Hot humid weather welcomed participants to Wetlands 2008.  Six field trips were held Monday and everyone returned ready for three days of presentations and discussion on wetlands, climate change and related wetlands issues. 

Back at the Doubletree ASWM staff met with the hotel to go over all the logistics for the rest of the week.  In the evening a full moon rose over the city into a clear sky.  Inside the ballroom sponsors and exhibitors put up displays.  Some speakers and participants were delayed by Hurricane Ike and other bad weather but with only a couple exceptions everyone was able to attend the conference. 

Tuesday

By 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning the registration table was busy as participants picked up name badges and conference materials, enjoyed the continental breakfast and looked over the exhibits. 

Plenary Session

The plenary session began with an articulate introduction by Robert Liberty, Metro Councilor whose welcome included stories and examples of the important role green areas such as wetlands have played in defining the character of the Portland metro area.

Bill Bradbury, Oregon Secretary of State was one of the first 50 people trained by Al Gore to describe the reasons that climate change was occurring and his talk covered the impacts for the world at large and the Pacific Northwest in particular.  Glenn Juday from the University of Fairbanks, Alaska complimented his talk with a detailed description of the alterations in climate currently underway including a succinct overview of everything from sunspots to greenhouse gases and a series of complex scientific summaries of the changes occurring in the coldest regions of the world.

Curtis Richardson, from Duke University in North Carolina described the importance of wetlands to the storage of carbon and in particular the vast carbon stores in peatlands around the world.  Kevin Erwin described the surprising similarities in the challenges that were created in southern Ontario and southern Florida as communities and landowners explored opportunities to manage agricultural landscapes and wetlands to minimize the impacts of climate change.  The last morning speaker Larry Larson, from the Association of State Floodplain Managers discussed the need for major revisions to public policy. Otherwise catastrophic losses will continue to occur to people, property, and natural landscape.  Later that week Larry was quoted on the front page of USA Today in an article about thousands of homes that were rebuilt in violation of zoning requirements in New Orleans and along the coast following Katrina.  In the article Larry pointed out if home owners don’t elevate “it’s the federal taxpayers who pay to fix it time after time.”

Tuesday afternoon the conference continued with a series of concurrent sessions on Wetlands and Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Market Based Incentives and other topics.

The Tuesday evening reception was held by the pool with entertainment by the Rose City Hot Club.  Even after the band stopped playing and the food was cleared away people lingered in the mild night to share stories beside the pool.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning there was another registration table set up across from Wetlands 2008.  The U.S. Society for Irrigation and Drainage Professionals was having a conference in the same hotel.  We went over to introduce ourselves and say hello and found out that their conference was on climate change.  As people came in to register for each of the conferences there was some confusion, but interest in attending both conferences.  At the registration table there were questions about whether the two conferences had somehow been coordinated.  After some discussion it was agreed that there would be a reciprocity arrangement for attendees at the two conferences.  We got some very positive feedback on the interesting presentations in the other conference and some of the drainage and irrigation professionals sat in on our sessions as well.

Wednesday at lunch ASWM presented Yvonne Vallette with the Dan Willard Ruby Slippers Award for her unselfish and sustained contributions to management, conservation, and protection of wetlands. (Yvonne Vallette's Award)

Wednesday evening ended with a reception at Kell’s Irish Pub hosted by the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists.  They successfully raffled off a few of the posters of the conference logo (the dragonfly artwork) to raise money for the Chapter.

Behind the scenes organizers were challenged by a perfect storm of technology. This year computers for the concurrent sessions were generously provided by federal and state agencies whose password protection occasionally locked us out and would not allow programs like PowerPoint 2007 view to be added.  The different versions of PowerPoint (97-1007) are not all compatible.  In addition the capacity of flash drives has increased to such a degree that individuals can and do keep all their important documents on them and some people were (understandably) very concerned about turning them over to strangers so that PowerPoints could be added to computers.  However, it worked out due to the efforts of dozens of dedicated volunteers, flexible speakers, and supportive participants.

Wetlands 2008 was a green conference.  We worked with the hotel to minimize the carbon foot print by recycling wherever possible and making a donation to the Climate Trust (Certificate)

Thursday and Friday

Next Steps