Article Reveals That Erosion Even Fascinated Einstein!
Albert Einstein wrote in 1926 about how and why streams and rivers meander. Read the article here: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~kmuldrew/river.html. Submitted by Tom Carpenter, CPESC

Watershed Forestry Resource Guide
A partnership of the Center for Watershed Protection and the US Forest Service, this new web site is a central clearinghouse for all things related to forests and watersheds: http://www.forestsforwatersheds.org/. Source: Clear Environmental Blog

Urban BMP Performance Tool
EPA has created a web-based tool available at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/urbanbmptool to provide stormwater professionals with easy access to research studies on the performance of stormwater BMPs. Accurate data on stormwater best management practice (BMP) performance is important for many reasons. Read more about this in the article written by John Kosco and Nikos Singelis entitled Presenting Urban Stormwater BMP Performance Data to a Broad Audience. Source: American Water Resources Association Blog

Wetlands Conservation Resources
Site contains EPA information about the importance of wetlands in flood control and habitat conservation: http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/ Source: US EPA

Site For Green Thinking
Greenprofs.com (http://greenprofs.com/) is a site designed to provide professionals with access to the very latest green business thinking with insights on environmental issues, climate change, Corporate Social Responsibility, alternative energy, green consumer and green business practice.

Drag & Drop features useful resources provided by members for members and others concerned about erosion and sediment control. If one of these resources is of particular interest to you, just "Drag & Drop" the web link into your Favorites folder or Bookmark it for later reference. If you know of a resource that makes your job easier and would like to share, please send your web links to Meg Tully.

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TENCATE™ Wins 2008 IFAI Award of Excellence
TenCate™ Geosynthetics North America is pleased to announce the company has received the 2008 Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) Award of Excellence for their project entitled "Swamp and Stream Crossing Airmail Drive" using MirafiŽ HP370. This project involved surface upgrades made to geotextile reinforced soil (GRS) embankments that allowed for the construction of the road and open stream crossing structure in British Columbia, Canada. Read the full news release.

Garcia-Chevesich Teaches Spanish Course At University of Arizona
A member of IECA's International Development Committee, Pablo Garcia-Chevesich is teaching Procesos y Control de la Erosión (Erosion Processes and Control) this spring at the University of Arizona. Erosion Processes and Control is one of the few courses in which design procedures to face any erosion situation are taught to ensure that the land does not lose its productivity.

The course is oriented to graduate and undergraduate students from Engineering, Hydrology, Watershed Management, Agriculture, Forestry, Environmental Sciences or any other career involved with the management of natural resources. The course is organized in four units and 30 classes (including a field trip). The first unit is an introduction to soil erosion, its occurrence, processes, agents, factors affecting it and measurement. Estimating the design runoff and design procedures are taught in unit II. Unit III focuses on the design of the most up-to-date erosion control products and practices. The student will present her/his term paper in unit IV. Since this course will be taught in Spanish, the University of Arizona will validate it as a Language course.

For more information and enrollment, please contact Daniela Ibarra at the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (University of Arizona):

1177 E. Fourth Street
Shantz Bldg #38, Room 403
Tucson, AZ 85721-0038
Phone: (520) 621-1753
Fax: (520) 621-3963
Email: abe@arizona.edu

North American Green & Cotton Incorporated Sponsor CE News Webcast
Entitled "Hydraulically Applied Mulches: Proven Erosion Control Performers," the date of the webcast will be Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The moderator is Jill Pack, North American Green Manager of Technical Services; Presenters are Joel Sprague, Sr. Engineer, TRI/Environmental, Inc.; and Gabe Weaver, North American Green, Manager of New Technology & Development. The webcast aims to:

• Introduce the engineering community to the benefits of hydraulically applied mulches;
• Increase awareness of the proven performance of hydraulic mulches;
• Highlight hydraulic mulches as an alternative to single and double net RECPS;
• Increase confidence for specifiers to write these products into specifications;
• Participants will receive 1.0 PDH for attending.
  

For more information, please click here: http://www.ieca.org/coursepdf/NAGWebinar.pdf

What's New? IECA welcomes news and updates from all of our members. If you have news that you would like included in our Members in the News section, please send your press releases to Meg Tully.

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Congratulations to the following Chapters who received individual honors in this year's program. These Chapters will be honored at the Awards Luncheon at EC09 in Reno.

According to a recent article written by Tom Williams, IECA Board member and co-chair of the SOIL Fund Committee, auctions are one of the best ways to raise funds for a worthy cause.

As Williams writes, "The thing about auctions is that people donate things to be auctioned off, so whatever the auctioneer gets for the item all goes to the fund. The people who donate the item get a charitable tax deduction for the estimated amount the item is worth. The people who buy the item get a tax deduction for any amount their bid exceeds the estimated amount the item is worth. And, the SOIL Fund gets money to do great things!" Read the Full Article.

Please consider attending the SOIL Fund's Denim and Diamonds Benefit Dinner and contributing an item for the auction. James Ridgway of ESCN.tv will be the auctioneer, and items to be auctioned include a dinner with actor Jim Sikking of Star Trek fame and a Colorado weekend.

If your company wishes to donate an item, please contact Russ Adsit at russ@ieca.org or 800-455-4322 (303-640-7554 outside the US) for details.