Camp Life: Texas to Walla Walla

It's been a wild ride for Semester in the West's 2016 program. This fall we covered over 11,000 miles, traveling further north (Twisp, Washington), south (Big Bend National Park, Texas) and east (Pine Ridge, South Dakota) than any previous program. The last few months have flown by and now we find ourselves back where we started at the cozy lodges of the Johnston Wilderness Campus. As the Tech Manager, it gave me particular pleasure during Thanksgiving to meet so many of you who have been following along on our trip virtually. As a thank you and a personal sendoff, I hope you enjoy this final camp life series of 2016. Tune back in come 2018 for more photos, speakers and stories produced by a whole new crop of Whitman's brightest minds. 

Sincerely,

Collin Smith
Technical Manager 2016

Meet Our Speakers: Gaby Gonzales-Olimón

“I was a Westie for a week,” explains Gaby Gonzalez-Olimón, Semester in the West’s Sonoran Institute host and guide while in Mexico.  Two years ago Gaby was interning as a wildlife biologist in Grand Canyon National Park when she met Semester in the West students and staff through a bison-surveying project on the North Rim.  Gaby grew up in Baja California and when the planned Spanish translator for the program’s Mexico section fell through, program director Phil Brick hired Gaby as the new translator.  Gaby drove from the Grand Canyon to Mexico to live and work with a group she had previously only known for a couple days.  Once in Mexico, Gaby interfaced with the Sonoran Institute, a nonprofit organization working in the United States and Mexico to connect communities with their natural resources and preserve wildlife and habitat.  The Colorado River Delta Program of the Sonoran Institute was so impressed by Gaby they created a new position, Environmental Education Coordinator, just for her.   Gaby develops and implements environmental education programs and community workshops on restoration in the Colorado River Delta area.  She loves to take students and kids out into nature.  Many of these kids have lived their whole lives in urban areas and are initially terrified and brought to tears by the unfamiliarity of nature.  As an honorary Westie, Gaby’s advice to Semester in the West students is to “network and keep in touch with the people you meet.”  

By Hannah Trettenero

Meet Our Speakers: Iban Leal and Edgar Carrera

Las Arenitas is one of two wastewater treatment plants outside of Mexicali in Baja California that processes the city’s water to be reused for irrigation. Iban Leal is a chemist and the manager of the facility which is under the jurisdiction of CESPM, the state water commission. Water is pumped into the plant at a rate of 840 L per second and then travels through a series of ponds. This system of twelve shallow rectangular ponds help filter and clean the water through aeration, sunlight, chlorine and different types of bacteria. 
    From the ponds, the water flows into a 200-acre wetland. Edgar Carrera, a hydrologist and environmental engineer from the Sonoran Institute helps manage this area. The series of wetlands demonstrates a mutually beneficial partnership between the water treatment plant, the Sonoran Institute and the species that inhabit the marsh. The cattails that dominate the area filter out the chemicals left in the water and provide a home for over 150 species of waterfowl. Once the water has circulated through the wetland for several weeks, thirty percent is diverted towards the Río Hardy and the rest is pumped back into the Mexicali Valley for irrigation. Las Arenita’s wetland is also used for educational purposes. School groups from Mexicali come here to walk an interpretive trail built in partnership with the Sonoran Institute and learn about the project’s success.

Meet Our Speakers: Michelle Hernandez and Fernando Contreras

In Mexicali, a few blocks from the U.S. border, Michelle Hernández and Fernando Contreras speak in front of a municipal drain recently cleared of trash with a clear sense of purpose. Both recent graduates of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Michelle and Fernando are now key players in the Sonoran Institute’s first urban restoration project in Mexicali. This project aims to remove vast amounts of trash from Mexicali’s drains, getting the community involved to discourage further littering and revitalizing these illegal dump sites with trees, benches, and paths. 

As Project Coordinator, Michelle writes plans and proposals for funding, helps form community volunteer groups to maintain restoration sites and collaborates with government agencies. However, the hardest part of her job, she says, is environmental education: changing some Mexicali residents’ mindsets on waste disposal is a great challenge. 

The Sonoran Institute has received funding to restore six of Mexicali’s many trash-clogged drains, and these sites were chosen with the mapping expertise of Fernando, the Institute’s GIS (Global Information Systems) Coordinator. Fernando uses ArcGIS to construct models of potential restoration sites, analyzing topography, groundwater depth, and other features to help select the optimum locations for restoration. In Mexicali, the drains that Fernando has chosen flow to California’s Salton Sea and have communities and schools nearby. In this way, Fernando and Michelle’s work benefits not only the residents of Mexicali, but thousands of U.S. citizens as well.

“Everyday we’re preparing and learning to do things better,” Fernando explains from a new litter-free path at the Dren (Drain) Internacional. “I like the work because I can really see the product of my efforts.”

By Thomas Meinzen

Meet Our Speakers: Francisco Zamora

Francisco Zamora is mobilizing hope. As Director of the Sonoran Institute’s Colorado River Delta Legacy program and with around 20 years of experience working in the Mexico-United States border region, Zamora has seen massive ecological and social progress. His job requires collaboration with local leaders, businesses and government agencies to achieve one main goal: returning the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. Where once the river provided a green path of biodiversity and irrigation water through one of the hottest regions of Mexico, it has today shriveled to salty mud pits from over-allocation. 
It would seem hard to find hope in this expansive landscape of dust, but Zamora celebrates in the achievements that a community-grown, cooperative approach has yielded. He compares the Sonoran Institute’s restoration work to planting a seed, one that will empower local employees in growing the spirit of the project with their own ideas. Zamora has an equally optimistic metaphor for his relationship with big governments and agencies. Where he once had to “push the truck,” to bring attention to the Delta’s importance, he now sees such community enthusiasm that he is easily “pulling” a bandwagon of support. Facing a tumultuous political climate in the wake of the recent U.S. election, Franciso models an inspiring outlook. He is motivated in his work by “the joy of knowing that I’m doing a good thing.” 

By Signe Lindquist

Meet Our Speakers: Yuliana Dimas

In 2014, an international effort secured the release of a pulse of water into the parched Colorado River delta. As ecologists delighted in the success of returning water to the natural channel of the Colorado River, communities in the Mexicali Valley celebrated as well. Yuliana Dimas, a social worker for one of Mexico’s leading environmental organizations, ProNatura Noroeste, recognizes the cultural significance of restoring the flow of the Colorado River through its natural delta. While ecologists continue to monitor the health of the ecosystem, Yulie studies the surrounding communities’ relationship with the pulse flow, which she says has largely been positive. Historically, communities in the Mexicali valley were very connected with the river and Yulie believes that the pulse flow is restoring those connections. When the water came, people gathered alongside the river banks to celebrate the long awaited sight of water flowing toward the sea. Yulie explains that children are learning about the river ecosystem and that families are volunteering with restoration projects which has “made the place happy, very happy.” The work of community advocates like Yulie means that returning water to the Colorado delta has strengthened the community as well as the ecosystem, reminding people of the joy of water.

By Sarah Dunn