Attention GRA Members and Friends!
Groundwater Resources Association
Sacramento Branch Meeting

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

The Presentation:
SALMON HABITAT AND GRAVEL STUDIES ON THE AMERICAN RIVER - IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

By Tim Horner, Dept. of Geology, CSUS

RSVP -- http://www.grac.org/rsvp
Salmonid spawning requirements are well documented in the literature. Returning adults need cold, shallow water, clean gravel with a low percentage of fine (sandy) material, and high surface water velocity. These conditions are relatively easy to measure in the field, but don’t explain spawning site preferences on the Lower American River. Geomorphic features and the resulting intergravel conditions may be the key to spawning site preferences by successive generations of returning adults. Dissolved oxygen and intergravel flow are critical components of this story, but can be difficult to measure in the shallow subsurface. Several techniques will be explored, and tracer tests and heat flow will used to estimate seepage through riffles and other high-use features.

Tim Horner is an Associate Professor in the Geology Department at CSU Sacramento. He teaches classes in hydrogeology, hydrologic field methods, sedimentology and stratigraphy, and groundwater/ surface water interaction. Tim’s research interests and recent projects revolve around salmonid habitat and stream bed restoration. His talk this week will focus on physical and hydrologic measurements in salmon spawning gravels, and the relationship between geomorphic features and salmon habitat requirements.

MEETING LOCATION: Andiamo is located at 3145 Folsom Blvd., just east of Business 80 and Alhambra Blvd. The cross street at Folsom Blvd is Seville Way. (Thomas Bros. Page 297, grid G5). Directions are also included on their web site, www.SacAndiamo.com.

AGENDA: Social Hour (Appetizers): 6–7 PM; Announcements: 7:00-7:15 PM; Presentation: 7:15–8:15 PM

MEETING COSTS – PLEASE NOTE – GRA is billed for meals based upon your reservation whether you attend or not. Therefore, if you reserve and do not attend you will be invoiced for the cost of the meal that you have selected to recover costs. Thank you for your consideration.

For many reasons, such as the restaurant requires a head count within 3 days of the meeting and to have the correct room size reserved for our meetings, we really need everyone to RSVP. Therefore, prices are based on if you RSVP, or not, as follows:

If you RSVP by Monday, March 6th, PRIOR TO 5 PM, the meeting costs are:

* Non-alcoholic beverage bar is included in appetizer price.

Retired professionals receive a 10% (rounded to the nearest dollar) discount on any meal.

If you RSVP AFTER 5 PM Monday, March 6th, a $3.00 surcharge will be added to the meeting costs.

CANCELLATIONS must be made by 5 PM Tuesday, March 7th for a full refund.


To Submit Your Reservation go to http://www.grac.org/rsvp

Questions? Contact Pat Dunn, Dunn Environmental, at 916-941-3850 or E-mail at pfdunn@dunnenviro.com.


Upcoming GRA Sacramento Branch Meetings:

April 12th – Frank Yeamans, Geothermal projects in Nevada
May 10th – Gary Hall, Uncertainty and defensibility in modeling
June 14th – Megan Cambridge, DTSC, Brownfields

Sacramento Branch Highlights

By Pat Dunn, Sacramento Chapter Vice President

In October, the Sacramento Branch had a special dinner meeting in association with the 25th Biennial Groundwater Conference . Ms. Beth Parker presented a talk entitled “ CHLORINATED SOLVENT SOURCE ZONES AND PLUMES IN SANDY AQUIFERS: OPENING THE BLACK BOX ”. Organic contaminant plumes in sandy aquifers are common and are typically caused by immiscible-phase liquids, either LNAPLs or DNAPLs, residing below the water table in areas known as “source zones.” There are various reasons to acquire detailed subsurface information about these sources. This talk described, with examples from experimental and industrial sites where chlorinated solvent contamination is present in sandy aquifers. A suite of field investigation methods aimed at determining detailed subsurface contaminant distributions produces thousands of samples from the groundwater zone at each study site and it is cost-effective because the field protocols are streamlined and rapid on-site quantitative contaminant analysis techniques are used. The field applications of the method reveal that sampling at such detailed scale is necessary in the source zones to locate and determine the thickness of DNAPL zones and also zones with large sorbed-phase mass, and in plumes to locate the high contaminant flux zones. The use of CPT and associated direct-push in situ chemical analysis techniques are helpful, but they require verification and calibration against the quantitative measurements on core samples.

In November, Michael Caurant of Dealey-Renton & Associates (DRA) delivered a very timely talk entitled “ BUSINESS RISK MANAGEMENT ”. Mr. Caurant presented the following topics: 1) Insurance for Professionals - Coverages and Needs, 2) What Client's Should Expect / Broker Services and most importantly, 3)Your Contract - The First Line of Defense; Risk Management and Key Contract clauses. Due to the particular importance of contracts, the majority of the talk covered contracts (professional liability and indemnification clauses).

In December, GRA shared our branch meeting date with the Association of Environmental/Engineering Geologists (AEG). Mr. James Chatters of AMEC presented a talk entitled, “ FIRST LOOK AT THE PALEOCOLOGY OF THE
FAIRMEAD LOCAL FAUNA”. Paleontological salvaging has been ongoing at the Fairmead Landfill for 12 years, resulting in the recovery of an impressive array of mammalian, avian, and reptilian fossils. Approximately 800 of the more than 3500 identifiable specimens have been classified, leading to an initial understanding of the makeup of the mammalian community of Central California during Irvingtonian times. The sense one gets from this largely attritional, carnivore-mediated assemblage is of an American Serengeti, dominated by herds of horses, camels, and mammoths. These magafauna were preyed upon by dire wolves, scimitar cats and saber tooths, while cheetahs ran down early pronghorns. Giant sloths, like Africa 's rhinos, wandered at will, and dwarf pronghorns cowered in the bush. Jim Chatters is currently Senior Archaeologist and Paleontologist with AMEC Earth and Environmental in Kirkland , Washington .