Have you ever seen pictures of Acid Mine Drainage? If not, I encourage you to google that mess immediately. The pictures you will find might give you an idea of what my team and I discovered on our field trip last Friday. Here is a summary of the events that took place:
After a nice coffee induced phychotic drive up to the field site, my project partner and I threw on some waders and dropped down in to these cute little beaver sculpted wetlands. For a short bit we trudged around in some oozy mud and tall grass, admiring the multitude of Castor canadensis castles, only to find several small streams consisting of a red smelly sludge that could only be one thing: AMD! I had the delightful opportunity to scoop up some of the pollution pooped out by the old abandoned mines in the area, and to place it with a plop into a soil sample bag. What followed was not any more glamorous. We became thwarted by the snowmelt affecting the flow of every river we were out to test that day. Despite our best foolhardy efforts, we ended up spending almost 9 hours in the field, with nothing to show for it except a few small vials of water that, because of its toxicity, when handled in the lab, requires gloves. (Several campsites lay along the Snake River, where we consequently witnessed several people washing clothes in and generally enjoying the river near by.)
Lessons to learn from last weeks trip:
Stay organized, be diligent, go out at the right time, don’t step into a river if the trees along the bank are halfway drowned in the water rushing by, and never, ever, drink the water.
-Your Friend,
Maggie
Wow, Maggie, I feel like I was right there with you dealing with the goop! Sometimes field work doesn’t turn out as you expect – that’s part of science. This is going to be a late start year to the field season in the mountains. You have to think about safety first when he water is running so high. If there’s a stream gage somewhere on the river or on a nearby river, that would be good to check before going out. All the rivers are running high and will do so until he snow really melts off. We don’t want to lose you or Jordan!!