Webinar: The Stories Rivers Tell

I'm Heather Goldstone. I am chief communications officer of Woods Hole Research center. And I'm really pleased to be able to welcome you to our third webinar, our third weekly webinar in our new KNEB webinar series, launched and inspired by the fact that so many of us are now at home full time. And so usually I would be welcoming you to Woods Hole Research center, but in this case, I am welcoming you to all of our homes, from our homes to your homes for this virtual event. It's a really exciting way for us to be able to reach out potentially to people who have not been able to join us at an in person event because of course, now we're not constrained by where we live, where we work and where we travel for events. So. So right now we have almost 200 people and still participants coming in today. So it's great to have you all here. And I'm really curious if you could do me a favor. You should have a little button down on the bottom of your screen that allows you to raise your hands. Give me just a quick show of hands if this is the first time you have ever joined Woods Hole Research center for an event. If you are new to Woods Hole Research center, go ahead and raise your hand for us. Wow, this is great. I'm seeing 40, 45. The numbers are still climbing. We've got obviously dozens of folks with us, a little over 200 participants right now, and dozens of you are new to Woods Hole Research Center. So a special welcome to all of you. We'd also like to get to know a little bit more about you, and we'll do that in just a minute. But first, a little bit more about us, since so many of you are new to us. Woods Hole Research center is a relatively small nonprofit. At the core of our organization is several dozen scientists who study the Earth's climate systems from the Arctic to the tropics and everywhere in between. You're going to hear about some of that work and our work with rivers in particular today. But we study forests and rivers. We study the risks that climate change poses, and we also work with stakeholders in communities, in government, in the private sector to really develop solutions to make sure that our science is addressing some of the most pressing questions that we could possibly address, and that then that is translated into information that policymakers and change makers and community leaders can use to actually start addressing the climate crisis. So thank you for joining us. As I said, I wanted to get to know a little bit more about you, our participants today and also get you acquainted with some features of zoom. So already you've put yourself into gallery view and used the raise your hand feature. The next thing we're going to try is a little poll and we'd just like to know how old you are. An easy question. We're not asking you anything too hard. We'll save the hard questions for our panelists later. So I'm going to launch this poll right now and just ask you to tell us how old you are. We are aiming these webinars at a broad audience and hoping to even catch some students who are not usually able to make it to our events, either because it's during school hours or perhaps conflicting with other activities. So we'd love to see if we have any students in the audience today. What I'm seeing so far, not so much in the way of our under 18 student crowd today. About a quarter of you are in the 19 to 29 age range, about 12%, 30 to 50, about 19% in that 50 to 65 age range, and then about 45% of you in that over 65 age range. So thank you all for sharing your information with us. We have a couple more questions for you and I don't think they're going to get too much harder. But this next one in particular, because we're going to be talking about rivers and there are rivers all over the world. And Max Holmes work has taken him to to rivers all around the world. We'd love to know where you are joining us from. So if you could just tell us where you live. We've got a number of options there. And wow, immediately seeing that most of you are here in the Northeast where Woods Hole Research center is located. But we are seeing a small percentage of folks from all around the country, Southeast, Southwest, a little bit of a bump there around the Rocky Mountains, and a really intriguing 8 or 9% here from other locations than those that we've listed. So not the Southeast, not the Southwest, not the Midwest, not Alaska, not Pacific, and not the Rocky Mountain area. So wherever you're joining us from, thank you so much. One person has just commented to say from Peru and I know we had someone else chat and tell us that they're joining from Brazil. So, so glad that this virtual setup allows us to have you with us today, wherever you are from. And then the last question today, because we're going to be hearing about work studying rivers, but we're going to be specifically hearing about work that involves one particular community of river stakeholders. And that's Fly fishers. We would love to know how many of you are familiar with fly fishing. It's totally okay if you're not. And I'd have to say that if I were answering this poll, I would probably be in the. It's a once in a lifetime experience that actually I haven't yet had. Not much of a fly fisher. I've gone clamming, I've done some other fishing, but fly fishing is not so much in my experience realm. And what I'm seeing in the poll so far is that's where most of you guys are too. About 6, 60, 61% saying fly fishing would be a once in a lifetime experience. Another almost 20% saying what is fly fishing? So Max, keep that in mind. We've got some novices to fly fishing here, but then about 6% saying it's how I spend a vacation each year. About 10% saying it's a regular weekend pastime. And even four of you clocking in at it's an obsession or profession. So a whole range of familiarity and experience levels with fly fishing, which is is great to see. So without further ado, I would like to introduce today's presenter. That is Woods Hole Research Center's deputy director and senior scientist, Max Holmes. He has been studying rivers for most of his career and that work has taken him all over the world, to many of the world's great rivers. He's going to talk to us today about what it is we can learn from rivers, the stories that rivers can tell us, and in particular, how we can learn more about rivers by mobilizing stakeholder communities to do that. So, Max, without further ado, I'll turn it over to you. Don't forget to turn on your microphone so you can talk to all of us.

Thanks, Heather, for that introduction. Thanks to all of you for showing up. It's nice in these kind of strange days of being isolated to at least get to interact remotely with a really big crowd from all over the country and in fact spread around the world. That's really exciting. You're in my house now, so welcome to my house. I've done my best to bribe my kids and my dog to not have too many surprises over the next hour. But if they do, I'll introduce you to them as well. Let me start my screen share and dive into the what I have to show you. So hopefully you're all now seeing sort of a title slide. It says the stories river tell and a nice satellite image of the Yukon River Delta in Alaska and some of the region around there. So I'm going to talk today about a lot of different river projects that I've been involved in for a number of years around the world. And I want to make this point right at the start that while I'm the one up here speaking at the moment, there are lots of people in lots of different places that play absolutely critical roles in making this happen. Scientists and staff at the Woods Hole Research center are part of this. Scientists at universities and research institutions around the world, logistics people that help us pull all this off. And increasingly, anglers and fly fishers are becoming a big part of this. So thanks to all you guys. I'm certainly not going to be able to thank everybody individually, but it's all a big group effort. I also want to particularly thank the three people that will be on the panel when I'm done speaking today. So Johnny Lecoq is the founder and CEO of Fishpond. And those of you who are in the fly fishing community will know that as a really important brand and company that produces fly fishing supplies, he's also a board member of the Woods Hole Research center. And he's just sort of been a co conspirator in this new effort that I'm going to talk about quite a bit that we this new project, Science on the Fly, that aims to bring together the fly fishing community and scientists to study to study rivers. Second, Troy Young Fleisch is the co owner of Telluride Angler in Telluride, Colorado. And I got to know him three or four, five years ago and well, I'll talk more about that later. But he's also sort of a central player in this budding effort that we're calling Science on the Fly. And then finally, Anya Sisula is I've worked with her, she's the youngest, but I've worked with her the longest in all the projects that I'll talk about today. She plays a really central role in making them happen. So let me dive in and before too long we'll get all these guys up on the screen as well. All right. I kind of want to start by asking this question or getting you thinking about this thought. So what is Earth's most important data set? And if you were all kind of able to respond right now, there are probably all different kinds of answers and perhaps arguments. But I'll give you my answer and then I'll talk a little bit about why I think it's important and the relationship to the topic of rivers that I'm going to be about talking talking about. So here's my answer. And this you'll probably recognize, many of you. This is what's known as the Keeling curve. It shows the concentration of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So back around 1958, Charles David Keeling went to Mauna Loa in Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and started measuring carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. And as you probably know, carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that humans are impacting. So back here initially he started to make some measurements and after a year, year, you can see some interesting seasonal variability that taught him and others a lot just those sorts of data. But then as the record continued after a few years, he probably saw, wow, it looks like things are going up. And that trend obviously has continued. In a sense, that's a report card on how we're doing in tackling climate change. And that's not too well. But greenhouse gases are going up in the atmosphere as fossil fuels are being burned, as deforestation happens and so on. This is just a photo of Mauna Loa. So again, in the middle of Hawaii, the measurements are made up in the top of Mauna Loa here. And the power of this is that just by making this measurement at one point, he's getting this global signal, giving a global signal of what's happening around the world with respect to climate change. This, well, mixed greenhouse gas. And if you think about most things that you can measure at one point on the face of the Earth, let's say you're interested in measuring precipitation that would vary just over this landscape that you're seeing here. Precipitation can vary a lot or temperature or things like the amount of carbon that's locked up in soil. We think about that a lot at the Woods Hole Research Center. It's very much variable over relatively small distances. So in order to get a broad scale picture of how these things vary, you have to make either lots of measurements on the ground or use satellite imagery or do lots of modeling to interpolate or extrapolate. But what are some other kinds of measurements that have the characteristics of measuring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide at the top of Mauna Loa? And the one that I always think of and talk about is the chemistry and discharge of rivers. So this is showing. I saw that we had one caller or maybe a couple callers on the phone from Brazil, from Santarem, which is very close to where this photo was taken, I think. So this, the, this water is actually the Amazon is up at the top of the screen. And this is just A small island. And this is some water from the Amazon River. The water near the bottom of the screen is the Tapajos River. So what you see is very different colors, very different content of this stuff in the river. The suspended sediment in the river. This is not a signal that's generated locally, but in fact, generated hundreds and thousands of miles away. So this is in the Amazon river up here. This is showing sediment that's generated from the Andes, Moun, and the Tapajose River. This is very little sediment, lots of dissolved carbon coming from the watershed. It drains, the rainforest. It drains. And so what we try to do is sample rivers around the world over time, see how they vary seasonally, but more importantly, how they're varying over longer timeframes to figure out how they're changing, how their health is changing, what that tells us about what's going on in their watersheds. The photo you see now is a shot of samples we took during an expedition in the Congo river in Africa, where we sampled both the main stem of the Congo as well as several tributaries. And you see that the water that we collected is very different colors. And that's, again, dissolved organic carbon. And the darker the color, the higher concentration of dissolved organic carbon. And we can do some trickier kinds of chemistry and try to figure out where that carbon comes from. And in this case, that carbon is coming not from plants that grew and leached their carbon in the river itself, but it's coming from the watershed, it's coming from land, from the surrounding terrestrial land mass, illustrating that connection between what we see in the chemistry of the river and what's happening in the watershed. So this is just a sample at Mauna Loa where they're measuring carbon dioxide. So just as that carbon dioxide record at Mauna Loa tells us about how the Earth is changing over the time frame of this record in some integrated sort of a way, samples that we collect in rivers around the world can tell us how the chemistry of the rivers are changing and allow us to infer the changes that are happening in the watersheds, whether that's related to climate change or deforestation or industrial processes or whatever it may be. All right, so I'm going to kind of quickly touch on three of the big efforts that we've had going for a number of years, various time frames, what a little bit about what we've learned about them from these projects, and then talk about this new effort that I'm really excited about, which aims to engage the angling community, particularly fly fishers in the Science collecting samples that otherwise we just wouldn't be able to get, wouldn't be able to afford to get. And then the second benefit of engaging this new community is just the more people I think that we can get engaged in science and understanding how science works, I think, I think that's a good thing for society overall. Alright, just a few words about this project we call the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory. First, why focus on the Arctic one with respect to climate change? There are big changes already underway in the Arctic. Warming is about twice as great in the Arctic as it is anywhere else. And also the Arctic is particularly sensitive to the warming because much of it sort of balances on the freezing point of water. A lot of it's in frozen state. But as it warms, big changes can happen as ice and land and things and things thaw. There's also a huge amount of ancient organic carbon locked up in permafrost. So permafrost is permanently frozen ground, permanently in quotes. Because as the Arctic is warming, the permafrost is starting to thaw. And some of that organic matter that carbon that's been locked down with up in the permafrost can then decompose and be released as greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, and cause more warming. So we're thinking a lot about that process, doing a lot of work in the Arctic on permafrost and trying to figure out how quickly it's dying, how quickly is carbon decomposes and what that means for the future of Earth's climate. There are also lots of really big rivers in the Arctic, some of them, most of them that people really haven't heard of, pouring lots of water and the stuff in the water into a relatively small ocean, the Arctic Ocean. The impact of what's happening on land has a very big impact on what happens in the Arctic Ocean because of that ratio of river discharge to ocean volume in the Arctic. Finally, the changes in the Arctic impact us all everywhere, or can impact us all everywhere. One, through the release of greenhouse gases, as I already talked about with permafrost, but also things like the melting of ice leading to sea level rise and changes in weather patterns and so on. So what happens in the Arctic impacts all of us. So with that being said, this Arctic Great Rivers Observatory is focusing on the six largest rivers in the Arctic. And what I'm showing you here are the watersheds of those rivers. You've probably heard of the Yukon and the Mackenzie rivers in North America. You may not have heard of the rivers on the Russian side and the Siberian side. But from, for a perspective, the watershed area and annual discharge of the Old Biennessee and Lena rivers. These three, largest of the Arctic rivers is comparable to or greater than the biggest river in North America, the Mississippi. So these are massive systems dumping fresh water and constituents into the Arctic Ocean. So we've been sampling these systems since 2003. And this figure now shows the hydrographs of the discharge of the rivers, how it varies seasonally. This is daily discharge since 2003. You can see very low discharge in the winter and then big spikes as all the snow melts. And then the dots on these graphs are the dates that we've actually collected water samples. Those samples get shipped back to Woods Hole for chemical analysis. So we have this really remarkable record now, through the seasons and through the years, of the chemistry of these Arctic rivers. And this efforts been funded by the National Science foundation, which is remarkable in the sense that a typical National Science foundation grant is for two or three years. But given the importance of these rivers to the Arctic, we've managed to string together a much longer project than would be typical. This is just a shot of Delena river, one of the big Siberian rivers. When we were first setting up sampling in 2003, we had chartered this boat for two weeks to figure out exactly where we were going to sample. And it turned out that the captain of the boat brought along his daughter, who at that point had just turned 14. And you may recognize her when I introduced the panelists, and you'll see her again later. So it's an interesting story how Anya went from Gigansk in the Siberian Arctic to working with us at the Woods Hole Research Center. All right, just touching on a few of the results from this project. One of the big things happening with rivers in the Arctic is that discharge is increasing. See that? These are massive rivers. The discharge has increased about 10% over the last several decades. So dumping incredible amounts of additional fresh water into the Arctic Ocean. And that has all kinds of important implications which I won't get into today. We're also seeing now, with our record that is almost 20 years long, that almost any chemical compound that we're measuring, we're seeing changes in the chemistry. And that is giving us all kinds of clues about what's happening in the watersheds with respect to permafrost thaw or other things that are that are happening. So really powerful record there. And one of the things that we're really intrigued about and one of the things that we've expected that at some point we Might see as permafrost thawing, it would release some of its old carbon. We can date the dissolved organic carbon and the rivers radiocarbon dated. And we were thinking that would happen somewhere out in the future, but we think we're starting to see that it may be getting older now. And sort of when I'm wearing my scientist hat, that's really exciting. When I'm wearing my citizen or parent hat, that's kind of a scary thought. All right, I want to shift gears a little bit now, and I'm just going to very briefly talk about this other project, the Global Rivers Observatory, which started, I guess almost 10 years ago. This map shows some of the places we're working there. It shows all the Arctic rivers that are part of the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory and then some of the other big rivers around the world where we're also doing sampling. And I'm not sort of in the interest of time and wanting to get to our panel. I'm not going to say much about this project, but I will make the comment. And this is maybe particularly targeted to some of the younger people in the audience. When I think back when I was a kid and I was thinking about scientists and what they did, I kind of probably had a stereotype that a lot of people have, I think, you know, kind of white lab coat in a lab, doing some very careful analysis. And that certainly happens, and that's part of it, and I really enjoy that aspect of it. But one. One thing I never realized science could do is just get you to amazing parts of the world and meeting incredible people and just sort of experiences that I couldn't imagine I ever would have had. This is a shot from the Congo river. And, you know, you just get to these places that it's just a real privilege to get to. And it's fascinating and exciting to me that science can be a vehicle to allow some of these experiences. Briefly, I want to say a few words about the most recent of these projects that I'm going to talk about before I mention that or talk about the science on the fly. And that's the Cape Cod Rivers Observatory. So I'm sitting in Cape Cod right now in Massachusetts. And when most people think of Cape Cod, they probably have an image in mind, something like this, the ocean, the beaches, the estuaries and so on, coming on vacation and things like that. They probably don't think of rivers. And I'm a little bit embarrassed to say I lived here for. I've been here since 95 and I don't know for the first 20 years or so of living in Cape Cod, I almost completely ignored the rivers. They're kind of hidden away. And I was thinking about other rivers around the world, ignoring the rivers in my own backyard. And then these guys started to get my attention. So these are brook trout, these are native fish. And some of the streams around here, and they're really special ones in that they're sea run, they, some of them go into the ocean and spend some time in the ocean. And that's really unique and really rare and really amazing actually that they've managed to persist on these some streams that are sort of hidden away in Cape Cod. And so I got interested in the streams and they feed into these estuaries. And one of the biggest environmental issues on Cape Cod is excess nitrogen from land flowing into the estuaries, causing algal blooms and fish kills and impacting aesthetics and clamming and these things that people like to do on Cape Cod. So I knew that, you know, there some science had been done on these rivers and I had sort of assumed that somebody was doing something analogous to what I've done on rivers around the world on, on these rivers on Cape Cod. And while there have been some really good short term projects, it turned out that nobody in sort of a holistic way was studying the chemistry of rivers on Cape Cod and how it's changing over time with the goal of doing this for the long term so that we can document and understand how the chemistry is changing. So that was the origin of the Cape Cod Rivers Observatory. We decided to try to do what we're doing globally, sort of here in our own backyard. And so starting in 2016, we've been working on rivers here. And I think it's up to 10 rivers now, I should say. It's, you know, this has been funded by individuals, by foundations. And really it's only possible because we have this remarkable guy, a volunteer who's out there every week collecting these samples. Rob Stenson. It's just a miraculous job that he does a tremendous amount of work. I think a labor of love. And it's his efforts that make this possible. I just want to touch on one of the results here. So the largest of the rivers on Cape Cod is the Quashnet River. I've mentioned that nitrogen is the big environmental problem on Cape Cod. And I'm just going to show a couple of the results. And rivers are dumping nitrogen into the estuaries. The main form of nitrogen in the rivers is nitrate. So this figure is showing our estimates of the amount of Nitrate flowing down the Quashnet river into the estuary each year since we started these measurements. And what you see is that there's been an increase and it's about a 30% increase, which is a really big increase at this point. We can't say if this is a trend or if it's going to turn around and go back down. We certainly hope it goes back down, but we're going to keep watching. And without these kinds of information or data, one just wouldn't know how things are changing. We really can't look back and say how the nitrogen fluxing in these rivers has changed over the longer term. Lots of work is being done to reduce nitrogen in the rivers, but we don't really have the data to show how well it's working. I just want to show one more of the constituents that we measure. This is dissolved organic carbon. And it's even showing a much bigger change. And this kind of blows me away. This is more than doubling of dissolved organic carbon flux in the Quashnet River. And again, I don't know if this is going to be a long term trend or if it's going to reverse, but this is a really big, exciting thing that we'll certainly be following in the future. All right, I want to now talk about this new effort, Science on the Fly, which as I mentioned, aims to sort of bring together the fly fishing community and scientists to study rivers around the world. And the thought is that that's going to have big implications for advancing the science, helping us understand how rivers and their watersheds are changing. And again, it's going to also have a big impact by engaging this new community in the science. And that should have big impacts. It really has its origin, I guess this is around four years ago in Telluride, Colorado, and thanks to one of our, another one of our board members, Stephanie Tomaski and her husband, Mitch Cohen. They got me to Telluride and introduced me to people in Telluride. And I kind of fell in love with this place. And one of the places that they introduced me and one of the places I spent a lot of my time when I was in Telluride or just about anywhere, is in the local fly shop. So this is Telluride Angler. This is the place that Troy Young Fleisch is the co owner of. And I would hang out in the fly shop a lot and talk to the guys there, the people there, tell them about the work I do on rivers around the world, listen to the kind of stuff that they're doing, guiding Clients out in rivers in their local area every day, essentially. And we started to think about how we could kind of bring these pieces together and help learn more about the river. So a year ago, they invited me to give a presentation in Telluride. I don't think they had ever invited a scientist to give a talk before. It was held at the public library. And none of us really knew if anyone was going to show up to this thing. So they started off by pulling out 10 chairs or something, and they filled up. And quickly they had, you know, 100 people had packed in there. So to hear about this idea that. This is probably the first time we called it science on the fly. But this idea of bringing scientists and fly fishers together to study rivers, and that generated a lot of enthusiasm. It was a remarkable to me, there were several contributions to the Woods Hole Research center in the days after that, and that allowed us to get to actually launch this project. This is Troy and Allie Cunningham, who was also a Telluride angler. Since then, every two weeks, they've been out sampling several sites around Telluride. Those samples then get sent back to Woods Hole for analysis. They're now sampling. They're sampling eight sites again every two weeks. And this is a pretty big area in the San Miguel watershed. So it's a, you know, it's a. It's a better part of a day for them to get this sampling done. It's obviously all a volunteer effort on their part. They're putting a huge effort into it. And we're learning, and we're learning a lot already. And after that got going, Patagonia heard about it. We applied to Patagonia for some funding to expand it to additional fly shops and groups in Colorado. And we're doing that. So this is just a map of Colorado and shows where we're currently either actively sampling or where our sort of sample kits have just very recently been sent to start sampling. So we're expanding in Colorado. Another area where we have a big interest in doing work is in Alaska. So I've jumped north. You can see the box over here. We're kind of in western Alaska, butting up against the Bering Sea. The Yukon river is just north of this area. This is actually the Kuskokwim river here. And there's this kind of amazing array of seven rivers in their watersheds lined up side by side. And what this map is showing is the. Is the permafrost distribution in the watershed. So the darker red colors are a higher probability of permafrost frozen ground. All of these rivers are at the southern extent of permafrost. So unfortunately it's probably all on our way out. There hasn't been much science done on these systems so we want to get working on all these systems where our goal is to get working on all these systems, looking at the chemistry of the rivers, how it's changing over time as the permafrost caused and then to use that information to hopefully help motivate action tackling climate change. So last summer we had our first big trip up there, an expedition down the Queethlec River. This is a shot at the end of the group, end of the 10 day trip, 100 mile trip down the Cuethluck and we're all still smiling. It was a remarkable group. Johnny, who's on the panel is there? Anya. It was just an absolutely amazing group of people on this trip. The logistics of it are quite a challenge. It's a float plane out get dropped off by this outfitters, Papa Bear Adventures and we're working with them to have them, well to engage other clients of theirs in sampling some of these rivers. But they drop you off. We had several flights out there, I think five flights to get all of us and all of our stuff out there. And then they arranged to pick us up 10 days later 100 miles down the river. And this is sort of how we spent our days floating down the rivers, sampling the rivers, the chemistry. We also put sensors in the rivers and I'm crossing my fingers that they're still there. Hopefully they're all still there every 30 minutes monitoring the depth of the water so we can use that for when snow melt happens and how discharge changes and so on. And also the temperature of the water. And we also put permafrost temperature sensors into the ground, drilled into a permafrost to have those things also be logging permafrost temperatures. Our plan and plans are obviously subject to change right now given what's happening in the world. But our plan is to get back to that site in late July where we'll have Anya leading a group down the Kuithluk river and we'll have another group of us floating down the Conecthauk river on the Kuithlec river they'll again be collecting water samples. They'll be downloading the data from the river depth and temperature sensors and permafrost temperature sensors and restarting those sensors. And we'll be doing the same thing, installing sensors here, collecting water samples. We also are going to there's a few fish fly fishing lodges on these rivers and we're going to be partnering with them. So they, the guides and their clients will be sampling on the rivers. We're going to start on the Connectahawk and Hope, I mean sorry, on the Antiac and Hope to expand to the Good News and the Connect and again through the outfitter that flies people out to these sites, Papa Bear Adventures, we're hoping to engage other anglers who are floating down these rivers. All right, so this is, I have just a few more slides. This is much closer to home. This is actually Easter Day just a few days ago. This is looking down on my dining room table at a bunch of sampling kits that my 10 year old daughter and I, Sophie, putting together in support of science on the fly. So we're in a phase now. I'm happy to say that we recently had a very nice contribution from a good friend in Telluride in support of our efforts in science on the fly. So we're going to be able to expand our sampling. We're putting kits together to engage more fly shops and guides and anglers initially around the country. This is a map that shows where we're working now. So this, this big cluster of activity in Colorado, we have stuff going on and growing in Alaska, some on the west coast, a bit on the east coast. But over the coming year our goal is to expand to at least 100 sites across the country. In a slightly longer term, a couple of years, hopefully we want to get down farther south. I would love to get some sampling going in the Amazon and upper reaches of the Amazon. And I was kind of amazed to learn recently that almost anywhere you look in some of these places there are fly fishing lodges. So if we can connect with the lodges, the guides and their clients could be helping us get samples from sort of far reacher reaches, headwaters of the Amazon, potentially in Patagonia as well and then a bit farther down the road. Really the vision is global eventually. And so yeah, as you can tell, I'm incredibly excited about this new effort partnering with this community as a way for us to greatly expand the work we're doing on rivers around the world. Learning about the rivers and their watersheds and how they're changing and engaging this new community in the science and in getting the story out in hopes of actually helping to plot a better course for the future. So with that I will get out of this screen share and hand it back to Heather and we'll start the panel discussion.

Thank you so much, Max. And I want to invite that I.

Will get out of this screen share and hand it back to Heather and we'll start the panel discussion.

Thank you so much, Max. And I want to invite all of our panelists now to also start your microphones and start your cameras so that we can see all of you and hear from all of you. But I have to share with everybody. As Max was showing some of those pictures from the Queethlach trip last year, I recognized one of those photos and realized that Max has been showing up to Zoom meetings with that as his background for the past few weeks. So I think we have a sense of where Max's happy places are. It's out on those rivers. Our panelists today joining us, as Max has already said, we have Troy Young Fleisch, who is the co owner of Telluride Angler and a fly fishing guide and the Sea, second partner in Science on the Fly sampling, as Max said, eight river locations every two weeks. We also have Johnny Lecoq, who was the first Science on the Fly founder, partner, sorry, he's founder and co owner of Fish Pond usa, also a photographer and a branding consultant. And I have to wonder, as much as I love the names of the river observatories, I have to wonder how much influence Johnny had on the name Science on the Fly. Nice little pun there and lots of fun there. And then of course, we have Anya Suslova, who is a research assistant now at Woods Hole Research center, very much involved in the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory, but also in all of Max's work and river work. And actually, Anya, you're still muted, but if you would turn your microphone on, I would love to actually start with you. And Max alluded very briefly to how you first got involved in this work as a 14 year old. I would love to have you share a little bit more of that story.

Okay. Can you hear me? Well, absolutely, yes. Max showed and mentioned My dad was a captain of a boat in 2003 when I just turned 14. So I grew up in a small town above the Arctic Circle on the big river, Lena river, which is comparable to size of the Mississippi River. And our town was, we had about 3,000 people and my dad worked all his life on a boat and a lot of summers I would spend with him cruising down and up the river. And one summer when I was on the boat, I didn't even know that the boat was chartered by Russian and American scientists. I was on the boat with my Global eventually.

And so, yeah, as you can tell, I'm incredibly excited about this new effort, partnering with this community as a way for us to greatly expand the work we're doing on rivers around the world, learning about the rivers and their watersheds and how they're changing and engaging this new community in the science and in getting the story out in hopes of actually helping to plot a better course for the future. So with that, I will get out of this screen share and hand it back to Heather and we'll start the panel discussion.

Thank you so much, Max. And I want to invite all of our panelists now to also start your microphones and start your cameras so that we can see all of you and hear from all of you. But I have to share with everybody. As Max was showing some of those pictures from the cuithluck trip last year, I recognized one of those photos and realized that Max has been showing up to zoom meetings with that as his background for the past few weeks. So I think we have a sense of where Max's happy places are. It's out on those rivers. Our panelists today joining us, as Max has already said, we have Troy Youngfleisch, who is the co owner of Telluride Angler and a fly fishing guide and the second partner in Science on the Fly sampling, as Max said, eight river locations every two weeks. We also have Johnny Lecoq, who was the first Science on the Fly partner. Sorry, he's founder and co owner of Fish Pond usa, also a photographer and a branding consultant. And I have to wonder, as much as I love the names of the river observatories, I have to wonder how much influence Johnny had on the name Science on the Fly. Nice little pun there and lots of fun there. And then of course, we have Anya Suslova, who is a research assistant now at Woods Hole Research center, very much involved in the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory, but also in all of Max's work and river work. And actually, Anya, you're still muted, but if you would turn your microphone on, I would love to actually start with you. And Max alluded very briefly to how you first got involved in this work as a 14 year old. I would love to have you share a little bit more of that story.

Okay. Can you hear me? Well, absolutely, yes. Max showed and mentioned my dad was a captain of a boat in 2003 when I just turned 14. So I grew up in a small town above the Arctic Circle on the big river Lena river, which is comparable to size of the Mississippi River. And our town was. We had about 3,000 people and my dad worked all his life On a boat. And a lot of summers I would spend with him cruising down and up the river. And one summer when I was on the boat, I didn't even know that the boat was chartered by Russian and American scientists. I was on the boat with my dad, and one day I see the scientist coming on board the ship, and I was wondering, what are they doing here? What's going on? And then I learned that it's a scientific cruise. They're going down the river. And I decided to join because. Just because I was really curious and I wanted to see what they're doing, and it sounded fun. So I joined for the cruise, and we spent a week or two on the river sampling. And so that's the first time I saw joined for the cruise. And we spent a week or two on the river sampling. And so that's the first time I saw scientists, real scientists, and first time I saw them sampling the river. And I started helping, just holding the bottles, being extra hands. And so that was the first time I got introduced into this river work. And that's where. First time I met Max, scientists, real scientists, and first time I saw them sampling the river, and I started helping, just holding the bottles, being extra hands.

What is it about studying these rivers that has held your attention? Because you've since, you know, gone to college, gotten a master's degree and chosen to come work at Woods Hole Research center and do this river research as your job? What was it that really drew you in?

Well, from the first time, when max, back in 2003, when the scientists were living, Max asked me if I would like to continue collecting these water samples as they. So that was the first time I got introduced into this river work. And that's where. First time I met Max, gone. Because it's very expensive for scientists to fly to gigantic and collect the samples. And it was really easy for me because I live right there. And for me, it sounded fun and very important. And throughout the year, it didn't change. It's still fun and very important. So that's what I do now, Max.

As Anya was alluding to, it's really expensive. And to get to all of these places to do this research and the maps that you've shown over the past half an hour of all of the different rivers that you have worked on and continue to study, you can't possibly be, you know, at 10 corners of the globe at one time. So how important is, you know, this network of volunteers, as you've referred to multiple times, it's volunteers usually who Are collecting these samples for you all around the globe?

Well, that's the only way it happens. And, you know, I should be clear, in some cases it's volunteers, in some cases not. But it's all based upon relationships that you establish with people, friendships that you develop with people, people wanting to be part of this bigger effort. And yeah, I mean, a lot of it's just logistics and trying to figure out how to connect with the right people to get this stuff done. And that's one of the things that, you know, really excites me about connecting with the fly fishing community, because instead of having to make some just these individual connections, in a sense, it's part of this bigger community. And that will be. That is being facilitated.

So let's talk a little bit about that. And Max and Johnny, I'd like to hear a little bit more about how science on the fly got started and where this idea of targeting anglers in particular, you know, you could just go to communities next to the river and generally work with the whole community. Why target anglers in particular?

Oh, Johnny, you're muted. If you want.

If you want to turn on your microphone and jump in there.

Sorry about that.

Was that a question for me, Heather?

Yeah, sure. Go ahead and tell us. What power do you see in tapping into the fly fishing community for studying rivers?

Well, I think it's, you know, there's a. I think the common ground between Max and I and the Woods Hole Research center starting out was just a passion for water, passion for rivers. You know, for 20 years, since fishpond was founded, we've become very passionate about creating the best product in the world for anglers. But it quickly turned into being a company that really cares more about how we can leverage our brand, leverage the consumers and the guides, etcetera, who use our products to do something better for the world. So in a sense, our products become a conduit so we can do great things and be authentic and be respected and within the people that we work with. You know, a couple years ago, I went to Telluride. I was invited as a participant in a CEO conference on climate change, where we were asked to commit to communicating about climate change within our brand. And there was big companies there. Ben and Jerry's, big Fortune 50 type companies were there. And that's where I met Max. And there was just this common ground of a love for fly fishing. He actually came up to me and asked me about a product for his son. And it was immediate connection there. We started a friendship and that turned into Me becoming a board member on the Woods Hole Research center because of my passion for what climate means for the future, how we can help impact that and help create a policy shift and change. But, you know, rivers are the common ground between us. We love water. That is our business. People who fly fish. I think we go fly fishing to catch fish, of course, but really it gets us to a place, gets us to rivers that we would never otherwise go to if it wasn't for that pursuit of a fish. But when we get there, it's really not about the fish. It's about the environment. It's about that special place that we all share.

Well, speaking of special places, Troy, I want to ask you about your experience. You know, as Max mentioned, sampling eight different locations over a pretty broad area every two weeks. And certainly from the photos we've seen, they do look like beautiful places to go. But, I mean, what kind of time commitment are we talking about and what drives you and motivates you to put in that time?

Sure. I mean, I guess in the beginning of this, I mean, it's just personal love of the river, particularly when we had the opportunity to test our home river that. I mean, our shot is a block away from the headwaters of San Miguel. And when this all started, I mean, we were all excited about it, and I certainly was excited. I love to be outside. So whether we're tromping on the river, you know, in July, sampling, or January, it's still where I would prefer to be. And it has been funny because we had a bunch of lights in July when Max was there. We were mapping it out and stuff. We were like, gosh, this would be a good spot. This would be a good spot. And there were great spots. And then it got to be January. And it turned out, you know, it was much more difficult as the seasons changed and we were both holing up to our chest at times. At times, we had to change locations by a little bit. I mean, it's just been. It's just been great. I mean, to be. To be involved in something actually where you're getting empirical data on your home river that you've spent most, if not all of your adult life on is really important.

So we're going to open this up to audience Q and A in a moment. So if you have questions for us, go ahead and let us know. There's a little Q and A icon at the bottom of your screen, a couple of thought bubbles, and Q and A. If you want to type your questions in there, I can put those to the panelists, before we actually go to our first audience question, Troy, you're mentioning the, you know, the joy and the benefit of learning about the river in your backyard. And, Anya, I mean, you can't get any more river in your backyard than where you started, can you? And that's one of the, as Max alluded to, longer data sets that you have. So have you seen community benefits and community engagement around the data that you have generated?

If that question was. I don't know if that was to Troy, we may have dropped Troy.

I was actually asking Anya, since we have such a nice, long record there, you know, Troy was. I think we did lose Troy, his Internet connection. You'll have to understand Troy is in a location where his Internet connection is not always reliable. I'm glad we got to hear from him a bit, and hopefully he'll be able to rejoin us. But, you know, that's a really new.

If that question was. I don't know if that was to Troy, we may have dropped Troy.

I was actually asking Anya, since we have such a nice, long record there. You know, Troy was. I think we did lose Troy, his Internet connection. You'll have to understand Troy is in a location where his Internet connection is not always reliable. I'm glad we got to hear from him a bit, and hopefully he'll be able to rejoin us. But, you know, that's a really new data set. The data from the Arctic Rivers Observatory goes back much further. And so I'm curious what kinds of community engagement or community benefits might have come out of that data set.

So when I started in 2003 sampling water, it was just me who was sampling the water. And the next time when Max and team came back to Gigansk, the village where I grew up, data set.

The data from the Arctic Rivers Observatory goes back much further. And so I'm curious what kinds of community engagement or community benefits might have come out of that data set.

So when I started in 2003 sampling water, it was just me who was sampling the water. And the next time when Max and team came back to Gansk, the village where I grew up, they actually went to school to check out the school, and the kids in school were really curious about the river and what scientists are doing. And actually there was a whole project called Partners Student Partners Project. It was involving school kids, not only from. They actually went to a school to check out the school, and the kids in school were really curious about the river and what scientists are doing. And actually there was a whole project called Partners Student partners project. It was involving school kids not only from my town, but also from villages across other arctic locations in Mackenzie and Yukon involving students to collect water samples. So that was my town, but also from villages across other arctic. Great way to get kids to participate in science. And so that was a great project. And after that there were other projects involving all college students on the column river. So I think applications in McKenzie and Yukon involving students to collect water samples. So that was a great way to get kids to participate in science. And so that was a great project. And after that there were other projects just creating this interest in local community involving all college students on the column river. So I think where you sample is very important because it leads to. For people just creating this interest in local community, younger students special to a different path where they would think they would go.

We have a question from the audience for you, Max. What is the long term application of tracking these samples and rivers when you do have these long data sets to.

Where you sample is very important because it leads to, for people like younger students, special to a different path where they would think they would go.

We have a question from the audience for you, Max. What is the long term application of tracking these samples and rivers when you do have these long data sets? What can you do with that?

Yeah, I mean, there are lots of different answers to that.

What can you do with that?

Yeah, I mean, there are lots of different answers to that and maybe varies depending on the river and the situation. But I'll harken back to that first graph I showed which was atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. If you ask sort of the same question about that. What are the long, you know, what, what is the purpose of that? What that's showing that carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is how our planet is changing may be very depending on the river and the situation. But I'll harken back to that first graph I showed which was atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. If you, if you ask how it's. How it's being impacted by human activities and river chemistry can tell you sort of the same question about that. What are the long, you know, what, what is the purpose of that? What that's showing that carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is how our planet is changing. The same thing. It's not a global signal, it's a signal over the. Over the watershed area. But we're number one, we're working on some of the. Well, yeah, we are working on the world's largest watersheds that can be millions of square kilometers in area. So it's a signal that cares how it's. How it's being impacted by human activities. And river chemistry can tell you covers the biggest area outside of the what the Amazon. I mean what they do the same thing. It's not a global signal, it's a signal over the, over the watershed area. But we're number one, we're working on some of the. Well yeah, we are working on the world's Sarah can tell you. And we're also working on smaller systems now, largest watersheds that can be millions of square kilometers in area. So it's a signal that carries around the world that are in really important regions. So it's. Yeah, it's tracking how river covers the biggest area outside of the what the Amazon. I mean what the actors and their watersheds are changing. And then our challenge is to use that information to fight against some of the negative changes that are, that are taking place. Whether that's what sure can tell you. And we're also working on smaller systems now. It's related to climate change, whether it's related to mining or dams or the whole host of threat around the world that are in really important regions. So it's. Yeah, it's tracking how rivers and their watersheds are changing. And then our challenge is to use that information, things that we're doing that impact rivers and their watersheds, sort of having the data to fight against some of the negative changes that are, that are taking place, whether that's related to climate change, whether it's related to mining or dams or the whole host of having the information that documents those changes gives us ammunition to fight for the solutions.

Since you mentioned dams, we actually had someone email us earlier today with their question, so eager to get it into the queue and ask have you seen the impact of things that we're doing.

That impact rivers and their watersheds? Sort of having the data, having the information that documents those changes gives us ammunition to fight for the solution, either.

Building dams or dam removal more in recent years in any of your river data sets. Since you mentioned dams, we actually had someone email us earlier today with their question. So eager to get it into the queue and ask have you seen the impact of.

Certainly dams have a big impact. We have not seen it in either.

Building dams or dam removal more in recent years in any of your river data sets.

In the places that we're working yet, either dams going up or dams going down. I think where dams are going up that we likely will see the impact is in the Amazon now. So there haven't Been many dams. There are lots of dams in the works. Will now have certainly dams have a big impact. We have not seen it in the places that we're working yet. Either dams going up or dams going down. I think where dams are going up that we likely will see. The impact is in the Amazon now. So they haven't have information that will help us see what that's doing with respect to the chemistry of the rivers. And that's been many dams. There are lots of dams in the works. Will now happen to be important. There's a move in the US And I'm certainly a big fan of this to get rid of dams. We have something like 80 or 90,000 dams across the U.S. a lot of them aren't doing anybody any good and we're starting to pull some of those out. So far we haven't been working on any of those systems where dams have been removed. But now as we are expanding the project have information that will help us see what that's doing with respect to the chemistry of the rivers. And that's going to be important. There's a move in the US And I'm certainly a big fan of this to get rid of dams. We have engaging with the fly fishing community. Those would be really. Those would be places I'd say that would be something like 80 or 90,000 dams across the U.S. a lot of them aren't doing anybody any good and we're starting to pull some of those out. So far we haven't been working on any of those systems where dams have been removed. But now as we are expanding the project high on the list. Let's get sampling going in some systems where dams are slated to be removed. Let's look at the chemistry before the dams are removed and after the dams are removed. And I should actually say that analysis there is a very local system that were engaging with the fly fishing community. Those would be really. Those would be places I'd say that would be involved in the Childs river one of those systems. It's not so much a dam removal but it's a restoration. So we've been out there for not quite a year now collecting samples at nigh on the list. Let's get sampling going in some systems where dams are slated to be removed. Let's look at the chemistry before the dams are removed and after the the dams are removed. And I should actually say that now there is a very local system that we're involved in. The Child's river one of those systems. It's not so Much a dam removal, but it's a restoration. Nine locations along the Childs river on Cape Cod, a big restoration is in the works. And so we've been out there for not quite a year now, collecting samples at night, and we'll see how the chemistry changes as that plays out.

So you've been referencing the chemistry, and I know you went through this in your presentation, Max, but we've gotten a number of questions just relating to the basics of what is it that you're actually measuring in the water samples that you collect and what does that.

Nine locations along the Childs river on Cape Cod, a big restoration is in the works.

Tell you about the health of the river or of the ecosystem around it? Is it even the the same? Do you measure the same things in all of these different rivers?

We sort of have a standard suite of things that we do on all the rivers. And then some of the projects, we do more things. So the standard suite are what we call nutrients. So things like nitrate, ammonium phosphate, silica. These are the kinds of things that you would fertilize your lawn with. In some cases, they're the things that plants rely on, they need to grow, but in excess, they cause all kinds of problems. We also measure lots of different forms of carbon, and that's important for both how the rivers function as well as with respect to climate change and connections to the watershed and permafrost. In the Arctic. This Arctic Great Rivers Observatory project, we analyze a broader suite of compounds as a somewhat more complicated sampling protocol. We have more funding that allows us to analyze more things like the age of the carbon and so on. But in all cases, the analogy I often make is sort of we study river water chemistry like a physician studies blood chemistry. So, you know, it's tracking the health of the rivers and our watersheds over time and how it's changing. The different compounds that we measure tell us different things, but overall, it's giving us some clues about, you know, let's say, the health of the system and how it may be changing.

So, believe it or not, we've only got about five minutes left in this webinar. Time flies when you're having fun. We've had a ton of questions coming in asking about how people can get involved and also whether you, Max and Johnny, have had thoughts about expanding this beyond the angling community to, say, paddlers or other river enthusiasts. And I would love to hear. You know, I know you are planning to expand, whether that type of expansion might be in the works, but, Johnny, I'd also like to hear from you, being in on this from the ground floor. What makes it really worth your investment, both in time and money, in involving your business in this? Why do you invest in science on the fly?

I think the bottom line is that changing and warming climate, climate change is one of the greatest threats that we face as a planet. And I think it's time to wake up to it. I think people are seeing that they don't know how to get their hands around it. It's like a very lofty idea what climate change is all about and how do people make a difference? I think by using the fly fishing community, which I think is going to be primary focus for science on the fly for the near future anyhow. There's a lot of participants in that, but people around the world, we all have rivers in our own backyards. Here in Colorado, we have the Colorado river system, which is drinking water for over 40 million people. It's threatened. You know, the headwaters that are right outside my backyard here are the source of that water. So, you know, being on top of what this means long term for the health of our planet and not only for humans, but also for species, which is very important to me and a lot of people that we work with. It's the habitat, it's the health of our habitat that we need to protect. And I think as we see during this crisis right now with this virus, is that when people really need to step up to the plate and make a change, they can do it, Americans can do it, the world can do it. And I think what we need to do as a planet is to basically and simply use less carbon. We need to innovate. We need to be able to put out a call for action and innovation, to come up with new processes and have companies, even our energy companies will become oil and gas companies, will become companies that are really about energy and they will innovate and we can make the change to keep the health of our planet for many, many, many generations. As the spike that we see and we hear about graphs right now and flattening the curve, etc. Climate change is anything but flattening. It's getting steeper and steeper as the months go on and the years go forward. And with, as my grandfather used to say, with kaleidoscopic rapidity. So when are we going to be able to flatten that curve? It needs to happen very, very soon. And as a company, we feel committed. As an Anglian, as a company that's involved with water, that has an amazing tribe of people around the world who use our products that we can communicate with. We're going to use those people to gather this data so the Woods Hole Research center can effectively study this and eventually, hopefully create policy shift by using that data for how we approach our planet in a warming planet.

Anya, based on your involvement in the Arctic Rivers Observatory, one person has asked, have we started to see the impacts of climate change on these rivers? In particular, are we seeing signs of melting permafrost and thawing glaciers reflected in the data that's coming from Arctic rivers?

Yes, definitely. And especially if we're looking at the discharge data set that is Arctic Rivers Observatory pulling together also. And if you look back in the longer term, which is available from a Russian side, we see that there is an increase in the river discharge. There's more water, there's more precipitation that is falling, and that's a result of. Of changing climate. But from a. If you don't look even at the data, just a local person, people who live in the Arctic really see the changes that are happening. There are seasons that are longer. I mean, the shorter seasons, it used to be really cold and then there's short somewhere. But there small things like that that people observe that my parents would tell me that it's much warmer now than it used to be. There are new stories, species that my grandma would tell that we didn't have that species growing up. So that's. Yeah, living in the Arctic is like living in the frontline of climate change.

Max, I'm going to give you the last word here as we wrap up. We've talked a lot about the nature of the data that you can collect, what it takes to collect it, this huge network of volunteers, and how that data might be put into use. But you also think about benefits beyond the data. And I guess if I'd love to close with your thoughts on what some of those benefits beyond the data are for this kind of project?

Yeah, well, I guess I would. How to answer that as I sit here in my house, not at the Woods Hole Research center, because there's this virus circulating around the world. I think that the more people who appreciate science, who understand science, who listen to experts, as we tackle all different kinds of challenges, climate change and other challenges that we, that we have, I think society will benefit greatly from that. So by, you know, engaging that people.

Observe that my parents would tell me that it's much warmer now, that it used to be. There are new species that my grandma would tell that we didn't have that species growing up. So that's, yeah, living in the, in the Arctic is like living in the front light of the climate change.

Max, I'm going to give you the last word here as we wrap up. We've talked a lot about the nature of the data that you can collect.

This community, the fly fishing community and others in the kind of work that we're doing, it gives people, you know, a chance to get hands on participation in the scientific enterprise. Hopefully that gives them a greater appreciation for how science works. And yeah, and I think that will help us respond to the challenges that are bombarding us now and in the.

Future, what it takes to collect this huge network of volunteers and how that data might be. Well, I'd like to thank you, Max, also Anya and Johnny and Troy, not here to hear us say thank you, but also Troy, all of our panelists today, thank you so much to everyone put into use. But you also think about benefits beyond the data and I guess I'd love to close with your thoughts on what some of those benefits beyond the data are for this kind of project.

Yeah, well, I guess I would. How to answer that.

Who joined us today for your fabulous questions and your engagement as I sit.

Here in my house, not at the Woods Hole Research center.

And I would just like to leave you with one final parting thought, which is that much of the work that is done at Woods Hole Research center, science on the fly, the river observatories and much of the other work at Woods Hole Research center is made possible by donations, is donor supported. And so if what you've heard today has inspired you to get involved, we'd love if you would consider a gift to Woods Hole Research Center. We also hope you'll join us back here for more of our webinars each week, Wednesday typically at 2:30, although next week for a special Earth Day webinar we'll be broadcasting at noon because there's.

This virus circulating around the world. I think that the more people who appreciate science, who understand science, who listen to experts as we tackle all different kinds of challenges, climate change and other challenges that we have, I think society will benefit greatly from that.

So by, you know, engaging Wednesday Earth Day and if you've missed our previous webinars or want to re watch this one or share this one, all of the videos, these are all recorded and you can find those videos on our website, through our events page or on YouTube. So thank you all again so much and we hope to see you back again next week for another of our webinars.

This community, the fly fishing community and others in the kind of work that we're doing, it gives people, you know, a chance to get hands on participation in the scientific enterprise. Hopefully that gives them a greater appreciation for how science works. And yeah. And I think that will help us respond to the challenges that are bombarding us now and in the future.

Well, I'd like to thank you, Max, also Anya and Johnny and Troy, not here to hear us say thank you, but also Troy, all of our panelists today, thank you so much to everyone who joined us today for your fabulous questions and your engagement. And I would just like to leave you with one final parting thought, which is that much of the work that is done at Woods Hole Research center, science on the fly, the river observatories, and much of the other work at Woods Hole Research center is made possible by donations, is donor supported. And so if what you've heard today has inspired you to get involved, we'd love if you would consider a gift to Woods Hole Research Center. We also hope you'll join us back here for more of our webinars each week, Wednesday, typically at 2:30, although next week for a special Earth Day webinar, we'll be broadcasting at noon on Wednesday, Earth Day. And if you've missed our previous webinars or want to rewatch this one or share this one, all of the videos, these are all recorded and you can find those videos on our website through our events page or on YouTube. So thank you all again so much. And we hope to see you back again next week for another of our webinars.

On the river sampling. And so that's the first time I saw scientists, real scientists, and first time I saw them sampling the river. And I started.