First Month

My work load has significantly increased from the first two weeks.

Starting where my last post left off, June 3rd I woke up at 530 am on the floor of a friends house in Auburn because I had a prompt arrival time to Augusta for 630 am. A vanload of biologists, the other intern and I all traveled to Eddington for an interagency meeting regarding the proposed connector road between I-395 and Rt-9.

Minutes for the meeting-->

( C:\Documents and Settings\Elizabeth.E.Mitchell\Desktop\I-395 - Route 9 - June 3 2008 Agency Scoping Meeting Minutes.htm )

The rest of that week Katie (other intern) and I prepped for the following week when we were planned to be in Newcastle at the Sherman Marsh project. I quickly learned how to use several more functions on the Trimble GeoXT (including creating polygons of areas not just points!--like in the example image below)

--- example of what a polygon from GPS looks like in a GIS

credit google image

Monday June 9th, I was taken to two mitigation sites (for DOT construction), one in Madison (near Skowhegan) and one in Augusta. Both were streams that were put under easement( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_easement ) and the mitigation was to create a stronger woody vegetation buffer zone around the stream edges to increase water quality.

The site in Madison was at an organic dairy farm. Part of the mitigation was to get the dairy farmer to move his cow fences back from the streams edge, which he did more than willingly. He and his wife had apparently been more than willing to assist with the project. With less direct nitrogen exposure, and newly planted woody vegetation it is hopeful that the stream's water quality will dramatically increase. When we went to visit the site, we were visiting to check the status of the planted vegetation. Out of about 200+ plants, only 13 needed to be replaced. To get to the stream, we had to hop the electric cow fence a couple of times!!! talk about odd field hazards!

( http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=44.796805,-69.688318&spn=0.003502,0.006609&t=h&z=17&msid=102721720068564146891.00045019879a5f17281ac)

The site in Augusta was farmland that had been bought around a stream (http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/reg/200001630FY06.pdf ) <---check out this pdf for sure, at the end of it are some nice photos of the site and a map of the old proposed planting. After the first planting failed terribly, the new plantings are doing quite well, though there are a handful of casualities which is why we were out there checking up on the site.

Tuesday June 10- Friday June 13 I was in Newcastle. Tuesday we met the USM grad student, Abby, and we all trekked out into the marsh with a total of maybe 80 lbs of equipment! The worst part was that we had to cross an old box culvert that only had an 8 inch wide plank spanning the 10 foot gap, and I am phobic about heights!! Somehow I managed to cross it with all the equipment I was carrying (both on the way out and on the way back).

--location of crazy box-culvert crossing (yellow arrow)

On wednesday I had to be at the marsh at 530 in the morning to help with a bird census, so I spent the night at a friend's house in Bowdoinham. The DOT field biologist Jerry Therrien and I went to 7 different sites along the marsh and I learned a few new bird calls, including red-eyed vireo and red-winged blackbird. We even saw a female moose, and a buck deer.

red-eyed vireo red-winged blackbird

On Thursday and Friday we canoed out into the marsh (instead of carrying all the equipment!!) and finished up the work the USM team needed, and the work we needed to accomplish. We ended up surveying and GPS'ing 34 Phragmites australis patches and 15 benchmarks, and on numerous occasions we were thigh deep in mud!

Both Thursday and Friday I commuted to Newcastle with Abby, and Friday evening when we finished work, she took us out for icecream at an amazing icecream stand in North Yarmouth. It was at a farm, and they had a stall with a goat and bantam chickens!

(http://www.tootsicecream.net/home)

(http://www.roadfooddigest.com/post/2008/05/Ice-Cream-Stop-10---Toots!2c-North-Yarmouth2c-ME.aspx)

This week I processed the data we retrieved from the Trimble GeoXT and worked on some hydrology assignments in GIS. I also georeferenced amazing orthophotographs recently taken of the marsh. The resolution was so great I could clearly see objects as small as side-rear view mirrors on cars!!