E. coli in Your Water
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

The E. coli bacterium is one of several types of bacteria used as an indicator to detect the presence of sewage in the water.  More cfu's (colony forming units) per 100mL of water may indicate an increased amount of sewage in the water; hence the beach closures.

A white powder called Enterolert (en-tare-o-lert) is added to this mixture.  This particular additive detects the two types of E. coli responsible for indicating the presence of sewage: E. faecium and E. faecalis.  One capsule is added to each sample and then shaken.  The sample is added to a Quanti-tray after the powder is thoroughly dissolved.  A Quanti-tray contains 48 1-cubic centimeter squares and 48 0.5-cubic centimeter squares.  When the tray is pressed from the bottom up, the solution will fill each of the squares.  Finally, we seal the trays with a hot glue press.  The sample is then incubated at 41C for approximately 24 hours.

Not every square will test positive.  A chart known as an MPN provides the numbers we use to determine the amount of E. coli throughout the lake.  If the big squares—called grandes—have 18 positive squares and 24 small squares—called petites—test positive, we read the chart as 18 across and 24 down.  The place where the two lines intersect gives us the total E. coli count.

A second issue concerns CSO's (combined sewage overflows) which occur during heavy rainstorms.  When sewage lines cannot handle additional water, the gates at treatment plants open and release raw sewage.  Since the sewage has been sitting within the plant confines for X amount of time, the E. coli bacteria has had time to proliferate.  This makes it difficult to determine how much new E. coli has resulted since the CSO versus the amount of E. coli actually released with the CSO.

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Getting Eaten
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

We blew through 200-odd samples in lab last week searching for a human sewage indicator marker (bacteroides gene), and that pretty little number doesn't include the 160 samples we reran.  We needed more shit, literally, to process.

My fellow lab techs packed me off with a cooler stuffed with alcohol swabs, whirl packs (sterile plastic bags of the 6oz variety), tongue depressors, and an ice block.  I was to go to the Dunes farm and look for fresh-ish fecal samples.

The chickens were easy--they remained cooped up (no pun intended) while I swabbed the poop.  The geese kept it simple too, once they got over themselves.  Even the goat was pleasant.  He invited me into his pen after I bribed him with a scratch under the collar and behind the ears.  He refused, however, to let me near his female companions.  Polygamous jerk.
The last stop was with the horses.  Mama, Papa, and Baby were at the trough.  That should have made this poop scooping business uncomplicated, but Baby had a wicked streak of curiosity.  She approached me slowly with her head slightly lowered and stuck her long black nose in my hair.  Eric has a thing with my hair too so I assumed this was an extension of it.  I patted her nose and moved on to the next frozen patty.  When Baby came with, Mama wanted to know what was leading her child away so she came too.  Now I had two horses--and one of them was NOT small--following me around the pen.  Papa, thankfully, was more interested in the trough.  Somehow, the two of them cornered me against the fence.  I was expecting to be bitten or kicked before making it out of there, but the pair of them just stared at me as if I were some deformed horse.  I eased my way between them and made a mad power-walk-dash for the barn.  Baby caught up to me and bit me near my waist.  I stopped.  She stopped.  My coats (lots and lots of layers) were between her great horse teeth and I was having a heart attack.  Then she let me go and followed me the rest of the way to the barn.

"Dawn," I said into the cell phone, upon making it out of the horse pen alive, "I'll get those horse samples later.  The little one just tried to eat me."

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Lab Life Part 1
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Two months shy from being a year out from graduation, I was still on the prowl for my real job. In the interim, I bided the time sorting through tech manuals for a security company, working at a library, and serving four days per week at Sunny Side Up. By technicality—and what it says on a certain rectangular piece of paper--I'm a writing major, though by heart and mindset I'm a biologist. Finding work in my field is tricky because I'm no longer interested in writing. Gimmie research and send it crashing down please. However, my limited lab experience has been an enormous hang-up. Fat chance any lab would take me in...

I'm a lab rat. Whenever I heard the acronyms "DNA" or "PCR" or words such as "extraction" I would become hyper-excited and practically bounce off my seat while shouting "I wanna do that! I wanna be there!" In a world where entry-level positions now require 2-4 years experience, the know-how to perform PCR wasn't going to come easy.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself?", some heavy guy standing with two others in the middle of a darkened hallway called after me as I hurriedly excused myself and rushed passed them. I was covered from shoulders to steel-toe boot in sawdust and reeked of burned oil and used gasoline. My hair was matted and sweaty against my face, which was also thick with tree dust. I smelled of a good day's work to me, but I was certain others would beg to differ.
I turned around and three pairs of eyes met mine. It was a little intimidating; I was flustered by my appearance and at having brushed passed them so quickly. They were dressed office-casual and had intelligence written all over them. That's something that has always intimidated me.
"I work for the Park", I told them, "we take out invasive and exotic species with extreme prejudice. Today we hit the locust trees with the chainsaws." I gestured toward my disheveled appearance. The heavy fellow, Richard W., introduced himself and the two other researchers—Murulee B. and Meredith N. This, apparently, was USGS (United States Geological Survey) territory, a federal agency responsible for surveying water, soil, and plant quality.

Over the next few days, Richard drew out my story. I'm planning on going to grad school for public heath (toxicology or epidemiology) or ecology (conservation and restoration) and am using internships to help me decide which path to follow. Richard decided to contract me despite a complete lack of lab experience in microbiology. Three contracts were drawn up and I would start two weeks after my internship concluded.

Currently listening : Days Go By By Dirty Vegas Release date: 30 April, 2002

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A Car Up for Grabs!
Current mood: giddy
Category: Automotive

To all those in need of a get-me-around-town kinda car there's one for you.

Whatchoo need to know:

'88 Buick Skylark

4 cylinder, DOHC, custom

24mpg city, 33mpg highway (whew!)

85K miles

Black ext./gray int.

Automatic, coupe, front/rear defoggers, power locks, radio/tape deck, cruise control, intermittent wippers, lighter

New(er) parts: Battery, alternator, brake system (pads/shoes/hardware/lines),

Currently listening : The Fat of the Land By The Prodigy Release date: 01 July, 1997

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Workin wit the Feds
Current mood: energetic
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

By way of introduction, I'd like to say that I find it amusing when I tell car salesmen that "I work for the feds."

USGS (aka: Lake Michigan Ecological Research Station) scooped me up after I completed my internship with Resource Management at the Dunes. I won't ask why since that would be akin to looking inside the mouth of a gift horse.

Despite my lack of finesse in chemistry and inexperience with grant writing, USGS contracted me as a bio tech and grant writer. It took two weeks for the first of the three contracts to kick in. During that time I volunteered in the lab.

Those two weeks we did dillutions and filtrations of water samples from various sources: Odgen Beach (1 & 2), West Beach, Burns Ditch, 500, 600, and 700. The samples from these bodies of water wouldn't be nearly as interesting if they weren't connected.
Where we begin sampling, at Odgen Beach, there are several sources that dump waste water into the lake. Consequently, a plume is often visible. You know how the water seems to change color as you look further out from the shore; it's starts off blue/brown, gradually fades into a darker brown, then at a distinct boundary becomes deep blue? Rest assured that has nothing to do with the sun or reflection from the sky! That's crap water. It's also a good indicator that bacteria counts are high. The browner the water at Ogden, the worse the water quality will be moving downstream.
The bacteria we primiarily look for is ecoli, though we also test for enterococci. (Enterococci used to part of the strepoccoci group, but, with four subgroups, became its own group.) Despite all the hype ecoli recieves, it's really not that bad. There are hundreds of different ecoli types, but the type in the lake is relatively harmless unless a person ingests a good amount of lake water. Young children are primiarly at risk for this.
So why test for it if it's usually harmless? USGS uses ecoli as an indicator bacteria. This means that if there is a lot of waste water or sewage water in the lake, ecoli counts will tend to be higher.
Sewage isn't always floating around the lake. However, for towns such as Chesterton which have combined sewage systems, heavy rain will cause the water system to discharge waste water to accomodate the excess rain. Partially treated sewage is then released into the lake. This too will cause an increase in ecoli.
Anyway, that's what is cookin' in the lab right now. It's been a bit slow, but starting next week we will crazy busy running PCRs (polymearse chain reaction) to complete a project for the EPA. All I know right now is that we're extracting DNA from bacteria.

I'm also taking in mini crash courses in Microbiology, a topic I know nothing about. Murulee (mur-RUE-lee) is lending me his Microbio texts to study and allowing me to page through his library of scholary journals. I always take my work outside for the first part of the day. Ever since the days of running around outside all day every day with Resource Management, my tolerance for being cooped up is extremely low. They don't care though so long as the work is completed.

Currently listening : In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 By R.E.M. Release date: 28 October, 2003

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The Plant Assassins
Current mood: giddy
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Our crew has spent way too much time in the woods breathing the sweet-harsh odour of raw gas, partially burned oil, and hot wood beneath the tightly knit canopy of honeysuckle. We have developed an affinity (affection, partiality, liking, rapport) for words and their multiple similarities (equivalent, like, corresponding, related). A couple of us also have a thing for tree tipping and whipping pieces of nature around.

This business of word play began with somebody wanting to steal something from somebody. I object to stealing and suggested a multitude of other actions such as abscond, pilfer, take, rob, burglar, snatch, grab, yoink, commandeer, loot, swipe, abduct, seize...you get it. I am Thesaurus. This week, while we were having lunch in the lunchroom instead of at our usual spot on a decayed log in the middle of the woods, we started up a game of hangman. I jumped in and attempted to use "abominable". I spelled it as abdominal and absolutely insisted that "abdominal" was "abominable". The result was nobody being able to figure out my word because I spelled it wrong! Eric, who corrected it, is now known as Spellcheck. Jason, who is also a writer and in on this word game, is known as Dictionary for obvious (clear, apparent, evident) reasons.

Before lunch, our crew is relatively sullen (grumpy, petulant, dour). We shuffle from tree to tree, cutting and spraying, crossing the land in a spasmodic grid. We break for lunch at noon. At the end of our half hour break, a few people are either semi-passed out on a log, playing games on the GPS or text messaging. One of us insists on running around the woods acting like a hellion. Five of us were bumps on a log after lunch yesterday when, quite out of the blue, we hear maniacal (hysterical, crazed, raving) laughter, and a swoosh as a big something cut through the air, then a thud. Silence. Five heads turned. There stood Eric, pointing and laughing, at a dead tree he just knocked over.

Our group is not limited to pushing things over either; we throw (fling, hurl, pitch, unseat, catapult) stuff too. No reason, we just don't have anything better to do. This particular practice is usually limited to Eric and me. We started off with leaves and stiff grasses, but it soon escalated to flicking sticks loaded with honeysuckle berries, and then the sticks themselves. Once we start cutting trees--probably this Monday--we'll undoubtedly start tossing around small logs.
Also yesterday, in continuance with our shenanigans, Jason and Caleb got in on this throwing business. The GPS was taking forever to collect points, it was the end of the day, and we were restless (fidgety, unruly, antsy). Sticks, leaves, berries, branches, and anything that wasn't anchored (securely) went whizzing through the air. And so our days continue...

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This is goin down when I get my new car....
Current mood: excited
Category: Automotive

Check out this video: Ghost Ridin Grandma



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It's a bird...it's a plane...it's
Current mood: amused
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

No, wait. Actually it is a plane.

Working at the Dunes can be really something on the right days. Our crew of five has since advanced from training classes (fire and saws) and from Pinhook (me) or from Inland Marsh (the other 4).

The Dune we were currently trolling was by no means the tallest, but it certainly wasn't squat either. We were discussing our next grid plan when suddenly the air reverberated as if some great door in the sky had been hurled shut. Eventually we spotted the culprit. A stealth plane.

We watched the plane vanish in and out of clouds, and, when turning vertical, take on the thickness of a paper clip, a thin scrap of metal glinting in the sun. This flier was joined by two bi-planes and a fighter. All did some intricate dance at unholy speeds, and they flipped and tumbled and chased each other like puppies in a glen.
At some point the stealth spotted us--it was a stealth plane after all--and flew directly overhead. The plane couldn't have been more than 300 feet above us; close enough that I could read "USA" on its underbelly. As it flew by, the pilot turned on the afterburners. It was like a mini replica of the space shuttle launching into orbit.

We definitely did more plane watching than work that day lol

Currently reading : Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment By Sandra Steingraber Release date: 28 July, 1998

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Workin' in the Bog
Current mood: sore
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Work at Pinhook Bog is going fantastically. The previous week was actually our last at the bog now that we have four more interns. That's really too bad, because our work was near water, in the forest and quite cool! It could be 90F out and we're workin away like it's a fresh day in the 70s. We'll be transferring to the hot lands (prairie, marsh, and dunes) the week after next.

The first week in the bog we took a tour. We had barely gotten started when I found a not-so-intact skeleton of a deer. For those of you who don't know, I have a fondness for skulls and skeletons and collect them. Thus far I have two raccoons and a fox Anyway, the entire body of the deer was there. The rib cage was in decent condition, but limbs were torn off and some of the vertebrae were smashed. (The deer may have been hit by a car and tossed into the woods.) When the decomposers finish their work and the flies are gone, I'm hoping to clean it up and try to reassemble it. It'll be like having a small dinosaur in the house! Anyway, the walk started off quite pleasantly despite having two gallons a piece of herbicide on our backs. Occasionally we'd whip out the GPS when we found garlic mustard (an invasive) or knew of some nearby to do some mapping/locating. At least we were emptying out our sprayers! As we walked deeper into the surrounding bog area, the vegetation became thicker, more trees and branches were fallen and the ravines were becoming steeper and more frequent. Most noticibly there was more multiflora rose, which is also an invasive. This plant, particularly the big ones, have thorns that are nothing to scoff at. We came out looking like shredded paper. 3/4 way through the tour, we realized we would be getting back late so we stepped our pace to just short of a jog. Between the ravines, dense vegetation, those damned roses, and the herbicide on ourbacks, that was a bad idea lol A log jumped out at me during an uphill climb and sent me sprawling face first into a rose bush. Luckily I fell on the GPS so I escaped having a face full of thorns, but cap on my sprayer had come loose. If anything, I was a pretty shade of blue afterwards.

Until June 1st, our crew kept the garlic mustard under seize. Treatmeant after that is pointless because by the time the plant dies the seeds will have dropped.
The best way to get rid of garlic mustard is to cut the seed heads off. The little devils LOVE disturbed ground and the seeds are viable for 7-10 years. The
good news though, is that less than 10% of the first years survive. (Kinda like college students...)
Since then, we've been pursuing the dasterdly multiflora rose. There are native multiflora roses here too so we have to be careful. They're easy to ID though--non-natives have hooked thorns and become super big, while natives
have straight thorns and remain small.

This past week we had wild land fire training classes. The first two days were a lot of in-class assignments and lectures. Wednesday we took the pack test. That involved walking 3mi in 45min with a 40 lb back pack. I swore to God I wasn't going to make it. I was three minutes behind and falling further. Then I found out running was allowed. hehe. So I ran about 3/4 of a mile with that damn pack. Heavens to Betsy. I made it in 44:20! I hurt so bad afterwards; hell I still hurt. I'd about kill for a back rub since stretching alone is not working. On Thursday we messed around with deployment shelters. Quite literally, when a person is inside one of these sacks and lying on the ground, s/he looks like a baked potatoe and it's about the funniest thing in a serious situation. These sacks are layered with an outside of foil bonded to woven silica (the foil reflects radiant heat and the silica slows the passage of heat to the inside) and an inside layer of foil laminated to fiberglass (this prevents the heat from reradiating to the person inside). Air from the ground helps cool the tent, but it's still hot as the blazes in there. Then using a pool table sized sandbox in the fire station, we simulated a fire situation and worked together to make decisions on how best to fight an unseen fire. Afterwards, we took it to a more realistic level and went to an actual burn site. Some FF had been doing a perscribed burn when, for an unexplained/unknow reason, the water pump on the ATV quick working. This gave the fire opportunity to grow and suddenly 25 acres of fine fuels (fast burners) were ablaze. The fire came to the rooftops of 2 homes; both were saved though. When we got there, we were not told this story, but asked to imagine the fire and determine a plan to put the fire out and, if possible, save the house. Basically, if a structre catches fire, wild lands FF can't do a thing about it. We're not trained for structure fires so we don't touch 'em.
Friday was by far the best; it was like a field day for fire fighters. We simulated a day long drill at Porter Beach--had Engine 6 (a brush truck that can carry 1,200gal of water) out, fire tools (shovel, pulaski, McCloud, rake), backpack water sprayers, medical equipment, extra water, radios, the whole 9 yards really. We carried all this stuff up and down steep, sandy hills, and grided areas for spot fires and devised lookouts and plans to prevent the fire from spredding. We cut fire lines and laid out and sprayed 1.5" diameter hoses. Lemme tell ya, those hoses--even the smaller ones--have some kick. We end the day with taking the 190 test, the very last of the four. I passed with a whopping 90%, woot! I was also red carded on Friday which means I'm an official wild land fire fighter and am "eligible to go west" to fight the biggies! (Maybe I don't need to
take the GREs now?) I won't deny it, I do feel a bit like a badass =)

This Monday we're starting chainsaw classes. The next time we're out in the field, I'll be cutting and girdling trees--someone else can swamp this time. (My
first week in Indy, I went out to Mnoke Prairie with my supervisors. While they cut 50" trees 9" around, Iwould toss everything into a heaping pile.)

I definitely wouldn't trade this work for a desk job, not in a million years. I love being outdoors, being able to bounce from project to project, the freedom to
move around, the classes, and not having a supervisor hanging over my shoulder. It's rough work, but well worth it. As Fleetwood Mac says, "You can go your own way".

Currently listening : Best of Vanessa-Mae By Johann Sebastian Bach Release date: 25 March, 2003

8:24 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Livin' the Good Life
Current mood: jubilant
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

First of all, no pics of my bog (or prairie); cameras or anything lighter than a lopper will not survive where we are working.

Day one was pretty chill with it being mostly orientation, meeting ppl, and what not.  We finally went out into the field to test a herbicide that had been sitting on the shelf for the last three years.  With four gallons of mixture on our backs (32 lbs by itself never mind the actual tank) and little faith that it would work, we lumbered into the forest and began spraying garlic mustard--one of the most hard-to-get-rid-of-pain-in-ass-invasive-species.  We haven't even bothered to check if it worked yet lol

Day two was rough.  Of all the days to be cutting down trees when it was hot as the blazes, that's exactly what we were doing.  The trees were between 50-100ft tall and 4-12" round.  Since I haven't been trained on the saws yet--that's coming in June--I was a "swamper".  Swampers are tree pitchers.  After the tree is bucked into bite size chunks, we pick up the remains and pitch them onto an ever growing pile.  To say the least, that shit's heavy.  Once X amount of trees are down, bucked, and chucked, we herbicide the stumps to kill off the roots and prevent future growth.  This is done to all trees in Mnoke Prairie, regardless if they are native.  Why are we killing trees at a time when we really need them? 
In a nut shell, we're doing a reverse succession--we're going from forest to prairie.  The land we're working once belonged to farmers who separated their land from neighboring farms via trees.  So many years later, the farmland has returned to grassland and that natural tree fence has become a mini-forest.  The idea at the Dunes is to restore the prairie, which is what existed before the farms.  To do that, we must take out the trees.  However, we are planting prairie grasses to make up for lost trees.  Just trust me; it's complicated.

Day three was much improved.  It rained and thundered a bit last night so that cooled things off quite nicely.  I did have wet socks the whole day though, grrr.  We chopped down more trees, planted more grasses, and let the visiting high schoolers do some work.  After they left, we began work on an invasive species called autumn olive.  It's a pretty shrub, BUT it gobbles up everything in it's path and gets to a be almost tree-like when allowed to grow.  This stuff was choking out everything from the forest to the grasses.  The swamper--that's me--had no where to pitch the stuff so we just let branches lie where they fell.  Talk about a war zone.  For those of you coming to visit, add this to your list of "sites to see".

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