Hydrologists in the news

Rarely does the field of hydrology get in the news so of course when it does it should be broadcasted far and wide. In January 2014 the front page of the St. Paul Pioneer Press featured a group of hydrologists taking an ice measurement using a Streampro on the Crow River at Delano. The title of the article was “We wanted cleaner water. We’re paying $2 billion. So what are we getting?” and the cover photo showed seven hydrologists from the State of Minnesota getting trained in on completing ice measurements. One thing the article did not address is new employment…can’t you see the excitement in the face of Vanessa Baratta, a hydrologic technician with the MN DNR. How many new employees have been hired by the Clean Water Legacy Amendment funding? And how many of those new employees were recent graduates? To those young readers who are recent employees of the State of Minnesota or recent graduates of the Environmental Field the Clean Water Legacy funding has brought opportunity. So if Doug Belden asked me, “What are we getting with the Clean Water Legacy Amendment Funding?” I would say new bodies, enthusiasm, fresh energy, innovative minds and an investment in the future of the environmental field in the State of Minnesota! Congratulations to the Hydrologist and Hydrologic Technicians from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for giving the hydrology field in MN its fifteen minutes of fame!

Link to Article featuring DNR hydrologists in the St. Paul Pioneer Press

Waders Are Not Sexy

Waders are not glamorous, nor are they sexy. In my line of work waders are simply a necessity. My first pair of waders was found in the boys section of a sporting goods store. Snug on the foot and wide through the waist, they sat uncomfortably below my chest. Deeming these waders an immediate necessity I made the purchase not knowing that if I looked hard enough I could find women’s waders with a more appropriate fit and a little less breezy.

As soon as I slip my waders onto my feet and strap them over my shoulders I instantly feel void of all feminine emotions. It is as if my waders cause me to grow chest hair and balls. I feel like a young teenage boy believing that I am invisible as they instantly become a protective barrier between me and the rest of the world. Deep streams or mucky wetlands become no longer intimidating when my waders are on.

In fact I think I was once mistaken as a man while wearing my waders. It was a hot summer day in the field and I was near the work truck on a quiet road in a remote area of northern Minnesota when a vehicle pulled over nearby. A man emerged from the vehicle and walked over to me to ask for directions. I pulled out a map from the vehicle and showed him he was only a few miles north of his destination. Finding me friendly he started to disclosure information as to why he was lost. “Yeah a woman gave me directions. You know how that is…woman can’t give directions. She didn’t know her north from her south.” Stunned I paused and looked at him again not sure what to say. He paused for a second too then suddenly blushed, turned and returned to his car without another word. Yes, I thought,we woman can’t give directions. We carry maps!

It seemed the first few times I put on my waders or took them off I felt I needed a private dressing room rather than the minimal discretion given by large work truck. Not only are you required to get used to wearing waders but you also needed to be able to walk through streams and muck in them. Sea legs are what my boss called them. He was referring to the ability to not make yourself look like a complete idiot while trying to get in or around in them. What he taught me was that this is nearly impossible.

It was my second trip out in the field as a Hydrologist, the first trip out with my boss Greg. We stopped at our first site together, put our waders on (me on the opposite side of the truck from him), grabbed our equipment and headed down to the stream. Before we left the sanctity of the work truck and headed down to the streambank he looked at me, smirked and said, “Let’s see if you got your sea legs yet.” He seemed to be self-assured in his abilities as he quickly marched down the side of the hill towards the stream with me almost running behind him trying to keep up with his confident stride. He paused briefly at the bank to turn and look making sure I hadn’t tripped over myself yet. He smirked again at me one last time then proceeded to climb into the stream without hesitation. Next thing I knew confident Greg was stumbling into the stream falling head first into the water.

That moment taught me never to underestimate the power of one’s sea legs and to always be standing in the stream first before questioning someone else’s.

Waders Are Not Sexy....Delicate

Use of the word delicate to describe a woman can sometimes be flattering or even used to describe desirable traits of a woman. However when it comes to a woman working outdoors, delicate is one of the last words you want to be used to describe your capabilities. Recently I heard the term used to describe a young woman aspiring for a career in the natural resources field. Unfortunately for her a future career might be behind a desk with potential for a window seat with a limited view.

My first thought when I heard the word delicate was, “glad they are not talking about me.” I am a petite woman whose height barely reaches 5’ 2.” Petite is the favored word I use for my daily vertical challenges. Throughout my career working outside the lack of a 6 foot exterior has created some unnecessary challenges, but I like to think that I have made up for this in effort. My exhausting compassion for exercise and strength training has continued to support the muscle needed to complete field work activities for which there have been many opportunities to show weaknesses.


One opportunity in particular I fondly think of is the gently lowering of a heavy boat into the water from the safety of an expansive bridge. The boat along with its precise cargo, an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), can combined be substantially heavy when dangling from a rope. Gently lowering the boat can be a slow, and slightly painful process, especially when the waters below are very turbid and the opportunity for gentle placement on the water surface is utterly hopeless. To combat the extensive
weight of the ADCP I found that teamwork was a great solution. I would require the assistance for a co-worker to lift the ADCP over the bridge rail and to its position dangling from the rope. Then I would be able to lower the ADCP from the bridge deck down to the water surface without additional assistance. The assistance of a co-worker would be needed again on its ascent where it once again needed to be lifted over the bridge rail. Bridge rails could sometimes be ridiculously tall for my petite frame where I would sometimes position my center of gravity over the bridge rail so that my feet would dangle over the bridge deck allowing myself to gain a good view of the waters below where the ADCP needed to be placed. Other times, with a more manageable bridge rail height, a good strong footing on the bridge deck could be achieved, allowing me to lower the ADCP without putting my body in such a compromising position.


Teamwork has been my solution on numerous occasions in the field where either my petite frame or overall general lack of strength has been challenged. Pounding in fence posts or drilling through concrete are just a couple of examples, but the fondest memories of challenges in the field come from drilling holes in the ice for winter ice measurements. If one has never used an ice auger before you might be quick to judge the simplicity of the two stroke engine, however this beast of a machine can be physically demanding to say the least. To run an ice auger takes a great deal of shoulder, chest, back and general overall body strength. Sure to drill a hole or two through lake ice can be mastered by even the unhealthiest of men, but this cannot be compared to the physical damnation required by an exercise in completing an ice measurement. Requirements for such a measurement require the drilling of 25 to 30 holes through river ice at thicknesses up to 3 feet. River ice is slightly tougher than lake ice since sediments transported in the river can freeze through into the ice causing the ice auger blades to encounter such sediments as gravel, which quickly weaken the spinning blades and requiring the person running the auger to exert even more strength to complete the drilling process. My strategy to teamwork when completing ice measurements is to attempt drilling long enough to give the primary driller a break to regenerate their muscle strength, I say attempt because even my best efforts at running the ice auger are entirely pathetic.


Very few fieldwork experiences were as intimidating to me as working on an ice covered stream. From trickling streams to ice covered rivers the anxiety of working on the ice can be exhausting. Standing on ice, even 3 feet thick, over a flowing river gets my heart racing. This is especially true with larger rivers where the roar of gushing water underneath you cannot be ignored. For safety concerns when walking out on a sizeable moving river we were encourage to tie ourselves to something stable, whether it be a co-worker securely situated on the bank or a thick tree. This was never the actual practice however because preparing the rope or even using it created a large time sink and a general annoyance. Instead we would take turns being the guinea pig or the first one out on the ice. This overwhelmingly became my job. A long standing joke amongst my co-workers was that my best attributes in completing ice measurements was my small frame in that I was the perfect ice strength tester. If the ice cracked under my weight then it would be deemed unsafe and my heavier co-workers would not need to risk their lives to find this out. In fact no one ever bothered tying themselves up to me as the secured unit on the bank. It was the outspoken assumption that if they went in while I was on shore there was little I could do to aid in their survival other than to call in re-enforcements. Although slightly insulting I do tend to agree with their unproven hypothesis.


Working on a trickling stream in ice conditions is still less daunting but still requires the full focus and attention of the body. Open riffles on smalls creeks make measuring discharge easier however sometimes the ice is just thin enough that a fall through the ice into the cold waters is inevitable. A fall of such proportions is usually only into water ankle or even knee deep which is very manageable. The difficulty is that it requires bracing of the body for such a fall so that when it does eventually happen you are balanced and stable, therefore not making a ridiculous spectacle of yourself by falling face first into the icy cold waters or end up flopped on your back upon the rough ice. In situations such as these my skill set was valuable. I would creep out onto the ice one step at a time when I could hear the ice cracking under me I might start to bounce or squat low in order to put additional weight upon the frozen water molecules. If I initially did not fall through I would continue my creep and bounce routine until I eventually did end up in the water. Once grounded on the stream bed I could easily break up the ice with an ice chisel or if thin enough continue to work at it with the weight of my own body. The ice chisel was my tool of choice. Not nearly as effective as a two stroke engine in braking up the frozen tundra but light enough that I could work swiftly at braking up thin ice and move it out of the way enough to complete the work.


Eventually I found some comfort in working on the ice, a skill that came with years of experience and a hardening of the heart or to put it more precisely, a freezing of the soul. Although my feeble attempts at running the ice auger or drilling holes in the ice never improved much overtime I would like to think that my willingness to be the first one on the ice brought at least some comfort to my co-workers who I dare say might have appreciated my petite frame and delicate steps.

Waders Are Not Sexy...The Beginning

I have been on a log hiatus from this blog. In the course of two years since I last wrote in this blog I have been become a Mom. Becoming a Mother has been a wonderful experience and I won’t trade it for the world but on the other hand parenting does not lend much time for self-involved activities such as blogging. During my hiatus my thoughts have lingered on telling my stories from the field. This has prompted me to write down a few of my favorite ones from time to time as they come to me, compiling the beginning of a book I would like to title, “Waders are not Sexy.”

My goal in writing down these stories is to reach out to young men and women who might be interested in a career in the natural resources field. When I was young and looking for the right college or the career path for me I did not have the opportunity to talk to or read about another woman's experience. Looking back now it was as if I stumbled upon this field after spending hours reading through a list of majors available. Hollywood glamorizes the strong female leads with careers such as lawyers, cops, news anchors, florists, publicists or the occasional stay at home mom. Where is the romance novel about the woman who spends her days making streamflow measurements? There is not nor will there ever be such a movie, documentary or TV show because let’s face it a career in the natural resources field is not glamorous and waders are simply not sexy.

I hope you enjoy my blog and please feel free to pass it on. If I influence just one mind to take a chance in this exciting field I will feel my time here on this blog has been validated. Thank you.

Waders Are Not Sexy...Chapter 1 ED

It is not that hate being outside. It is that I hate working outside. The two are totally different animals. I should have learned my lesson after my first experience in the field with Ed. My college years were spent working in a water quality lab. I don’t know if it was the monotony of three rinses in multiple acid baths or the fact that I was stuck in the basement of Borlaugh Hall without even a glimpse of the sun during the best three months of Minnesota weather. Either way I wanted out of the lab and into the field. Don’t get me wrong working at the water quality lab was a great experience. It was the type of job that is perfect for a college student…flexible hours, repetitive tasks that would require minimal amounts of attention and I had some of my best friends there with me. When I requested some experience in the field I was given the opportunity to work with Ed. Opportunity, ha! Someone somewhere was laughing. Ed was your average lazy middle aged single guy…big beer belly, receding hairline and a scorned attitude. When you walked into his office it was so covered in stacks of books and papers that it seemed the path that he had created to his computer chair was a sign of his efforts to “be organized.”

With the truck and ATV loaded we set off one morning from campus and headed west. Our first stop, why breakfast of course. A sit down breakfast at Cracker Barrel no less. We were hardly an hour from the campus when Ed pulls over, smiles at me and says “It’s time for breakfast.” I had already had breakfast but feeling like I should make the best of my first experience in the field I ordered up oatmeal and mindlessly push it around the bowl while Ed talked about his favorite breakfast stops. Finally he fuels up on a huge breakfast platter and we are on the road again. A couple hours later we arrived at our first destination. I couldn’t wait to get out of truck. After several hours of listening to Ed rant about theories in physics and his love of calculus I had had enough.

Ed and I were tasked with collecting GPS points in farm fields in west central MN. This meant I was to carry around a rod and walk between crop rows in the farm field while Ed stood in the middle of the field and made sure the equipment worked. (To this day I am still not sure what equipment we were using). After standing around waiting for Ed to get the equipment working I start hearing him swear at it. He tells me how the equipment isn’t working and that is because he loaned it out to some fellow researchers recently and they change the settings. I now know what he was really saying goes something like this, “Shit. I don’t know how to use this equipment very well and I can’t remember what the settings were. Now this college student is going to think I’m a real idiot and I am totally embarrassed. Damn it. I am just going to blame on someone else. After all I never did check on the equipment before I left the office like I should have. She’ll never think I am an idiot if I blame it on someone else.” Eventually he got it working “good enough” we could proceed. Some weeks later I find out it never worked good enough for the data to be useable.
Adventures with Ed didn’t end there. Soon enough there was the incredibly uncomfortable awkward I have to pee moment. As I am contemplating whether or not to tell Ed of my new predicament I mulled over my options. Remember I was standing in the middle of a farm field. To make matters worse it was spring and all crops had only recently been planted. The corn, scheduled to be knee high by the 4th of July, wasn’t even ankle deep. The field was vacant of any cover, especially any cover required by my feminine physique. To my right side was a wooded area about 100 yards away. With a jogging step I could reach those woods and be back in probably about 20 minutes, too far away for Ed to notice I had stepped away for a second. To my left was a busy highway road also about 100 yards away. I couldn’t see the driver of the cars but they would certainly notice a woman squatting down to pee in the middle of a vacant farm field. Given that my options were limited I disclosed to Ed my predicament. Without a hesitation or a conversation of any sort he looked at me, paused and said, “I’ll turn around” as he proceeded to do so.

I didn’t know what to do next. I was so stunned at the lack of discussion as well as the lack of options I had I stood there. After what seemed like the approximately right amount of time for a young woman to relieve herself I shouted, “okay” to Ed. And he immediately turned around and kept starring at the equipment. Now I had to hold it and I held it for a long time!

Flooding

As a hydrologist, spring is my favorite time of year.  Not in the same way that most people enjoy spring, the nicer weather is wonderful of course, but it is rather the opportunities that this season brings to a hydrologist.  The opportunity to really see the power of Mother Nature in full force as the rivers rise, flooding out fields, towns and people’s livelihood.  This is the only time of year when we are “on call.”  When a river floods, who are you going to call? (please ignore the Ghostbuster reference)  A hydrologist of course!  We are the ones who spend long hours trying to understand the river, how it responds to rainfall, at what stage is it impacting that road or someone’s home and when at what stage is it considered a flood?  Our efforts are valuable during time of crisis yet our labors are sometimes misunderstood.

It is spring in the Midwest now and I am glued to the media streams in an effort to hear about the flooding going on around me.  It is a little ironic that a devastating natural disaster such as a flood can bring such joy to a scientist, but ask any of us water geeks and we will all agree – floods are exciting.  The other night I was watching the news listening for the latest flood update when a meteorologist stated the following, “what can these flood predictions tell us?  After all Hydrology is not an exact science.”   The term exact science is a double standard in and of itself since the definition of science is – systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation.  According to this definition hydrology is a science, ground in to its true definition.  A science that uses the observations obtained on a regular basis to understand the physical world, which in this case would be a river system.  However I do understand why people continue to question our work – it is the unpredictability of Mother Nature that we continue to try to capture mathematically.  Sometimes Mother Nature does not want to play by our rules or be defined by our equations. 

To understand the complexity of a watershed a multi-faceted world of hydrology has been developed. There are two types of hydrologist, the first of who work primarily in the field: recording water levels, measuring flow and ensuring working condition of all field equipment.  The second type of hydrologist works in the office, analyzing data and running hydrologic models.  In fact as you develop your skills in the hydrology field you move from the field to the office to establish you expertise and advance your career.  Currently I have the most experience as a field hydrologist although with time I have been making the transition towards the office.  With a little experience in both I will now attempt to describe to you the different fields and how they work together to ensure the safety and livelihoods of those who resolve to live a life in constant flux with their local river systems.

A field hydrologist measures water quantity (discharge) at a variety of water levels (stages).  This is accomplished using a variety of equipment that continues to develop with technology and increase in difficulty.  During low flow conditions a hydrologist will wade in the water, by standing and facing the flow we are able to measure the amount of water flowing towards us with a small error of inaccuracy.  During high flows we use more advance equipment to get a detailed picture of the flow and to protect ourselves from dangerously high velocities.  We measure flow at all water levels over several years, using this information to develop a relationship between stage and discharge.  This relationship is called a rating curve.  Knowing the amount of water flowing through a river at all times is a difficult to obtain since a discharge measurement will take two hydrologists almost an hour to complete.  However water levels can be measured in real-time (taken every 15 minutes is the standard practice).  These stages are converted to discharge values based on the rating curve developed.  A rating curve is used in many fields from the engineering designing a bridge, to a biologist managing a pool for bird migration, to a city using the discharge from a river to supply water and even an office hydrologist using the rating curve to calculate the quantify the amount of water that will be moving downstream during a flood.  A rule of thumb is it takes three years of monthly measurements at a site (longer in the Midwest due to the winter months) to develop a good rating curve, and even then we are not entirely sure of the relationship between Mother Nature and our equation.

Office hydrologists, for example those who work at the National Weather Service (NWS) putting out flood forecasts, use technology, science and mathematics to provide the services needed in their field of expertise.  To predict flood levels hydrologists run models which help them simulate a variety of scenarios determining when the river will peak using a variety of weather patterns.  These office hydrologists rely on the field hydrologists to be their eyes and ears on the ground; measuring discharge, maintaining equipment measuring stage data in real time and reporting on obstructions on the river such as ice jams or debris piles.

Together these two areas of expertise in the hydrology world combine to be a powerful force behind the general public keeping them cognizant of rising waters. Stay away – Don’t die!

Go Wildcats! - Interesting Stories From the Southeastern Arizona Dessert

Today is New Year's Day, the first sacred moments of 2011 have commenced.  As others around me are making resolutions and reflecting on the glories of 2010 I too must admit that  these thoughts are filling my head.  2010 was a great year for me, a year when the dreams I set for myself did come true.  This has not been the case, like most normal people I have had many years where my resolutions are vanishing before my eyes as December rolls around.  One of the more memorable resolutions was to complete my never-ending thesis.  Three long years it took me to complete it and interesting stories from Arizona now come to mind.

When I tell people my graduate degree in water resources was from the University of Arizona, they chuckle and ignorantly say, "how can you study water in the desert?" All joking aside, my reply is "we always brought water with us."  My research at the U of A entailed using a rainfall simulator to study post-fire runoff and erosion.  We hauled tanks of water out to remote areas with us, using them to supply our rainfall simulator, which simulated the high intensity rainfall rates similiar to a monsoon storm.  The goal of the project was to analyze and model how wildfires impacted erosion rates in semi-arid desert environments.  My research was rather dull in most regards and to prevent you, the reader, from now closing my blog I will skip the details of my thesis work to engage you in stories from the border.

The wildfires we worked on weren't started by your typical lightning strikes.  More interestingly they were all started by drug runners - accidents or diversion tactics - working in remote areas of Arizona near the Mexican border always lent itself to an element of danger.

The San Rafael Valley near Patagonia, Arizona is controlled by drug runners, ask any local rancher or ranch hand.  Stopping by the rancher's home for a casual visit lends itself to several stories about the recent run-ins with Mexican out-laws.  I saw this first hand and lived to tell the story.  Picture your normal hot Arizona summer day, it's 90 plus degrees outside and the only shade you can find is the occasionaly tree or the shadowy side of that work truck.  It is 7 am in the morning and we are just approaching our work site where we have several 6m x 2m plots prepared for a rainfall simulator experiment.  We have been granted access by a local rancher to conduct these experiments on his private land.  A morning in a remote part of Southeastern Arizona is beautiful with the occasional sighting of an antelope heard, jack rabbits or that beautiful bird that I have no idea what it is (I am a hydrologist not a biologist).  Even the tarantula homes are strikingly beautiful especially with the combination of morning dew and a beautiful sunrise highlighting their webs and creating a unique sparkle across the prairie landscape.  Back to my story...on this particular morning my beautiful daydream is quickly interrupted by the site of two border patrol trucks flying by our convoy at an alarming rate.  It was not unusal to see a border patrol vehiclez out in the area but never had they seemed to be in such a rush.  A hiccup in our day but our convoy continues.  Further into the private property we find another two or three border patrol vehicles huddled together near a hillside.  They do not stop us but let us continue on our way uninterrupted - maybe it was the sight of two white vehicles with federal plates that lent them to not pay attention to us.  We continue to work that day all the while discussing what we had missed this morning.  Mid-afternoon a 4-wheeler makes a drive by.  The man driving the off road vehicle is white and clearly not dressed for a day of off-roading with his khaki shorts and white short sleeved polo shirt (I should mention here that in Arizona most of those who spend several hours in the sun daily usually cover up from the sun with pants and long sleeve shirts.  The theory is that you will dehydrate faster with a sunburn than with the added heat from the layers of clothing.  Plus who wants that farmers tan?)  The man driving the 4-wheeler does not stop but merely pauses for a brief moment to take in our operation before continuing on into oblivion as far as we are concerned.  He never returns the same way he came.  What an interesting day we had!  Once we arrive back at Sonoita, to our hotel, I catch a quick glimpse of the newspaper headline for that day.  The headline read Border Patrol Shot and the article went on to discuss the Border Patrol's encounter that day with a drug lord shoot out, where two drug lords were fighting over control of the San Rafael Valley for transporting drugs into the United States.  Finally we had our answer to the plethora of Border Patrol vehicles we had witnessed.  Maybe the urgency of the vehicles we had witnessed this morning was their answer to an ambulance ride.

One or two days later while working at the same site we actually got to witness the transport of drugs or so maybe I would like to think.  It was a hot afternoon and we had just stopped for a break between experiments.  We sat under a tree for lunch discussing whatever nerdy hydrologists talk about, when one of us notices two hikers (of Mexican decent) walking along an adjacent hillside near us.  We watched them until they disappeared behind a tree.  We continue working for another two or three hours constantly checking on that tree for a glimpse of these so-called hikers.  Finally they re-emerge from behind the tree with two large white sacks being carried upon their backs.  They hike back away from the tree and disappear from view.  Now my assumption is that these hikers were drug runners and they just had just picked up there stash.  How exciting!  We never ran into anything else unusual after that, but I dare say that was enough to get my blood pumping everytime I had to returned to the site.  At the end of the season we brought in one of our trucks to the shop of its annual post-season maintainence.  Upon careful inspection we found several bullet holes in the side of the truck (the truck we usually left overnight at our sites) which we had never noticed before.  Coincidence or was someone trying to send us a message?

Several stories along these lines are shared amongst graduate students conducting research out of the University of Arizona.  Mine was actually mild compared to most.  However it was not something I could write home to my mother about.  "Mom, yeah funny thing happened today we witnessed some drug runners.  No don't worry they weren't on our hillside and  they only left a few gunshots in the work truck."
As a hydrologist in the Midwest I have rarely encountered such dangerous work conditions.  Once in awhile I would witness a border patrol truck near the Canadian border or the occasionally crazy person who wants to talk to you about how it is your fault his life sucks.  No my life as a hydrologist now is only dangerous when it floods and that is another story.

It is February now and I am finally finishing my blog - so much for my new year's resolution of spending more time on it.  However I have already been inspired as to the topic of my next post.  Look for a discussion of the 2011 spring flood predictions for Minnesota!