If you were in middle school between the mid 80’s and late 90’s you have probably played the game “The Oregon Trail”. Back then, the game was stored on a “floppy disk”, run on a computer with less than 30 MG of memory, and displayed on a screen that could produce maybe 6 different colors, mostly different shades of grey and neon green. It was a simpler time. The game’s storyline was set in 1848. You are the leader of a pioneer family making the epic journey west along the Oregon Trail via covered wagon. The objective is simple. Survive. There are many perils along the trail just waiting to snatch the digital souls of you and your companions. I remember the game fondly as a great way to spend a recess indoors. Little did I know I would be making my own Oregon Trail expedition 20 years later. I have yet to contract cholera or break my leg.

Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Post 2015 fire.

This is my first year in the CLM program. I am originally from Milwaukee, WI but have been working for the Bureau of Land Management here in Baker City, OR for the past three weeks. Baker City is located in Eastern Oregon, tucked neatly between the Wallowa-Whitman National Umatilla National Forests. They make for some great weekend hiking.

I am here in Baker as a hydrology/riparian surveying technician. I am involved in several overlapping projects, but the shared premise is to catalog the biotic and abiotic factors indicating the health of a watershed. We care about the health of our watersheds because they support many local economies, primarily cattle grazing and agriculture, but they also influence other land uses such as mining, logging, tourism, recreation, public health, and wildlife. The purpose of the BLM is to sustainably mange public lands for multiple uses and land/watershed health plays a part in management decisions, grazing permits as one example.

Measuring stream flow

Florescent cells indicate presence of fecal coliform bacteria.

I have been conducting stream surveys for a little over two weeks and will continue throughout the summer. An average stream survey will include water chemistry variarbles such as pH, dissolved oxygen, electrical conductivity, and alkalinity. We also measure the stream flow, which allows us to calculate the total water discharge of a stream. Currently our surveys also include nutrient loads and we collect water samples for Ecoli and fecal coliform tests. Being that our waterways are in high proximity to grazing cattle and wildlife, these bacteria are pretty common.The first round of riparian surveys will begin mid May as well as some heavy metal sampling. More details to come. – Joe