Meet your old friends and make some new ones at our annual Oregon Lakes Association conference at the Driftwood Shores Resort in Florence, Oregon from Friday October 20th through Saturday the 21st. This year, we’re pleased to include the Siuslaw Watershed Council as co-hosts for the conference. Activities will include oral and poster presentations on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, a free public presentation Friday night to introduce the Siuslaw Coho Partnership, and a tour of the Fivemile-Bell Watershed Restoration Project on Saturday afternoon. Make a full weekend out of it and walk the beach, enjoy Florence’s shop and restaurants, or get out on one of the many lakes in the area.
Notes:
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Space is still available for poster presentations, so please submit your abstracts though through the Call for Papers.
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Reduced room rates are available at the Driftwood Shores for conference registrants. Tell them you are with the Oregon Lakes Association for the special discount.
Preliminary Agenda at a Glance
Friday, October 20
o1-5 pm. Oral and Poster Sessions and coffee breaks
o Friday evening, TBD. Free public presentation to introduce the Siuslaw Coho Partnership
Saturday, October 21
o 8 am-12 pm. Oral and Poster Sessions and coffee breaks
o 12 pm. Lunch
o 1-5 pm. Tour of Fivemile-Bell Watershed Restoration Project
Sponsorship opportunities available! Get a booth, registration fees for one attendee, and bonus advertising packages through Lake Wise our newsletter
Cancellation Policy: Registrations are fully refundable 15 days before event, minus a $10 or 3% processing fee whichever is greater. Refunds will not be available after this time.
Conference Highlights:
Dr. Allison Aldous, a freshwater scientist with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), will highlight Friday’s presentations. Dr. Aldous will connect Oregon lakes to the groundwater flow systems that are often important for supporting them, including the dune aquifers that are connected to many coastal lakes. She will talk about how we use that groundwater for municipal, agricultural, and domestic purposes, and how important it is to protect the groundwater supply for lakes and wetlands in addition to using it for our societal needs. She’ll also discuss TNC’s work with a variety of stakeholders to include groundwater-dependent ecosystems in management and policy decisions that are made regarding our water resources. Dr. Aldous is based in Portland and works across Oregon as well as in Gabon, central Africa. She holds a Ph.D. (2001) from Cornell University in wetland ecology; a M.Sc. (1994) in plant sciences; and a B.Sc. (1989) in biochemistry, both from McGill University in Montréal, Canada.
On Friday evening, Dan Carpenter, Executive Director of the Siuslaw Watershed Council (SWC), will take center stage for a free public presentation to introduce a new collaborative group called the Siuslaw Coho Partnership. Coho are very important to the region as the Siuslaw River and nearby Coastal Lakes once supported one of the largest wild coho runs along the Oregon Coast. Returns of hundreds of thousands of adult salmon each year in the late 1800’s were precipitously reduced to less than 1000 during the 1990’s, triggering an Endangered Species Act listing. Over the past 150 years habitat conditions have been severely modified and degraded, which is attributed to: clearing of riparian areas; splash dam logging; building of streamside roads; disconnection of floodplains; and ditching, diking and other stream modification for agricultural purposes. The Siuslaw Coho Partnership are local partners, working together to reverse this downward spiral with the goal of improving watershed health for fishes and promoting livable, and economically resilient communities. Dan Carpenter has worked for the SWC since January 2016 and is responsible for program development and direction. Previously, Dan worked as a professional hydrologist for the Forest Service and BLM in Washington, Oregon and Nevada with more than 35 years of experience. He holds a BSc. in Soil Conservation from Washington State University. Dan has managed many restoration projects involving streams and wetlands, including riparian and upland projects designed to protect water quality and beneficial uses and to restore the proper functioning of streams, riparian areas and watersheds.
Saturday Morning Dr. Doug Larson will kick things off with a presentation on historical changes to the lakes of the Oregon Coast. The central coast of Oregon features a chain of rare maritime lakes that wind among towering sand dunes for a distance of about 50 miles, extending from Heceta Head in the north to Coos Bay in the south. Beginning in 1968, Dr. Larson independently photographed these lakes and their immediate watersheds from an aircraft about once every three years. His purpose was to provide a photo-historic record of lake evolution attributable to both natural and human-related forces. Many of the photos were controversial, revealing the consequences of imprudent and exploitative land-use and recreational development. Doug Larson (Ph.D.) is a Portland limnologist and writer. He has studied lakes, reservoirs and rivers in the Pacific Northwest since 1967, doing much of this work independently. His earlier research focused on environmental factors possibly related to the occurrence of neotenic salamanders in highly saline Devils Lake, North Dakota.
Other lake-related topics covered during the oral and poster sessions on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning will include:
- Warm and cold water fisheries in western Oregon lakes,
- Lamprey populations and their passage through dams,
- Birds and water levels at southeast Oregon’s Abert Lake,
- Carp population modeling in Malheur Lake,
- Invasive aquatic plant monitoring and research in Willamette River backwaters,
- An update on the Oregon Lake Watch program.
Past and present OLA scholarship winners will present results of their research, and Jesse Dolin from Stoney River Sinkers will lead a discussion about getting the lead out of fishing weights to protect fish and wildlife.
Conference activities will conclude with a field trip to observe restoration activities in the Fivemile-Bell watershed located upstream of Tahkenitch Lake, about 10 miles south of Florence. The Fivemile-Bell Restoration Project is a collaboration between the Siuslaw National Forest, Ecotrust, Siuslaw Soil and Water Conservation District, the Siuslaw Institute, and the Siuslaw Watershed Council. Two overarching goals guide the project: to enhance the health of streams and associated aquatic ecosystems focusing on threatened Coho salmon habitat, and to speed the development of late-successional and old-growth forest habitats to benefit species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet. Paul Burns, fisheries biologist with the Siuslaw National Forest’s Reedsport office, will lead the tour.
