Training

See also: Serpentine Grasslands, Maintaining BiodiversityOn April 19, 2007, researchers, regulators, land stewards, and consultants will meet on Coyote Ridge to discuss the effects of nitrogen on air quality, water quality, and the conservation of the Bay Area's serpentine grasslands. The following people will be on hand to share the wealth of their information on the subject: Once again this year, Stuart Weiss will inform the audience of his many years of research into nitrogen deposition, grazing, and Bay checkerspot butterfly conservation. Jim Pederson, a researcher with the California Air Resources Board, will discuss research and monitoring on air pollutants in California. Amy Taketomo, a senior planner with the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District, will present on how nitrogen air pollution is regulated and enforced. Katie Monsen will also join us; she is a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz who is researching nitrogen budgets, using models to examine N dynamics under different climate scenarios, and evaluating the effectiveness of particular N-conserving strategies under the different climate scenarios. Katie will let us know about how nitrogen deposition is cycled through the soil. We are hoping to have someone with the Santa Clara Valley Water District to attend to let us know how this agency is currently dealing with nitrogen as a groundwater pollutant. We hope that hearing from these diverse perspectives will give field trip participants a breadth of knowledge on how we can proceed to deal with N deposition impacts through improved land use management, land use planning, policy, and regulation.