decree, and several smaller agreements with local government in Butte and Anaconda.
Dave Griffis is a Liability Manager with Atlantic Richfield Company with a background in Environmental Engineering and Superfund projects extending from planning/design, through construction and into long-term operation and maintenance. Dave is currently responsible for operation and maintenance of Atlantic Richfield’s water treatment systems within the Upper Clark Fork River basin. Since the early 1990’s, Dave’s work has focused on remediation and long-term, sustainable operations and maintenance of several projects in the Butte and Anaconda area which have provided experience over a wide range of disciplines during implementation.
Presentation:
UCFWG September 2021 Meeting
Sept. 9, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Restoration Field Workshop Recap
On August 18, approximately 45 Upper Clark Fork Working Group members gathered along the Clark Fork River, split into seven inter-disciplinary teams, and observed ecosystem components that are either present or lacking at 14 different locations. At this monthly topic meeting, we will provide a summary of what the teams observed and what questions they identified, based on team summaries provided on August 18th and field forms completed by individuals. We will also provide a link to an interactive map where workshop participants can view data associated with locations they visited in the field. Finally, we will discuss questions raised by the group and how they might be pursued relative to the UCFWG’s Strategic Plan.
Presented By:
Tom Parker is the President and Principal Ecologist of Geum Environmental Consulting, Inc., founded in 2003. Since the mid-1990’s, Tom’s professional work has emphasized ecological restoration design, planning, and project implementation in river and wetland ecosystems. His projects have included large-scale river restoration, site remediation of mining impacts, wetland design, environmental compliance and permitting, and riparian restoration and management.
Presentation:
UCFWG August Restoration Field Workshop
August 18, 2021 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM BBQ Social 4:30 - 7 PM
Goal: Draw upon expertise from different disciplines to improve our collective understanding of ecosystem components that are either present or lacking in reaches where remediation/restoration work has been completed, and where work has yet to be completed. Resulting information will help inform a strategy being developed to guide the nature, sequence and relative priority of remaining cleanup and restoration work.
Workshop Description:
The purpose of this workshop will be to gather a diverse group of scientists and managers who are knowledgeable about rivers and their associated ecosystems. Over the next few months, the State of Montana (DEQ, NRDP, and Fish, Wildlife and Parks) will be developing a strategy to guide how the Upper Clark Fork River and its floodplain will be cleaned up and restored. This strategy needs to be founded in science and informed by scientists and managers who understand the Upper Clark Fork River and its inhabitants, including people. By participating in this workshop, you can share your unique perspective about the river and add to a set of criteria that will form the building blocks of a comprehensive strategy to remediate and restore the Upper Clark Fork River. So please join us and bring your knowledge of varial zones, water, wildlife, food webs, algae, fish, floodplains, bugs, birds, bedrock, birches, and banks!
We will provide a bit of background; send you and your colleagues off on a field mission to observe, share and compare notes across disciplines; reconvene to piece together the story of this unique and wonderful ecosystem; and we invite you to stick around to share food, drink and friendship into the evening.
If you have trouble with registration contact Andrew Hauer, andrew.hauer@umontana.edu.
UCFWG July 2021 Meeting
July 8, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Upper Clark Fork River Floodplain Geomorphology, Ecology, Restoration and Adaptive Management
This session will provide historic information on how the geomorphic evolution of the Upper Clark Fork River has influenced floodplain conditions and remediation strategy development. The presentations will also describe how the floodplain is responding to those strategies and how future monitoring and research can be used to improve future actions.
Presented By:
Karin Boyd, P.G. has been working as a geomorphologist since 1988, when she was hired by a small consulting firm in Fort Collins that had been formed by CSU faculty. She was mentored there by Stan Schumm as he was developing the first Incised Channel Evolution Model, which has since been expanded to better accommodate floodplain connectivity concepts (Stage 0). In 1997 she took a job with Inter-Fluve, prompting a relocation to Bozeman. Since 2002 she has been the sole owner and employee of Applied Geomorphology, working primarily in the northern Rockies and Washington state. Her main interests are providing geomorphic context to all kinds of projects, as well as working with creative interdisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, and planners. She has worked intermittently as a project team geomorphologist in the Clark Fork River system for over 20 years, beginning with Silver Bow Creek remediation in the late 1990s.
Amy Sacry is a restoration biologist with Geum Environmental and specializes in restoration of aquatic habitat, floodplains, riparian areas, wetlands and streams. She started her career as a graduate student in the University of Montana’s Riparian Wetland Research Program and as a seasonal fisheries biologist with the Bureau of Land Management, Missoula Field Office. Her main interests are working with creative interdisciplinary teams to integrate ecological structure and diversity into restoration projects at all scales. She started working on the Clark Fork River at the Milltown Dam Site in 2005 and has been a part of the project team for the integrated Upper Clark Fork River remediation and restoration work since 2010.
Robert Pal is an Associate Professor and the Director of Restoration at Montana Technological University (Department of Biological Sciences). He holds a master’s in agriculture and a Ph.D. in Biology/Botany. His main research focus has always been the study of the flora and vegetation of disturbed habitats. That led him to work on ecological restoration and plant invasions. He was awarded by prestigious research grants such as the Fulbright Research Grant and the Marie Curie Fellowship. Robert is in charge of the Ecological Restoration MS Program, the Restoration Certificate, and the Native Plant Restoration Program at Montana Tech. He was recently elected as vice president of the Montana Native Plant Society. Besides multiple restoration projects, he is part of several national and international research projects mainly in biological invasions.
Presentation:
UCFWG Habitat Workshop
June 11, 2021 10 AM - 3 PM
Goal: Identify key component measures of habitat diversity and coordinate field assessment efforts on the UCFR for the Summer 2021 field season.
Presented By:
Workshop Lead: taylor.goldquiros@umontana.edu
Taylor Gold Quiros received her B.S. in Biology from Trinity University in 2016 and a M.S. in Aquatic Resources from Texas State University in 2019. She is currently a CREWS PhD student under Dr. Valett at the University of Montana, researching the influence of nutrient, metal, and habitat stressors on the fish communities of the Upper Clark Fork River.
Executive Chair: maury.valett@umontana.edu
Maury Valett is a Professor of Systems Ecology at the University of Montana. Maury’s work on streams and rivers has combined hydrology, chemistry, and biology to investigate how groundwater-surface water interaction, nutrient limitation, and biological interactions influences ecosystem structure and function. His recent research on the Upper Clark Fork River, MT, integrates work on food webs, heavy metals, and nitrogen enrichment.
Workshop Description:
Floodplain development and water withdrawals in the Upper Clark Fork River have led to decreased floodplain connectivity as well as riparian habitat loss, creating a lack of cover and reducing allochthonous input. State agencies, academic institutions, and restoration managers have vested interest in assessing the current habitat composition of the UCFR. As such, multiple research thrusts have been proposed to address habitat in the UCFR during the Summer 2021 field season. The purpose of this workshop is to identify key habitat metrics to be measured at the mesoscale-level, coordinate UCFR habitat field efforts for the Summer 2021 season and determine constructive and feasible goals for morphological habitat assessment.
Register for this Workshop or contact Taylor if you are interested in attending this workshop.
If you are looking for materials or videos related to this Workshop please contact Taylor.
UCFWG June 2021 Meeting
June 10, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Historic and contemporary assessment of algal blooms in the Upper Clark Fork River
Presented By:
Dr. Valett is an aquatic ecosystem ecologist who has focused on nutrient influences and responses in running water ecosystems. For the past 10 years, his work has focused on collaborative efforts with the State and other organizations to understand nutrient influences on the Upper Clark Fork River (UCFR) including the potential influences of riverine algal blooms.
Presentation:
UCFWG May 2021 Meeting
May 13, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Habitat from an Aquatic Perspective
Presented By:
Taylor Gold Quiros received her B.S. in Biology from Trinity University in 2016 and a M.S. in Aquatic Resources from Texas State University in 2019. She is currently a CREWS PhD student under Dr. Valett at the University of Montana, researching the influence of nutrient, metal, and habitat stressors on the fish communities of the Upper Clark Fork River.
Alex is a stream restoration scientist and policy analyst based out of Anaconda, Montana, and joined CFC in 2016. He works with public resource managers, landowners, universities and the general public to design and implement restoration projects and studies that improve rivers and streams in western Montana. He spent several years working for the Forest Service as a wildland firefighter and researcher and has traveled extensively throughout the American West.
Presentation
UCFWG April 2021 Meeting
April 8, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
Functional responses of riverine food webs to multiple stressors:
mapping trophic interactions in the Upper Clark Fork across space and time.
Organized by: Rafael Feijo de Lima
Rafael Feijo de Lima is a biologist who obtained his Ph.D. in Brazil focusing on land use impacts on structural and functional parameters in freshwater ecosystems. He is a postdoctoral researcher in the CREWS project. His current research focuses on the linkages between ecosystem metabolism, benthic algae, and nutrient transport in the Upper Clark Fork River.
Marc Peipoch is a Research Scientist at the Stroud Water Center, PA interested in fine- and large-scale controls on ecosystem structure and function, mostly in streams, rivers and floodplains. His word addresses aggregation of ecological, physical, and biogeochemical processes within ecosystems while addressing basic and applied research.
Taylor Gold Quiros received her B.S. in Biology from Trinity University in 2016 and a M.S. in Aquatic Resources from Texas State University in 2019. She is currently a CREWS PhD student under Dr. Valett at the University of Montana, researching the influence of stressors on the fish communities of the Upper Clark Fork River.
Jose A Sanchez-Ruiz received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras in 2016 and a M.S. in Biology at Georgia Southern University in 2019. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the CREWS project under Dr. Wyatt Cross at the Montana State University. His research is focused on understanding the mining legacy on the food web structure and function in the Clark Fork River.
Presentation
Papers Referenced:
- Benke et. al. 1999, Length-mass relationships for freshwater macroinvertebrates in North America with particular reference to the southeastern United States
- Cross et. al. 2011, Ecosystem ecology meets adaptive management: food web response
to a controlled flood on the Colorado River, Glen Canyon - Hogsden and Harding 2012, Anthropogenic and natural sources of acidity and metals and their influence
on the structure of stream food webs - Neres-Lima et. al. 2017, Allochthonous and autochthonous carbon flows in food webs
of tropical forest streams - Rosi-Marshall et. al. 2015, Methods for quantifying aquatic macroinvertebrate diets
- Thompson et al. 2012, Food webs: reconciling the structure
and function of biodiversity
UCFWG March 2021 Meeting
March 11, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
The significance of a barroom napkin in establishing the restoration of Montana’s waters and rivers
Speaker: Larry Peterman, MT FWP retired
Larry Peterman began working for the Montana Fish and Game Department in 1972 and initiated work on the scientific basis for in-stream flow requirements on the Yellowstone River. His work broadened over time to include hydropower reservoir operations, small hydro evaluation, electrofishing safety, native species recovery, and fishery management plans. He became the Chief of the Fisheries Division, was promoted to Deputy Director in charge of field operations and received the Career Achievement Award before retiring in 2009. However, he remained active as an independent contractor addressing the Exxon and Bridger pipeline oil spills in 2011 and 2015. He retired again in 2016 and considers this presentation to be a monetary relapse that will be countered by a focus on Perch fishing in the future.
Presentation
UCFWG February 2021 Meeting
February 11, 2021 Topic Discussion Online Zoom Meeting
UCFR Fisheries: past and future?
Organized by Nathan Cook, MT FWP
A great deal of effort has been directed towards remediation and restoration of the Upper Clark Fork River (UCFR) with the aim to re-establish the ‘resource’. In association with these efforts, personnel from the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks have been tackling the issues associated with the UCFR’s fisheries for decades. Recent support to Montana University System has enabled collaboration among interested parties that may lead to a better understanding of limitations and potentials. This month’s UCFR presentations provide perspectives on the UCFR fish communities and the active merging of research and management.
Meeting Presenters:
Nathan Cook: Montana FWP – Fisheries Biologist
Nathan is a fisheries mitigation biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. Since 2014, his work has focused on understanding trout population dynamics and impacts of mining contamination on fish populations in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. Nathan’s position is funded through the NRDP, an agency that works closely with FWP to prioritize and evaluate fisheries restoration actions in both the mainstem and tributaries.
Taylor Gold Quiros: PhD Student – Valett Aquatic Ecology Laboratory
taylor.goldquiros@umontana.edu
Taylor Gold Quiros is an aquatic ecology PhD student at the University of Montana. She got her B.S. from Trinity University and a M.S. from Texas State University in Aquatic Toxicology in 2018. She joined the CREWS project and Valett lab in 2019 and her dissertation work focuses on the influence of stressors on the UCFR fish community.
Presentation
UCFWG January Meeting
January 14, 2021 Online Zoom Meeting
Hydrologic complexities associated with multiple use, remediation, and restoration
Organized by Brian Bartkowiak, MT NRDP
Meeting Presenters:
Brian Bartkowiak: Montana NRDP – Environmental Science Specialist
Brian has been involved in the remediation and restoration of the Upper Clark Fork River Basin since 1997. Brian worked for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for 10 years, leading the remediation/restoration cleanup on the Upper Clark Fork among other projects. Brian has been with the NRDP since spring of 2018 and is responsible for the aquatic flow projects as well as restoration work on numerous watershed in the Upper Basin.
Alex Leone: Clark Fork Coalition – Restoration Policy Manager
Alex is a stream restoration scientist and policy analyst based out of Anaconda, Montana, and joined CFC in 2016. He works with public resource managers, landowners, universities and the general public to design and implement restoration projects and studies that improve rivers and streams in western Montana. He spent several years working for the Forest Service as a wildland firefighter and researcher and has traveled extensively throughout the American West.
Stephen Begley, Montana FWP – Water Conservation Specialist
Stephen Begley, is a Water Conservation/Instream Flow Specialist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Since 2012, his work has been focused on administering a number of Department owned instream flow water rights that are managed on behalf of the Public Trust. Stephen is a member of the technical committee that is focused on the implementation and administration of a set of instream flow water rights including in the Blackfoot and Clark Fork Rivers.
Ethan Mace: Montana DNRC – Surface Water Hydrologist
Ethan serves as the DNRC technical lead to the CSKT-MT Water Right Compact and as the State representative to the Compact Implementation Technical Team (CITT). He is also the lead for the US Forest Service Compact and work on wetland and instream water rights.
Presentations
Contact Ethan Mace, emace@mt.gov, if you are interested in the DNRC’s new web tool.
UCFWG December Meeting
December 10, 2020 Online Zoom Meeting
Metals and Biota
Organized by U of M’s Ben Colman
Meeting Presenters:
Rafael Feijo de Lima is a biologist who obtained his Ph.D. in Brazil focusing on land use impacts on structural and functional parameters in freshwater ecosystems. He is a postdoctoral researcher in the CREWS project. His current research focuses on the linkages between ecosystem metabolism, benthic algae, and nutrient transport in the Upper Clark Fork River.
Ben Colman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecosystem ad Conservations Sciences at the University of Montana. Ben is interested broadly in how chemical and physical changes alter the structure and function of ecosystems, and his work in the Upper Clark Fork River focuses on the forms of metal contaminants and how that alters their interaction with the biota and their impacts.
Megan Fylling has been an Avian Ecologist at the UM’s Bird Ecology Lab since 2004. Shortly after receiving her MS in 2013 at UM she became the director of several programs including a multi-partner “Bird’s-eye View Education Program” which collects scientific data and provides outreach to the public; a research project on heavy metals in riparian obligate birds; and research on migratory connectivity of songbirds using tiny tracking technology.
Erick Greene is a Professor of Biology and Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana. He is the director of UM’s Bird Ecology Lab and helps run the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program. With colleagues, he has monitored the levels of heavy metals in Osprey chicks in Montana for over a decade.
Presentations
Mercury in Osprey chicks in the Upper Clark Fork River – Interactive map (created by Trish Rodriguez)
UCFWG November Meeting
November 12, 2020 Online Zoom Meeting
Metal and nutrients: The Lost Creek Dutchman Complex Upper Clark Fork River, MT
The Lost Creek Dutchman Complex (LCDC) is a stream-wetland landscape that flows into the UCFR near the river’s origin. Soils across the complex are listed as moderately impacted by heavy metals as a result of historical mining activities. The LCDC contains two streams (Lost Creek and Dutchman Creek) within an extensive wetland (Dutchman wetland) comprising a mosaic of patches interacting via surface and groundwater flow. Recent research has documented that output from the LCDC can increase the nitrogen load in the UCFR from 2- to 100-fold at the point of confluence. With support from the NRDP, researchers from UM are collaborating with personnel from Geum, Inc. and other institutions to address the potential sources of nitrogen and implications of nutrient-metal interactions for the LCDC and the UCFR.
The Nov 12th UCFWG meeting will include presentations focusing on contemporary and historical conditions at the LCDC provided by Geum personnel, Tom Parker and Marisa Sowles, and an overview of ongoing biogeochemical research from UM personnel, Maury Valett, and Colton Kyro.
University of Montana
Colton Kyro is a graduate student at the University of Montana working on nitrogen dynamics in the Lost Creek Dutchman Complex (LCDC) in the Upper Clark Fork River, MT. Colton is using a combination of hydrogeologic and biogeochemical approaches to discern the origins of the nitrogen that make the LCDC a source of nutrients to the river.
Maury Valett is a Professor of Systems Ecology at the University of Montana. Maury’s work on streams and rivers has combined hydrology, chemistry, and biology to investigate how groundwater-surface water interaction, nutrient limitation, and biological interactions influences ecosystem structure and function. His recent research on the Upper Clark Fork River, MT, integrates work on food webs, heavy metals, and nitrogen enrichment.
Geum, Inc
Marisa Sowels is a Water Resource Specialist at Geum Environmental Consulting, Inc. with a background in water management and wetland design. She focuses on creating or enhancing wetlands to improve water quality and habitat diversity. Marisa has worked on wetland projects in urban environments, where wetlands provide a recreational and educational component, and also in natural floodplain environments.
Tom Parker is the President and Principal Ecologist of Geum Environmental Consulting, Inc., founded in 2003. Since the mid-1990’s, Tom’s professional work has emphasized ecological restoration design, planning, and project implementation in river and wetland ecosystems. His projects have included large-scale river restoration, site remediation of mining impacts, wetland design, environmental compliance and permitting, and riparian restoration and management.
Presentations
UCFWG Summer Field Research Planning Meeting
March 31, 2020 Online Zoom Meeting
Hosts:
University of Montana: Maury Valett, Division of Biological Sciences
Geum Environmental Consulting: Tom Parker, Principal Ecologist.
Meeting Objectives
The purpose of this meeting is to allow representatives from each organization share upcoming activities related to the Strategic Plan.
UCFWG March 2020 Workshop
March 18, 2020 University of Montana, Missoula, MT
Due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), this meeting was moved to a video conference workshop hosted by Tom Parker at Geum Environmental Engineering.
Hosts:
University of Montana: Maury Valett, Division of Biological Sciences Montana Water Consortium, Montana Institute on Ecosystems
Geum, Inc.: Tom Parker, Marisa Sowles
Meeting Objectives
Review new UCFWG.org web site and associated resources to support information sharing
- Review mental models/ working hypotheses that underlie our shared understanding of the Strategic Plan elements
- Identify purpose, roles and leadership of sub-groups
- Identify specific actions being implemented by each core UCFWG member organization in 2020
- Identify next UCFWG meeting date, location and focus
Maury Valett (UM) provided a reminder that the Strategic Plan is a living document and that modifications can and should occur as the group learns more about the Clark Fork and participates in the process of identifying goals for the Clark Fork and how we can collaboratively move towards those goals.
Doug Martin (NRDP) discussed the long-term timeframe and value of the work proposed by the Upper Clark Fork Working Group. This collaborative effort can set the groundwork for the next generation.
UCFWG October 2019 Workshop
October 18, 2019 Delta Hotel, Helena, MT
Hosts:
University of Montana: Maury Valett, Division of Biological Sciences Montana Water Consortium, Montana Institute on Ecosystems
Montana DOJ, Natural Resource Damage Program: Brian Bartkowiak
Geum, Inc.: Tom Parker, Marisa Sowles
Workshop intent and participating personnel
The Upper Clark Fork Working Group (UCFWG) is a collaborative with the mission to ‘…facilitate, produce, analyze, and share science-based knowledge among key participants involved in the remediation, restoration, research, and monitoring of the Upper Clark Fork River and its tributaries’ (UCFRWG Strategic Plan 2019).
The UCFWG is currently composed of eleven participants representing eight institutions including educational, regulatory, private business, and non-governmental organizations. The UCFWG October 2019 Workshop in Helena introduced the UCFWG to a larger audience of participating individuals and programs with 30 individuals attending the meeting. A roster of associated personnel (attending or affiliated) is provided in Appendix A of the Workshop Minutes PDF.
As part of the Oct. 2019 Workshop attendees used a large map to organize the meeting specially. On the provided map attendees posted notes which showed existing data, gaps in data, on going places being monitored, data gaps currently being researched, and action items for future research. The research group at Geum Environmental Consulting digitized the notes into GIS layers for feedback from the community.