New report from USGS

Simulation of the Regional Ground-Water-Flow System and Ground-Water/Surface-Water Interaction in the Rock River Basin, Wisconsin by Paul F. Juckem.

A regional, two-dimensional, areal ground-water-flow model was developed to simulate the ground-water-flow system and ground-water/surface-water interaction in the Rock River Basin. The model was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Rock River Coalition. The objectives of the regional model were to improve understanding of the ground-water-flow system and to develop a tool suitable for evaluating the effects of potential regional water-management programs. The computer code GFLOW was used because of the ease with which the model can simulate ground-water/surface-water interactions, provide a framework for simulating regional ground-water-flow systems, and be refined in a stepwise fashion to incorporate new data and simulate ground-water-flow patterns at multiple scales.

To read full report, go to USGS.

In the News: Stimulus money coming to Wisconsin to prevent water pollution

One million dollars will help Wisconsin and Minnesota prevent water pollution.

Governor Doyle announced that he will allocate $65,000 of this funding to support existing collaborative efforts with Minnesota to improve water quality on the St. Croix River, including reducing runoff of nutrient rich soil from constructions sites and farms in both states.

"In Wisconsin, we are blessed with an abundance of fresh water," Governor Doyle said. "From our rivers, to our lakes, to our Great Lakes, our waters define who we are. They drive our economy. They drive our recreation. They drive our way of life. I am pleased to allocate $65,000 to help improve water quality on the St. Croix River. Pollution is a continuing problem as populations along the river continues to increase. Wisconsin and Minnesota must continue to work hard and work together to protect this natural resource."

To read full article, go to WKOWTV.com.

Book Review: New Fish Cookbooks

Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking is written by Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything. Bittman begins by explaining the best ways to buy fish and a brief review of the nutritional value of adding fish to your regular diet. Then, from Anchovies to Wolffish, he provides recipes and preparation organized by type of fish. This guide includes more than 500 recipes for 70 kinds of fish and seafood.


The Freshwater Fish Cookbook: More than 200 Ways to Cook your Catch is written by food columnist for Gray's Sporting Journal, A.D. Livingston. With wonderful color photos, this is a fisherman's cookbook. Many recipes have personal anecdotes and stories that add interesting flair to each fish.


In Cleaning and Cooking Fish, Sylvia Bashline gives you expert advice on preparing fish. Bashline has won several awards for her articles and photos dealing with a variety of outdoor subjects, particularly fish cooking techniques and recipes. This book also has a section dedicated to preserving fish, as in pickling and canning, that makes it quite unique from other fish cookbooks.

Shipwreck Explorers to Host Open House

A team of 10 underwater archaeologists will share their findings during a week-long exploration of a historic shipwreck at an open house, 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. Thursday, July 30, at the Holiday Inn Harborview in Port Washington.

The public is invited to stop by, talk with the archaeologists about the project, and view underwater photos, videos, and a photomosaic of the wreck assembled from more than 100 images. The event is sponsored by the Port Washington Historical Society.

To learn more about the open house, go to the Aquatic Sciences Center News Room.

Can't make it to the open house? Check out a few titles from Wisconsin's Water Library to learn more about Great Lakes shipwrecks.

News from Wisconsin Sea Grant

Riding on the heels of its successful 2007 lecture series “Climate Change in the Great Lakes: Starting a Public Discussion,” Wisconsin Sea Grant has been awarded a $293,000 grant from the NOAA Climate Program Office Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP).

The two-year grant partners Wisconsin Sea Grant with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s Cooperative Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET) Program to develop centralized training for Sea Grant Extension agents and specialists to enable them to deliver consistent, science‐based messages regarding the likely effects of climate change in coastal areas.

Wisconsin Sea Grant and COMET will develop an interactive Web site to serve as a portal for the training course and permit NOAA and Sea Grant climate researchers to interact to bring up-to-date scientific information to coastal stakeholders. The resulting “wiki”—a collection of Web pages on climate-related topics that allows approved individuals to contribute or modify content—will help disseminate timely coastal climate information (climate change impacts, research results, reports, publications, etc.), and will continue to grow as new knowledge and information become available. The wiki will increase interaction between key NOAA scientists and coastal stakeholders through Sea Grant Extension and provide a forum for current climate science discussions.

To learn more, go to UW Sea Grant.

Assessing wetlands programs of the Great Lakes

The National Wildlife Federation and other partners released a report on July 7, 2009 highlighting the challenges of wetland protection in the Great Lakes region, with a focus on four Great Lakes states, including Wisconsin. This assessment may help raise awareness of wetlands need for protection, particularly regarding the President's 2010 Budget of $475 million to Great Lakes restoration.

To read the summary, go to National Wildlife Federation.

On the Lake Guardian with COSEE Great Lakes

The Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) Great Lakes invites 4th-10th grade teachers and non-formal educators to participate in one of two week-long Shipboard and Shoreline Science workshops aboard the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 180-foot research vessel (R/V) Lake Guardian every year. Educators work beside scientists, participating in Great Lakes research and stopping in ports for additional science experiences. In addition to shipboard and shoreline science, participants will examine curricula and resources and explore classroom activities relating to the Great Lakes and oceans.

In July of 2009, a group of 15 teachers spent seven days with a team of Great Lakes scientists aboard the EPA's research vessel the Lake Guardian living the life of a researcher on Lake Superior. One of the teachers made a video documenting many parts of the expedition. To view this video, click here.

New Aquatic Sciences Center Chronicle online

Summer 2009 Chronicle is available online!

Be sure to check out Wisconsin's Water Library reading list on sea kayaking, as well as the front page article on kayaking safety in the Apostle Islands...

EPA Releases Two Literature Review Documents Related to Recreational Water Quality Risks

Designed to protect swimmers from illnesses due to exposure to pathogens in recreational waters, the existing criteria are more than 20 years old. Since then, scientists have learned much about molecular biology, virology, and analytical chemistry. This new information will help us build a stronger scientific foundation for up-to-date recreational water quality criteria.

EPA's March 2007 Experts Scientific Workshop was a forum for discussion of critical research and science needs for developing new or revised recreational ambient water quality criteria in the near-term. The Report of the Experts Scientific Workshop summarizes the discussion of the scientific and technical panels.

To read the reports, go to Environmental Protection Agency.

Wetland Gems

In May 2009, in celebration of American Wetlands Month, Wisconsin Wetlands Association launched our new Wetland Gems program. This program aims to increase public awareness of and appreciation for all of the state's wetlands and to generate community pride in and commitment to stewardship of local wetland treasures that have statewide, national, and even international importance.

What are Wetland Gems? Wetland Gems are high quality habitats that represent the wetland riches - marshes, swamps, bogs, fens and more - that historically made up nearly a quarter of Wisconsin’s landscape. Critically important to Wisconsin’s biodiversity, these natural treasures also provide our communities with valuable functions and services as well as recreational and educational opportunities. They are landscapes that both preserve the past and inspire for the future.

To learn more about Wetland Gems, go to Wisconsin Wetland Association.

'Motion picture' of past warming paves way for snapshots of future climate change

MADISON - By accurately modeling Earth's last major global warming - and answering pressing questions about its causes - scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison and National Center for Atmospheric Research climatologists are unraveling the intricacies of the kind of abrupt climate shifts that may occur in the future.

"We want to know what will happen in the future, especially if the climate will change abruptly," says Zhengyu Liu, a UW-Madison professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and director of the Center for Climatic Research in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "The problem is, you don't know if your model is right for this kind of change. The important thing is validating your model."

To do so, Liu and his colleagues run their mode back in time and match the results of the climate simulation with the physical evidence of past climate.

Starting with the last glacial maximum about 21,000 years ago, the team simulated atmospheric and oceanic conditions through what scientists call the Bølling-Allerød warming, the Earth's last major temperature hike, which occurred about 14,500 years ago. The simulation fell in close agreement with conditions - temperatures, sea levels and glacial coverage - collected from fossil and geologic records.

To read full article, go to UW-Madison News.
To learn more about the images, go to University Communications.

Book Review: The Frogs and Toads All Sang

The Frogs and Toads All Sang by Arnold Lobel

From the late Caldecott Medalist Arnold Lobel comes a brand new collection of rhyming stories about frogs and toads. Discovered by his daughter, Adrianne Lobel, these stories have all the same warmth, compassion, and humor that is found in his best-loved work. Brimming with sweet silliness, this new book reminds us why Arnold Lobel's characters continue to be so popular years after their debut.
Source: HarperCollins Publishers description

If you are a Wisconsin resident, you may check this book out from Wisconsin's Water Library by completing our book request form. If you are a UW-Madison faculty, student or staff member, please request through MadCat.

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

The President's 2010 Budget provides $475 million in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget for a new interagency Great Lakes restoration initiative, which will target the most significant problems in the region, including invasive aquatic species, non-point source pollution, and contaminated sediment.

This initiative will use outcome-oriented performance goals and measures to target the most significant problems and track progress in addressing them. EPA and its Federal partners will coordinate State, tribal, local, and industry actions to protect, maintain, and restore the chemical, biological, and physical integrity of the Great Lakes.

Early this summer, one or more Requests for Proposals will be announced for competitive grants advancing the Initiative, in order that some grants may be issued as early as December. A series of stakeholder meetings, open to the public, will be held in July and August 2009 in various Great Lakes locations.

The one in Milwaukee will be held on Tuesday, July 21st from 5-7pm at
Doubletree Hotel Milwaukee City Center
Wisconsin Room
611 W. Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53203

To learn more about the Initiative and meetings in your area, go to EPA.

Grandparents University

The Wisconsin Alumni Association and UW-Extension Family Living Programs offer Grandparents University each summer. This award-winning, two-day workshop is a chance for children (recommended ages 7-14) and their grandparents to come together and learn from each other in a dynamic atmosphere on the UW campus. What better way for grandparents and grandchildren to spend time together than sharing stories, reliving and creating memories, and earning a degree together from UW-Madison?

To learn more about Grandparents University, go to Wisconsin Alumni Association.

To see a video about water-related events during the sessions, produced by the Aquatic Sciences Center (where the Water Library is housed) click here.

New USGS publications

Check out these new publications from United States Geological Survey regarding the Great Lakes and Wisconsin waters:

Taking the Pulse of a River System: Research on the Upper Mississippi River System

A New Map of Standardized Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Conterminous United States

Trends in Streamflow and Nutrient and Suspended-Sediment Concentrations and Loads in the Upper Mississippi, Ohio, Red, and Great Lakes River Basins, 1975-2004

Book Awards in Wisconsin and Great Lakes

Finalists for the 2009 Great Lakes Book Awards have been announced. To be eligible, books have to have a Great Lakes theme or setting or be written by an author living in the region and have been published between June 2008 and the end of May 2009. The winners will be announced in late August by the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association.

To see the list, go to Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association.

Also, the Wisconsin Library Association's Literary Awards Committee of the Readers' Section have chosen What It Is by Lynda Barry as the winner of the RR Donnelley Literary Award, given for the highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author in 2009. To view nominees and past winners of the RR Donnelley award, go to Wisconsin Library Association.

Wisconsin's Water Library has purchased two of the nominees for the Donnelley award, available to check out to Wisconsin residents. Wreck of the Carl D.: A True Story of Loss, Survival and Rescue at Sea and North of the Port can be checked out by going to our book request form. UW-Madison faculty, students and staff should request books through MadCat.

Happy Birthday SLA!

The Special Libraries Association is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The object of this Association is to "promote the interests of the commercial, industrial, technical, civic, municipal and legislative reference libraries, the special departments of public libraries, universities, welfare associations, and business organizations." Wisconsin's Water Library is a member of this association as a special library at UW-Madison.

The mission of the Water Library is to collect, preserve and provide science-based information and resources on the waters of the Great Lakes and Wisconsin in support of the programs of the Sea Grant and Water Resources Institutes. This collection serves both the faculty, staff and students of the UW system campuses as well as all Wisconsin residents.

Take a look at the historical time line posted in honor of the anniversary to see how far we've come.

From Wisconsin's Water Library: New Books

Summer is in full swing in the Midwest and the Water Library has several new books of interest for your summer reading pleasure. We have recently added titles on many aspects of climate change, the science of water, caviar and cooking seafood.

Check it out!

And remember, Wisconsin's Water Library will lend to any Wisconsin resident as well as to students, staff and faculty in the UW system. For more information on how to borrow books, just Ask Water.

Water Quality in Carbonate Aquifers in the United States

A summary of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program study of water quality in carbonate aquifers of the United States. More than 1,000 wells and springs were analyzed for properties and contaminants including pH, major ions, nutrients, trace elements, radon, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds, in 12 carbonate aquifers in the United States.

Carbonate aquifers are the most widely used of all bedrock aquifers, and provide 22 percent of the United States public ground-water supply. Carbonate aquifers are those aquifers in limestone or dolomite bedrock. The NAWQA program has sampled well networks in many carbonate aquifers using similar methodologies, and thus provided one of the first opportunities to evaluate water quality in the various carbonate aquifers. This web site is a supplement to the National Water-Quality Assessment Program's report: Factors affecting water quality in selected carbonate aquifers in the United States, 1993-2005: Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5240. The site highlights the findings of this report, and provides additional details about the study.

To view full report, go to USGS.

Video Contest Winners Inspire Stewardship for the Nation’s Waters

WASHINGTON - The two winners of EPA’s first-ever water quality video contest made videos that will help educate the public about water pollution and give simple steps that people and communities can take to improve water quality.

“We are delighted by the number and quality of contest submissions,” said Acting Assistant Administrator for Water Michael H. Shapiro. “This is another illustration of how new Web technologies allow people to express their passion for water quality in new and exciting ways.”

In the 30 or 60 second category, “Protect Our Water - Check Cars for Oil Leaks” submitted by Lucas Ridley of Trenton, Ga. was the overall winner. His video illustrates one easy step you can take to protect your watershed through proper motor vehicle care.

In the 1-3 minute category, “Dastardly Deeds and the Water Pollution Monster” submitted by Nora Kelley Parren of Hinesburg, Vt. was the winner. Her animated video, made entirely out of discarded paper, illustrates how polluted runoff threatens ecosystems and offers tips people can take to protect water quality. The two winning filmmakers will each receive a $2,500 cash award, and their videos are featured on EPA’s Web site.

To view the two winners' videos, as well as others, visit EPA.

Book Review: Enduring Seeds

Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation By Gary Paul Nabhan

Nabhan, one of America's leading ethnobotanists, takes you on a journey around the world to find seeds. Some seeds are native, others foreign, while some are abundant, others close to extinct. Each seed has a story, guiding the reader along a historical epic, generating a call to action wildlife and animal conservationists have provided for years. What makes Enduring Seeds unique is its obligation to spread the story of the loss of plant species in order to plant and grow a concerned, impassioned audience.

If you are a Wisconsin resident, you may check this book out from Wisconsin's Water Library by completing our book request form. If you are a UW-Madison faculty, student or staff member, please request through MadCat.

Happy Birthday, Jean Craighead George!

Today is Jean Craighead George's 90th birthday. George is a writer of over 100 books in young adult fiction. From a young age, she began writing about nature and ecological issues. In the last fifty years, she has received the Newbery Medal twice for Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, along with many other awards and accolades for her work.

To learn more about George and her many works, go to her official Web site.
Wisconsin's Water Library owns 6 of George's books, including:
One Day in the Desert
One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest
The Case of the Missing Cutthroats
Everglades
Julie's Wolf Pack
The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo

To check these books out, please go to the Water Library's Web site. If you are a Wisconsin resident, please use our book request form. If you are a UW-Madison student, faculty or staff member, please go to MadCat.

Wisconsin's Great Lakes Shipwrecks

Explore 17 of Wisconsin's Great Lakes shipwrecks through underwater video, historical photographs, and archaeological discoveries. To go beneath the surface of Lakes Michigan and Superior, go to wisconsinshipwrecks.org. Read from the journals of underwater archaeologists and learn the guidelines for protecting maritime heritage.

Site created by Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute and Wisconsin Historical Society.