David F. Meyer, Alaska Section AWRA South-Central-Region Director

Welcome to the South-Central Region of the Alaska Section. This page announces upcoming sessions of the Brown Bag Lunch Meetings. We can easily expand it to include additional information, as it becomes available. Please feel free to send feedback or suggestions.

The lunch meetings are held on the third Wednesday of each month, September through March. The annual state meeting is held in April of each year. Lunch meetings are held in the 16th floor conference room of the Denali Towers, noon to 1:00 PM. Denali Towers are at 2550 Denali Street, between Fireweed Lane and Northern Lights Blvd.

The south-central region membership includes faculty, staff, and students of the University of Alaska Anchorage, federal and state government, and private industry water-resource professionals. We hope you can come and bring a colleague.

Fall 1998/Spring 1999 Brown Bag Lunch Meeting Agenda

• September 16, 1998, Orson Smith, School of Engineering, University of Alaska, Anchorage
  "Ice in Cook Inlet"

• October 21, 1998, Kathy Lamke, University of Alaska, Anchorage, Department of Geology
  "Holocene stratigraphic record of the Kenai"

• NOTE CHANGE IN DATE: November and December's meetings will be held on the third TUESDAY

• TUESDAY, November 17, 1998, Bronwen Wang, US Geological Survey, Anchorage
  "Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, Water Quality Investigations"

• TUESDAY, December 15, 1998, Gary Hufford, National Weather Service "Evidence of a 20 year climate cycle in Alaska"
  POSTPONED: Dr. Hufford was unable to attend the December meeting. We hope to reschedule his presentation, perhaps in May. Gordon Nelson, USGS kindly filled in at the last minute with a presentation of real-life groundwater problems and issues. Examination of the climate data for Alaska indicates a 20 year cycle that affects the entire state. Although the climate record is short in Alaska, generally less than 60 years, other evidence such as sea ice cover off Pt. Barrow, and growth rings in trees supports the atmospheric record. If the cycle does exist then the state is headed into a cold period over the next twenty years.

• Wednesday, January 20, 1999, Tim Brabets, US Geological Survey, Anchorage "Yukon River Investigations"
  Abstract: Tim will present an Envirionmental and Hydrologic Overview of the Yukon River Basin. As part of the USGS National Stream-Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) program, plans are being developed to implement a water-quality sampling program for the Yukon River Basin in the year 2000. In order to design a good sampling program, knowledge of the environmental and hydrologic conditions of the Yukon River Basin are needed. Tim is going to give a brief overview of the GIS, surface water, and water quality data he has put together to help better understand this 350,000 square mile watershed.

• Wednesday, February 17, 1999, Ken Karle, National Park Service "Reclamation Evaluation of Placer-Mine Sites in Alaska"
  by Kenneth F. Karle and Robert F. Carlson
  Abstract: Currently applied stream channel reclamation techniques utilized by placer-gold miners in Interior Alaska are frequently not successful in meeting reclamation goals required by various land management agencies. Morphologic and hydraulic analyses indicated that most stream channels were constructed with, or quickly developed, excessively large width-depth ratios, steep energy gradients, and low sinuosities. These factors, combined with low rates of natural revegetation common to subarctic climates, resulted in failure (continued erosion and bank instability) for most of the thirteen sites examined.

• Wednesday, March 17, 1999, Rick McClure, Natural Resources Conservation Service, will present his annual Spring Snow update.

• April, no brown bag meeting; see you April 12-13 in Juneau for the Annual AWRA-Alaska Conference.

• Wednesday, May, 19, 1999, to be determined.