Date: September 5-7, 2007
Location: Utah State University, Logan, Utah

The Bear River Symposium / Nonpoint Source Pollution Water Quality Conference is a joint conference sponsored by the EPA Bear River Targeted Watershed Initiative and the Utah Nonpoint Source Pollution Task Force. This annual conference covers nonpoint source and other water quality issues throughout the state and region, but this year will have a special focus on the Bear River Watershed.

Conference sessions will cover a range of topics in watershed science and management including special sessions on the Bear River Watershed and the on-line Bear River Watershed Information System.

All those in the water resource field are encouraged to attend, including scientists, researchers, managers, resource specialists, especially farmers, ranchers, educators and any other interested citizens. All students may attend free of charge and a limited number of conference fee waivers are available for non-students (see below).

Plenary Speaker:

We are pleased to announce Ed Marston, Former Publisher of High Country News, as well as the author of Western Water Made Simple, as our Plenary Speaker on Thursday September 7th.

Ed Marston was the publisher of High Country News, a regional newspaper covering the western United States for 21,000 subscribers, from 1983 to 2002. Ed received his BS from City College of New York and his Ph.D . in experimental physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1968.

He and his wife, Betsy, have lived in Paonia, Colo., a coal-mining and fruit-growing town, since 1974, except for a 1990-1991 sabbatical at Stanford University as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow and the spring 2001 semester, which he spent teaching journalism at UC Berkeley.

The Marstons founded and ran a local weekly newspaper, North Fork Times, from 1975 to 1980, and a regional biweekly, Western Colorado Report, from 1982 to 1983.

Ed has written or edited several books: The Dynamic Environment (John Wiley and Sons, 1975); Western Water Made Simple (Island Press, 1987), Reopening the Western Frontier (Island Press, 1989), and Ranching West of the 100th Meridian (Island Press, 2001). His "A Colorado Memoir" is in Colorado: 1870-2000, by W.H. Jackson and John Fielder (Westcliffe Publishers, 1999).

He is an elected member of the board of his local rural electric cooperative and is also on the boards of the Colorado Watershed Assembly and The Endocrine Disruption Exchange.

Tentative Conference Schedule:

Click here for the most recent conference schedule.

Tours:

Date: Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Time: 8:45 am – 3:30 pm
Starting Location: Utah State University, Logan, Utah

This year the conference is offering two tour options; Cutler Marsh or Northern Cache Valley. Both tours will last about 6 hours from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Lunch and drinks will be provided. Please sign up for your tour choice when you register. There is limited space on the tours; please register as soon as possible to ensure you are assigned the tour of your preference.

Please be sure to bring sunscreen, water bottles, hats, bug spray, and binoculars.

Cutler Marsh Tour:  This tour will meet at USU at 8:45 a.m. to explore the Cutler Marsh area, where the Bear River meets several major tributaries and a large wetland spreads out over the valley floor. The tour will be divided into two groups which will switch when they meet again for lunch at a picnic area near the marsh. One group will travel by bus to several sites near the marsh and the other group will tour the marsh by boat.

The bus tour will visit Logan City’s municipal treatment lagoons and their treatment wetlands which remove ammonia from effluent that enters the marsh. Time allowing, they will also visit an automated water quality monitoring site on the Little Bear River.

The boat tour will again split into two groups. These smaller groups will spend part of their time exploring Cutler Marsh by motor boat and part of their time paddling through the wetlands by canoe, and will switch after about an hour. The motor boats will travel into Cutler Marsh to view bank stabilization and other restoration efforts in the marsh. The canoe group will paddle along a wetland trail with birding experts exploring marsh wildlife.

The tour will return to USU around 3:30 p.m.


Northern Cache Valley Tour:  This tour will leave USU at 8:45 a.m. and will visit several sites in northern Utah and southern Idaho. Informative guides will travel with each bus to describe the area and projects along the way.

As the tour heads north, there will be stops at a river restoration site and a fish diversion structure designed to protect cutthroat trout populations (moderate walking involved). Near Grace, Idaho, the group will visit the decommissioned Cove Dam and have lunch near Black Canyon. After lunch, the tour will travel to Last Chance Canal for a presentation on the automated collection of real time flow data.

Time allowing, the group will also explore the historic Last Chance Canal diversions and aqueducts, and will hear a brief presentation on managing groundwater in this area, where the surface water drains to the Bear River, but the groundwater is part of the Portneuf River system. Tour topics will also include wastewater treatment plant discharge, non-point pollution sources, and pollution trading.

The tour will return to USU around 3:30 p.m.

Conference Costs:

Conference / Tour / BBQ	$125.00
Conference only	$100.00
Tour Only	$35.00
BBQ Only	$20.00

Conference Fee Waivers

Students: Current students may attend the conference free, but must still register and supply a student ID number. Students wishing to attend a tour or the barbeque must pay for these.

Community participants: The conference is providing 15 waivers for community members who wish to attend the conference and tour. Waivers will be awarded to the first 15 eligible applicants. To apply for a waiver, please fill out the registration form and mark the Waiver Request box. You must also submit a one paragraph description (100 words maximum) that describes why you should receive the scholarship (financial need, interest in water quality protection, etc).

Registration:

Registration is available online (see registration link below). The deadline to register is August 17. Payment can be made via credit card, checks and purchase order. You may also register by telephone by calling 1-800-538-2663.

Registration Link

Conference Facilities

The Bear River Symposium / Nonpoint Source Pollution Conference will be held at the Eccles Conference Center on the Utah State University Campus in Logan Utah. For more information about the conference center, visit http://conference.usu.edu/htm/meet.

Conference Lodging – Please make your own reservations.

Blocks of rooms have been reserved for September 4-7 at the following establishments. To assure you receive the conference rate, please make reservations by the dates noted for each motel. When you make your reservation, you will need to provide the group name; Bear River Symposium.

COMFORT INN, 557 N Main, Logan

Cost: $60.00
Reserve by: September 1
Number of rooms available: 35
Other: continental breakfast
Contact Information: (435) 752-9141

BAUGH MOTEL, 153 S Main, Logan

Cost: $65.00
Reserve by: August 6
Number of rooms available: 31
Other: continental breakfast
Contact Information: (435) 752-5220

CRYSTAL INN, 853 S Highway 89, Logan

Cost: $70.00
Reserve by: August 24
Number of rooms available: 25
Other: continental breakfast
Contact Information: (435) 752-0707

UNIVERSITY INN, Utah State University Campus

Cost: $68.00
Reserve by: August 22
Number of rooms available: 20
Other: continental breakfast
Contact Information: (435) 797-0017

WESTON INN, 250 N Main, Logan

Cost: $60.00 for one person, $65.00 for two people
Reserve by: August 6
Number of rooms available: 35
Contact Information: (435) 752-5700

Travel Information:

Air travel: You will fly into the Salt Lake City International Airport.

Shuttle from Salt Lake City to Logan: Contact the Cache Valley Limo ahead of time to make arrangements. http://www.loganshuttle.com or (435) 563-6400

Parking: Once at the USU campus, please park in the Parking Terrace lot to receive validation.

USU Campus Map

For more information contact:

Susan Anderson
5210 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-5210
(435) 797-2580
susana@ext.usu.edu