GEORGETOWN, Maine — The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry’s veteran soils scientist David Rocque is planning a soils and natural resources workshop at Reid State Park on Wednesday September 4, 2019.
Rocque says he is “assembling an all-star team of experts” to classify any new soil pits excavated for the workshop. Agency staff from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Land Use Planning Commission, and Department of Health & Human Services will discuss their field interpretations with workshop participants.
The workshop will include soil pit evaluations for septic systems suitability, soil series determinations, hydric soil determinations and, new this year, Ksat (saturated hydraulic conductivity) determinations for Hydrologic Soil Group assignments. Also included will be vernal pool evaluations, wetland determinations including fresh and saltwater, vegetated buffer storm water treatment evaluations, stream determinations and where to begin measuring for setbacks in the shoreland zone. There will also be soil pits in a back-sand dune to illustrate the challenges of making hydric soil determinations in sandy soils.
Rocque has previously held workshops at Reid State Park in 2007 and 2008, and says, “I think it will be interesting to revisit some of the sites used 10 years ago, to see if there have been any changes in interpretations. I believed that one of the sites had oxygenated groundwater, accounting for the lack of redoximorphic features, even though most of the soil pits in the transect had a groundwater table at or near the surface most of the year. Shortly after the last workshop, I installed Iris Tubes by the soil pits to make a more positive determination and the tubes are still there for you to see the result.”
Registration:
Registration details can be obtained at the MAPSS website http://www.mapss.org/
The workshop is being sponsored by Maine Association of Professional Soils Scientists (MAPSS), the Maine Association of Site Evaluators (MASE) and the Maine Association of Wetlands Scientists (MAWS).
–Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry
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