Macro invertebrate study

As my days left in PT wind down, I've continued volunteering for local nonprofits to fill my days and mix up the daily monotony of job hunting. North Olympic Salmon Coalition is the organization I worked for in the spring conducting stormwater education. I spent two days this past week helping them conduct macro invertebrate studies (aka bug collection).

It ended up being super duper fun, the most fun I've had in weeks. Two of my friends, Sarah and Aliina work at NOSC, and another friend Katie joined us and a guy named Keith. Small world as Keith and I talked; turns out he was the Board President for NACAC, the last organization I worked for in DC.

Back to the study - at each site (there were 6) we set up a trap to collect bugs and took a core in the stream bed/mud next to the trap. The core will be sent to a scientist for analysis in Seattle and Sarah will go back to the site on Monday and collect the water in the traps and send that to the scientist as well. The objective of this data collection/field work is to establish if the restoration of this site has been reflected in the health of the bugs. The site was once a dumping ground for wood waste. The problem was the wood waste became too much and was leaching into the ground, contaminating the estuary. NOSC came in and removed the waste and a few buildings and built the estuary back up. They did testing before they started and right after and now this is a few short years later to see if all the work has brought certain levels/kinds of insects back, as insects are an indicator species. Pretty cool stuff!

Setting up the traps

Taking a core (aka jumping in the mud in hip waders and shoving a PVC pipe in the mud)

The group minus Aliina

Aliina coming across the estuary. This is what it looks like in low tide. It provides oodles of safe habitat for newly hatched salmon.