Presented by Bill Rose, Mark Damon, Dr. Aaron Reyes, Dr. Brian Conz, Wednesday, February 13, 2019 6:30 p.m. Dever Stage, Parenzo Hall, Westfield State University. Free and open to the public.

A panel of Westfield River Watershed Association (WRWA) members will offer perspectives on the watershed and the association committed to its stewardship. Bill Rose will speak about his experience as an avid local recreational fly fisherman, addressing the type of fishing that takes place in the Westfield river, the changing conditions of the river and how this affects fishing, and WRWA activities that support recreational fishing such as salmon stocking, fly fishing clinics, and the yearly fish ladder open house.

Mark Damon will discuss WRWA activities including river cleanups and the sampling of invertebrates in the river; how the diversity of invertebrates can be used as an indicator of overall ecosystem health; and a principle in riverine ecology called the River Continuum Concept that considers the health of the watershed. Dr. Aaron O. Reyes will describe the geology through which the Westfield River flows and how the geology affects natural water chemistry, followed by a short description of results from a WSU student internship program. Dr. Brian Conz will discuss the development and evolution of the Westfield River terraces, which are found in the Westfield River valley west of the city center. The terraces were cut from deltaic sediments deposited into an arm of glacial Lake Hitchcock some 13,000 years ago. The terraces were documented in the early 1900s by the famous physical geographer William Morris Davis and reveal a great deal about the evolution of our local landscape.