NREL NEWS NOTES

NATURAL RESOURCE ECOLOGY LABORATORY
Colorado State University

No. 19 August, September and October 1996

Spotlight on Science

Featuring: Kathy Galvin Sr. Research Scientist - Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

Kathy Galvin recently returned from a workshop on "Reducing Climate-Related

Vulnerability" in southern Africa held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (Oct.

1-4), sponsored by NOAA and NASA. It is well known that El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects the pattern of short-term climate in southern Africa. Now successes in model-based ENSO forecasting means that, soon, predictive capabilities in rainfall events will be enhanced. Discussed at the workshop was utility of those forecasts for southern Africa, how sectors such as agriculture (commercial and subsistence), food security, health, and water could use these forecasts, and what is needed from the forecasting side and the user side.

 

Climate variability, human land use and human behavioral and biological adaptations characterizes much of Kathy's research in Africa. She has worked in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and most recently in South Africa. In South Africa, she and Jim Ellis worked for the Centre for African Ecology, University of the Witwatersrand, where they established a program in Resource Conservation and Human Development. With this program, students in conservation biology could be exposed to poor, high-density rural populations as well as the tremendously rich wildlife communities these people live next to. While in South Africa, Kathy also directed the work of Ashley Till, a CSU Anthropology graduate student who studied natural resource use in a rural African village. Kathy also did a nutritional survey in two African villages, one Shangaan and the other, a Mozambican refugee village, for the Health Services Development Unit, Medical School, University of the Witwatersrand.

 

With the focus still on Africa, Kathy is a member of a team (Mike Coughenour, PI; Dave Swift; Dennis Child and Larry Rittenhouse, RES; Jim DeMartini, Pathology; Ann Magennis, Anthropology; James Else, Advisor to the Ugandan government; Robin Reid, ILRI, Terry McCabe, CU; and Paul Rwambo, Kenya) who just received funding (Oct. 1996) from USAID-SR-CRSP to plan and build a team to develop a system to link livestock development with biodiversity conservation in spatially extensive pastoral ecosystems in East Africa.

 

On other continents Kathy is directing graduate student Jill Lackett (Anthropology Dept.) on the NIH funded project, "Population and Environment in the Great Plains" (Bill Parton, Kathy Galvin, PIs). Besides building a demographic and social change component to add to the Century model, this project also has a goal to survey farm families about their land use decisions. It is this component of the project for which she and Lenora Bohren (Industrial Sciences Dept.) have responsibility.

 

Land use decisions are the subject of another research project Kathy is working on, this time in Mongolia and northern China. PIs on this NSF funded project are Jim Ellis, Mike Coughenour, Kathy Galvin and Jim Tucker (NASA). The overall goal is to develop an integrated assessment methodology for exploring the interactive effects of climate change and land use on dryland ecosystems. Kathy's role is to document, along a rainfall/land use gradient, land uses and household economy. This information will be combined with GIS data layers and remote sensed imagery in Savanna model simulations aimed at assessing climate/land use effects on ecosystem stability and resilience.

 

Kathy attributes her ability to be involved in human ecological projects to the strong interdisciplinary nature of research at the NREL.

NREL Research in Mongolia

In July and August, Dennis Ojima with Chuluun Togtohyn, Jim Reardon-Anderson, Larry Tieszen, and Bruce Wylie travelled in China and Mongolia collecting soil and plant samples for their NSF funded project. While in China, the group made presentations at the International Conference on Temperate Grasslands for the 21st Century in which Dennis Ojima served as a member of the Academic Program Committee. Dennis and Chuluun presented a paper titled "Grassland Ecosystems Dynamics and Global Change Effects." After the conference, the group was joined by Ms. Yangfen Wang, who visited NREL last May, and who served as our guide in Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia Provinces of China. They traveled to Yulin, China, infamous for the encroaching sand dunes that threaten the croplands in the region, and into Inner Mongolia and the cities of Hohhot and Xilinhot. They stayed at the Inner Mongolian Grassland Ecosystem Research Station, a Chinese Ecological Research Network Site and were hosted by Professor Chen Dhouzhong, and visited other experimental stations along the way and collected soil and plant samples for C13 isotopic analyses.

 

In late July, we departed China to travel into Mongolia where Chuluun had arranged for several sampling trips into northern and eastern Mongolia. Our first trip took us to an agricultural study area north of Ulan Baataar in the Selenge River Basin. This area represented a mixed land use region of forestry, cropland, rangelands and mining. This area was also devasted by the fires which occurred last spring. Following this trip, they ventured into eastern Mongolia, visiting various research sites that were protected from grazing and served as experimental sites in the past. The current status of these sites are not promising due to the economic hardships currently being experienced in Mongolia. They also visited the Japanese research site south of Ulan Baatar (organized by Dr. Yoshiaki Honda), and were treated to a night of singing and celebrating the international efforts and very warm hospitality that the Mongolian government and scientific community provided.

 

This trip to Asia was made a success due to help provided by the Chinese and Mongolian scientists. Especially helpful in China were: Professors Chen Dhouzhong, Zhao Shidong, Song Binguy, and Ms. Wang Yangfen. In Mongolia, in addition to the energies of Chuluun, Professor Erdenjav, Bataar, Chognyya were instrumental in facilitating the logistics and providing invaluable information about the local ecological and land systems of Mongolia. The future research efforts will continue to prosper with the continued collaborations with these individuals and the continued support of their efforts.

Announcements

Dr. Chuluun Togtohyn has been appointed as the Adviser to the Minister of Nature and Environment of Mongolia on foreign cooperation. Chuluun will be working at NREL for three more years.

Indy Burke testified to the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Sept. 17, in a hearing on computational biology. She spoke on why ecosystem ecologists need intensive computational resources.

Dave Schimel was appointed to the Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

Georg Guggenberger has returned home to Bayreuth, Germany after working at NREL for the last year with Keith Paustian and Ted Elliott on their soil organic matter (SOM) project. Georg will be working with NREL in the future on additional research collaborations.

The New Ecologist Lecture Series will be co-sponsored by NREL and GDPE. Speakers must be graduate students within 2 years of their Ph.D.s or recent Ph.D.'s. Speakers are:

- Oct. 4: Christien Ettema, Institute of Ecology/Bio- science, U. of Georgia, Athens

- Nov. 1: Sara Hotchkiss, Dept. Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, U. of Minnesota, St. Paul

- Nov. 22: Patrick Bohlen, Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY

 

Meetings

COLORADO

Bob Niles participated in the Biennial Agricultural Research Field Day on Sept. 5 at the Arkansas Valley Research Center at Rocky Ford. He had a display and discussed his research on alfalfa stem nematodes.

John Gross, Tom Hobbs and Dave Theobald hosted a Regional Design meeting to receive input on the design and use of a system to support decisions on land use relating to species conservation, especially for elk. This meeting was funded by the Rocky Moutain Elk Foundation, and was an initial task in the collaborative design phase of the project. The goal of the project is to develop a decision-support system to be used by planners, citizens, and other organizations to evaluate the effects of development on wildlife. Participants were from the Rocky Mountain Region and included agency personnel, ranchers, planners, and citizens.

 

The Western Regional Meeting of Nematologists was held at the Lory Student Center on Oct. 3 & 4. Approximately 26 nematologists attended the two day meeting on biology, ecology and introductions of plant parasitic nematodes into crops and other topics and toured the NREL on Oct. 3rd.

 

A meeting on "Bioregional Approaches to Agriculture" was held at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory on Oct. 8 & 9. Among those attending were Acting Under Secretary for Agriculture, Cathie Woteki, top administrators of USDA, scientists and economists. The meeting was the result of a USDA grant to Diana Freckman. Co-organizers of the meeting were the former Under Secretary of Agriculture, Karl Stauber, and Counselor for Biodiversity and Environmental Affairs at the Smithsonian (and NREL External Advisory Commitee member), Tom Lovejoy. Ted Elliott and Bill Parton were speakers. Ted's presentation was "A Bioregional Approach for Integrating Agriculture Research" and Bill's was "Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture."

NATIONAL

Keith Paustian and Kendrick Killian spent a week at Michigan State University working on their project, together with Prof. Joe Ritchie, developing the Systems Approach to Land Use Sustainability (SALUS) model. The model is a daily based crop growth/water balance/biogeochemistry model designed to simulate complex cropping systems (e.g., rotations, intercropping), including a variety of management factors and pest influences. Also participating was Dr. Jim Jones (U. of Florida) who is interested in incorporating their generic grain legume model into SALUS.

The annual ESA Conference was held Aug. 10-14 in Providence, RI. NREL attendees were: Eric Allstott, Richard Alward, Jill Baron, Indy Burke, Dan Binkley, Geneva Chong, Deb Coffin, Mike Coughenour, Diana Freckman, Melannie Hartman, Beth Holland, Bill Lauenroth, Robin Martin, Dan Milchunas, Tamera Minnick, John Moore, Brian Newkirk, Dennis Ojima, Andy Parsons, Dave Schimel, Frank Singer, Tom Stohlgren, Becky Techau, and Bob Woodmansee. Many presented talks or posters. The meeting, with 3000 registered participants, was a great success. Jill Baron served as Program Chair for the five society combined meetings of the Annual ESA, the Society for Conservation Biology, the American Society of Naturalists, the Association for Tropical Biology and the International Society for Ecological Modeling.

Jim Gibson, Dave Bigelow, Jim Slusser, and Bill Durham presented a poster at the International Radiation Symposium - IRS '96 - held in Fairbanks, AK, on Aug. 19-24. The poster described the status of the UVB Monitoring Program and presented the latest data from the new UV instrumentation now being installed at network sites. In addition to UVB measurements, the data makes possible the calculation of total column ozone (stratospheric plus tropospheric) which is now measured at a relatively few sites in the U.S.

Ted Elliott and Keith Paustian traveled to Bozeman, MT, to meet with Drs. John Antle and Susan Capalbo at Montana State University on Sept. 3-4. The meeting was held to discuss the beginning of the new NIGEC project "Spatially Explicit Projections of C Dynamics with Global Change in the Central United States." The project will integrate ecosystem and economic models of agriculture in the Great Plains to better our ability to make projections of the impact of climate change on economic factors and carbon storage.

David Theobald attended a conference on "Regional Habitat and Species Conservation Planning" Sept. 5 in Sacramento, CA. On Sept. 6, he discussed land use change prediction and impacts on biological diversity in California with Dr. Adina Merenlender, Environmental Science, Policy and Management Program, University of California, Berkeley.

Keith Paustian and Ted Elliott met with state and federal agriculture and conservation officials Sept. 9 in Des Moines, Iowa to begin a new project to evaluate the potential for different conservation practices to store C in agroecosystems in that state. It is expected that this newly funded Natural Resource Conservation Service project will lead to the evaluation of agriculture conservation practice effect on storage and C in at least three other states (California, Washington, and Texas).

Jeff Welker was invited to present a seminar on Sept. 13, at the University of Wyoming Botany seminar titled "Arctic Plant and Ecosystem Responses to Changes in Winter and Summer Climates."

Jill Baron attended a Chapman Conference in Nitrogen Cycling in Forested Catchments in Sunriver, OR, Sept. 16-20. She and Eric Alstott presented a poster on preliminary results of the nitrogen fertilization experiment they are conducting in Colorado titled "Comparison of Foliar and Forest Floor Chemistry Between Areas of High and Low Nitrogen Deposition in the Colorado Rocky Mountains: Preliminary Results."

Susan Smith attended the CAL Site Operator Training at Champaign/Urbana, IL , Sept. 17-20. She presented a talk on the NADP Coordination Office and its responsibilities.

Diana Freckman attended the Costa Rica ATBI TWIG meeting in Baltimore/Washington, DC area, Sept. 20-22, and then attended a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meeting at the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA, on Sept. 24-27

Jill Baron was an invited participant in a National Science and Technology Council workshop on National Environmental Monitoring and Research, Washington, DC, Sept. 25-27.

Ted Elliott served as an external reviewer of the USDA NRCS Soil Survey Laboratory in Lincoln, Nebraska on Sept. 16. Ted was also asked to make the keynote presentation which was titled "The Need for Soil Databases in Ecological Research."

Dave Schimel is once again a lead author for the IPCC, this time leading a group preparing a technical paper for the IPCC on "Stabilization of Greenhouse Gases: Physi cal, Biological and Economic Considerations." The technical paper links modeling of the global carbon cycle, methane, nitrous oxide and sulfate aerosols to climate to estimate impacts, and to the costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to estimate impacts on the global economy. Co-authors include Tom Wigley of NCAR, Rich Richels from EPRI, Wandera Ogana of the University of Nairobi, and GDPE student Elizabeth Sulzman. So far, the highlight of the process was when the authors were ejected from their Boston University meeting rooms after the sub-basement below them filled with 9 feet of water, shutting off power and computers, and giving the authors a first-hand appreciation for climate impacts.

Keith Paustian attended the all-investigators meeting for the Great Plains Center of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) on Oct. 9-10 in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Keith presented a synopsis of results from the existing project "Regional Projections of C Dynamics with Global Change in the Central U.S.," authored with Ted Elliott and Vern Cole, and plans for the renewal project which will include an economic analysis component, in collaboration with researchers at Montana State.

John Gross attended the Wildlife Society annual meeting in Cincinnati, OH, from Oct. 2-5 and presented the paper "COVERS: A System for Ranking Conservation Priorities and Habitats in Colorado." The paper was authored by J.E. Gross, C.P. Melcher, T. Nesler, G.T. Skiba, and J. Sheppard.

Jeff Welker presented a paper titled "Isotopic Characteristics of Precipitation Collected by NADP: Applications to Ecological, Hydrological and Geological Studies" by J. Welker, M. Larson and K. Alstad, at the annual meeting of the National Atmospheric Deposition Network in Williamsburg, VA, Oct. 21-24.

INTERNATIONAL

 

Chuluun Togtohyn presented a paper titled "Ecologically Sustainable Development in Mongolia" at International Symposium on Problems of Economic Development in Mongolia, on Jul. 2-5, 1996 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Molly Welker attended the Fourth International Conference on "Mercury as a Global Pollutant" in Hamburg, Germany on Aug. 4-8. Molly presented a poster on the NADP/Mercury Deposition Network: QA/QC Protocols and also talked on "Total and Methylmercury Wet Deposition: Findings on the NADP/MDN 1995."

Dennis Ojima, Bill Parton and Arvin Mosier hosted a TRAGNET workshop at NREL, Oct. 15-18. The workshop was a great success and was attended by scientists from many different countries of the world.

 

Visitors

Dr. Roman I. Zlotin, Visiting Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University and Research Scientist at the Laboratory of Biogeography, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia (former USSR) visited NREL on Aug. 12 and presented a seminar titled "Current State of the Environment and Environmental Protection in Russia."

Dr. Dean Heil, Assistant Professor Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, New Mexico State University, vitisted NREL on Aug. 30. He presented a Special Seminar titled "A model for the Removal of Lead from Polluted Soil by Column Leaching with EDTA."

Dr. Han Olff, Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Wageningen Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands visited NREL on Aug. 19 and presented a seminar titled "Species Richness of African Grazers: Towards a Functional Explanation."

Dr. Steve Archer, Department of Range Ecology and Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, visited NREL on Sept. 10 and presented a Special Seminar titled "Vegetation Change in Grasslands and Savannas: Interacting and Proximate Causes."

Dr. Peter Hogburg, Department of Forest Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea, Sweden visited NREL on Sept. 13 and presented a seminar titled "N-15 and C-13 abundance studies in boreal forest: two examples of recent developments."

Jill Baron, Tom Stohlgren and Frank Singer discussed research in national parks with managers and scientists from Krkonose National Park and Biosphere Reserve, Czech Republic at NREL on Sept. 4.

Rodolfo Delgado, from Venezuela, visited Vern Cole, Keith Paustian and Ted Elliott. Mr. Delgado is currently head of a soils research group in Venezuela but he is planning to come to NREL in January to begin a Ph.D. program under the direction of Gary Peterson (Soil and Crop Science) and Keith Paustian. His research interest is organic matter and nitrogen dynamics in agroecosystems.

Christein Ettema, University of Georgia, presented a seminar titled "Autocorrelation: trouble or new paradigm? Explaining spatiotemporal distributions of bacterivorous nematodes in a riparian wetland," and discussed soil biology with graduate students in EY592 V, taught by Diana Freckman.

Graduate Student News

Amy Treonis is one of 12 graduate students nationwide to receive a fellowship to attend the prestigious opening of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. The Symposium on "Synthesis in Ecology: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges" will be held Nov. 17-20, 1996 in Santa Barbara, CA.

Romulo Menezes arrived at NREL on Aug. 13 from Brazil. Romulo will be working on the National Biological Service's Willow project for his graduate studies and will be at NREL for three years. Romulo's co-advisors are Ted Elliott and Gary Peterson, of the Soil and Crop Sciences Department.

Cyndi Brock attended the Rocky Mountain Hydrologic Research Center 51st Annual Conference in Estes Park on Sept. 20 & 21. She presented her Master's work research titled "An Examination of the Potential for Sulfate Retention by a Subalpine Wetland Using Sulfur Isotope Methods."

Ana Child is at the University of Nebraska for 6 weeks learning nematode identification and molecular techniques.

Geneva Chong spent 10 days on the Rio Camisea (Aug. 10-19) with an international Rapid Assessment Team. There is an urgency for the development and establishment of a long-term inventory and monitoring program in this area because international petroleum companies are beginning to extract oil and natural gas, and the potential to harm the incredible biodiversity and disrupt the lives of the many indigenous peoples is great. Geneva also joined a team of USDI scientists working on sustainable economic development in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve in cooperation with USAID/Global, the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, Honduran government and non-government agencies, and the Peace Corps. She assessed the sustainability of a butterfly farm in the reserve and provided recommendations to improve host-plant and butterfly production while protecting butterfly habitat around the farm.

Laura Stretch successfully defended her Master's thesis titled "Temporal and Spatial Assessment of Remotely Sensed Seasonal Land Cover Types of the Central U.S. Grasslands" on Oct. 4. Congratulation, Laura!!

Grants Funded

National Science Foundation

A proposal titled "Nematode Biodiversity in Soils of the Short Grass Steppe" by Diana Freckman and Bob Niles was awarded a grant of $100,000 by NSF. This grant went into effect Aug. 15 1996 and expires Jan. 31, 1998. An extensive survey will be conducted of soil nematodes inhabiting ecosystems in the western United States where life stressed by extremes of temperature and global climate change is likely to occur. Nematodes will be surveyed from the CPER, the Chihuahuan Desert [Jornada Long Term Ecology Research (LTER) site]; the transition zone of Chihuahuan Desert, Great Basin, and shortgrass steppe (Sevilleta LTER). Nematode descriptions and site data will be organized in a relational database that will be accessible on the Internet; graduate student Ana Child is working on her MS with this project.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Jim Gibson and Dave Bigelow (co-PIs) received a new five-year grant from the USDA for their UVB program.

 

Proposals Submitted

Mike Coughenour submitted a proposal titled "Modeling Nutritional-Energetic Carrying Capacity for Jackson Bison Populations" to National Park Service.

A proposal titled "An Integrated Management and Policy System for Conserving Biodiversity in Spatially Extensive Pastoral Ecosystems of East Africa - Assessment Team Formation" was submitted by Mike Coughenour and Kathy Galvin to USAID/SR CRSP.

Dennis Ojima submitted a proposal to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education titled "Integrated System for Environmental Education."

A proposal titled "Quantifying the Change in Greenhouse Gas Emissions due to Natural Resource Conservation Practice" was submitted to USDA/Natural Resources Conservation Service by Keith Paustian and Ted Elliott.

Diana Freckman submitted a proposal written by Amy Treonis, to NSF/Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants titled "Dissertation Research: Abiotic Controls of Nematode Activity and Survival in Antarctic Dry Valley Soils."

Manuscripts Published

Bailey, D.K., J.E. Gross, E.A. Laca, L.R. Rittenhouse, M.B. Coughenour, D.M. Swift, and P.L. Sims. 1996. Invited Synthesis Paper: Mechanisms that result in large herbivore grazing distribution patterns. Journal of Range Management 49:386-400.

Chuluun, T. and D. Ojima. 1996. Vulnerability and mitigation assessment of rangeland ecosystems of the Mongolian steppe to climate and land use changes. U.S. Country Studies Program Mongolia's Study Team, Mongolia's country Studies Report on Climate Change: Mitigation Analysis, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 4:57-78.

Copeland, J.H., T.N. Chase, J. Baron, T.G.F. Kittel, and R.A. Pielke. 1996. Impacts of vegetation change on regional climate and downscaling of GCM output to the regional scale. Pages 199-212 in: S.J. Ghan et al., editors. Regional Impact of Global Climate Change: Assessing Change and Response at Scales that Matter. Battelle Press, Richland, WA.

Gross, J.E., P.U. Alkon, and M.W. Demment. 1996. Nutritional ecology of dimorphic herbivores: digestion and passage rates in Nubian ibex. Oecologia 107:170-178.

Ho, M., R.A. Virginia and D.W. Freckman. 1996. Soil spatial variation along a toposequence in Taylor Valley, Antarctica. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am. 77:197.

Huang J-H., J. Baron and D. Binkley. 1996. The contribution of wetlands to stream nitrogen load in the Loch Vale watershed, Colorado, USA. Acta Phytoecologic Sinica 20:289-302.

LaFrancois, T. 1996. an intensive study of desert rock pool systems in Capitol Reef National Park. Park Science 16:14-15. (This research was conducted with Jill Baron and Boris Kondratieff, funded out of NREL).

Powers, L.E., D.W. Freckman, and R.A. Virginia. 1996. Effects of human disturbance on soil nematode populations in Taylor Valley, Antarctica. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am. 77:360.

Riebsame, W.E., H. Gosnell, and D.M. Theobald. 1996. Land use and cover change in the U.S. Rocky Mountains I: Theory, scale, and pattern. Mountain Research and Development 16(4).

Shipley, L.A., D.E. Spalinger, J.E. Gross, N.T. Hobbs, and B.A. Wunder. 1996. The dynamics and scaling of foraging velocity and encounter rate in mammalian herbivores. Functional Ecology 10:234-244.

Theobald, D.M., H. Gosnell and W.E. Riebsame. 1996. Land use and cover change in the U.S. Rocky Mountains II: A case study of the East River Valley, Colorado. Mountain Research and Development 16(4).

Xiao, X., Y. Wang, S. Jiang, D.S. Ojima, and C.D. Bonham. 1995. Interannual variation in the climate and aboveground biomass of Leymus chinense steppe and Stipa grandis steppe in the Xilin river basin, Inner Mongolia, China.

Xiao, X., D.S. Ojima, W.J. Parton, Z. Chen and D. Chen. 1995. Sensitivity of Inner Mongolia grasslands to climate change. Journal of Biogeography 22:643-648.

Xiao, X., J. Shu, W. Yifeng, D.S. Ojima, and C.D. Bonham. 1996. Temporal variation in aboveground biomass of Leymus chinense steppe from species to community levels in the Xilin River Basin, Inner Mongolia, China.

Personals

Rich Alward and Tamera Minnick were married on Saturday, Sept. 28 at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. A dinner and dance reception followed at the American Legion in Estes Park. Congratulations and we wish you many years of happiness.

A note from Indy Burke and Bill Lauenroth: We are having fun on our sabbatical at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (IES) in Millbrook, NY. The scientists here are a great group, and are highly interactive. We are hoping to start some new things with them, as well as catching up on the long, long list of things that still need to be done. In the meantime, the food is unbelievably good, the fall colors are beginning in all their glory, the theatre is terrific, and the kids are doing fine in their new home and daycare. We took a wonderful vacation in Nova Scotia after ESA and spent some time on the way back at the Bay of Fundy. Did you know the tide is 45 vertical FEET?!?!

Gene and Lisa Kelly are the proud parents of twin boys (both weighing in at 6 lbs.), born Friday, Aug. 23. Congratulations Mom and Dad Kelly!!

NREL News Notes will be published every two months. Please submit your news items to Kay McElwain (Editor) by the last Monday of each month.