Should It Go or Should It Stay? Lake Abert's Fate - Free Online Symposium - 23 January 2023, 1-4 PM

Here's the info:

You are invited via Zoom to a Colloquium on the exceptional hypersaline ecosystem at Oregon’s Lake Abert 1-4 pm, Monday, January 23^rd… sponsored by Oregon State University and Oregon Lakes Association. No cost, just pre-register:

Download 2023 Lake Abert Colloquium program

Lake Abert was dry during the summers of 2021 and 2022, thereby denying vital habitat to hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that feast on the bounty of the lake’s exceptional hypersaline habitat. This is an ecological calamity with potential dire consequences for the survival of some bird populations.

Discussions that involve conservation groups and Chewaucan Valley residents and farmers are proceeding, with the goal of finding a way to share water between human uses and the lake’s needs. Acknowledging the fact that all saline lakes in the western US are at risk of going dry, President Biden recently signed the Saline Lakes Act charging the USGS with conducting research and monitoring to understand and conserve our saline lakes such as Lake Abert. 

With these activities ongoing, this Colloquium aims to present current knowledge on the lake and its ecology. We will hear about its amazing capacity to produce shrimp and fly invertebrates that birds feast on, and about the birds that visit Lake Abert. We will also hear about how climate is changing and how we think those changes will affect the landscape in the Chewaucan Valley surrounding Lake Abert. We present the science of Lake Abert as information to be used for decisions that we hope will help preserve the lake ecosystem.

Use this registration link https://oregonstate.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErdO6vpjgsEtRlQ6IVGEixVP0iNqfSWMxyto obtain the Zoom link (also provided on the flyer)

Colloquium program

1:00 Theo Dreher, OSU & OLA: Introduction

1:10 Ron Larson, OLA, formerly US-FWS: An Introduction to the Recent Ecology, Hydrology and Conservation Status of Lake Abert

1:30 Susan Haig, OSU, formerly USGS: Bird dependency on Lake Abert and nearby wetlands

1:50 Stan & Nathan Senner, formerly National Audubon & Univ. Massachusetts: Saline lakes and the birds that depend on them in the Pacific Flyway

2:10 David Herbst, UC-Santa Barbara: Invertebrate productivity in hypersaline lakes 2:10-2:30 Break and/or Discussion

2:40 Larry O’Neill, OSU & Oregon State Climatologist: Climate predictions for SE Oregon and future scenarios for the Chewaucan Watershed

3:00 Erica Fleishman, OSU & Oregon Climate Change Research Institute: Ecological responses to climate change in the northwestern Great Basin

3:20 Adam Hudson, USGS, Denver: Paleoclimate effects on tui chub populations and lake levels in the Chewaucan basin for the past 15,000 years

3:40 Discussion

Theo Dreher

Emeritus Professor of Microbiology
President, Oregon Lakes Association
226 Nash Hall
Oregon State University
541-231-9883

I am glad to see the above being presented. I have been interested in Lake Abert and its 'partners' whose fate appears to be desiccation - a natural outcome due to the drying of the climate in the Interior West.  

 

Here are links to some of my blog posts on the topic. Each contains more links.  

 

Lake Abert's Desiccation: Natural or Not? Why Not Find Out?  7/20/2014

 

Paper: 'Recent Desiccation of Western Great Basin Saline Lakes: Lessons from Lake Abert, Oregon, USA'    6/22/2016

 

Here is an article by my colleague Dr. Elaine J. Hanford, published in Water Resources IMPACT, March-April 2022, Pluvial Lakes of the Great Basin 

 

Download Water Resources IMPACT March:April 2022

 

Enjoy!

 

 

“The biggest problem in the environment is people's quest to find the biggest problem in the environment." -- Jared Diamond