[LTER-luq-pi] Bisley

Sat Sep 16 08:44:13 PDT 2017

Bill,

Thanks so much for your message.  I will accept your offer of help!  We need help!

We need to setup Bisley back up again -all throughfall collectors, streamflow, litterbaskests, and vegetation assessment.  I would like us to describe the event and capitalize as much as we can of this opportunity.  We still need to get to Bisley 2 and 3. I was able to reach Bisley 1 and walk to the first tower.  The tower is standing but sensors and the overall structure of it needs to be assessed and equipment put back together.  Solar panels were on the ground, some equipment hanging from the side and wind sensor with tail clipped.

For the watersheds, the mesh in Bisley 1 was not broken but there's quite a bit of sediment to pull out and weigh.  Tipping bucket was on the ground.

Moving forward, so we can all access the site; I need to work with engineering/ EYNF and the deployed incident command team now in place to see if we can have a crew come open access soon - and with some priority.  This is my goal by Monday deadline.  To transfer this info to them so they assess and prioritize how to help.  By Tuesday IITF needs to provide a list with cost as assessment and potential mitigation for impact.

At IITF we will work on coordinating access to the scientific community.  From what I could assess from my visit to east peak and Yunque peak, at least the entrance to icacos didn't look that bad.  The cloud forests were not as hit by the event.  We were able to do the regular litterfall collection, manual  rain collectors were intact and collected for the event, and the East Peak weather station seemed ok.  However there were lots of fresh green leaves on the ground at both elfin and palo Colorado stands (with little canopy damage).  This should be a nice "fertilization treatment" to those forest, I would think.

Palm stands are a different story as at that elevation many lost their fronds or came down.

Road 191 at lower elevation in the periphery of the road kind of up to palo Colorado recreation area was nailed. But the forest was patchly touched.  Some areas are burned completely and from there is a gradient to untouched.

Bisley was hit harder than El verde for sure; more assessment needs to get done past the trail to the tower.  Also, we don't know if the second tower survived yet.

This is all I was able to assess visually from my visit to the forest yesterday with the help of two IITF techs (hydrological and biological) in one car; 9-6pm.

Yesterday a crew started cleaning debris in the warming experiment.

More pictures will be forthcoming. Also through the iitf Twitter. Please follow.

Here a section of the Bisley road.
Tree tip at Bisley
Bisley watershed 1
Fresh leaves on east peak cloud forest.

GG

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