Author Archives: Laura Toran

I finally tried out a time lapse camera for stormwater monitoring at Haines Run on the Wissahickon.  We hid the camera in a bird house and pointed it at dry bed next to the Haines Run channel. For some storms, … Continue reading →

PhD student Jim Berglund and I visited Birmingham Cave spring and others from the Shuster and White study to get samples for rare earth elements (REE), a new tracer we are exploring.  We also downloaded data from our temperature loggers … Continue reading →

Just received a new NSF Education grant through the GeoPATH program.  The project is   Career paths for urban geoscientists: Recruitment, retention, and apprenticeship.  I will be working on developing new education initiatives along with my colleagues Jon Nyquist, Alix … Continue reading →

Sarah Ledford joins Temple fresh from obtaining her PhD at Syracuse University.  She will be working on the William Penn Foundation project monitoring urban streams.  We started by collecting some sediment samples near a wastewater treatment plant and a railroad … Continue reading →

    My PhD student Jim Berglund used a new IR camera (add-on to a phone) to look for springs by identifying temperature variations.  We were installing temperature loggers in springs monitored back in the late 1960’s to see if … Continue reading →

Drilling started this week on baseline wells to monitoring water table fluctuations near stormwater controls built as part of the I-95 expansion in Philadelphia.  A Temple team is monitoring the effectiveness of the stormwater controls and I got to add … Continue reading →

Jim Berglund (Ph.D. Candidate) and I attended the KWI conference on Groundwater Contamination and Public Health in Karst held in San Juan Puerto Rico.  We learned a lot about sampling for emerging contaminants.  After the conference there was a terrific … Continue reading →

I just finished writing the progress report for year 2 of our EPA grant to monitor green infrastructure on campus.  Looking over the data, I found our sites are collecting stormwater.  Some too much (there is mounding in the SERC … Continue reading →

I started my sabbatical this month.  I have an empty office on the Ambler campus and few distractions so I can start writing up all the data I have collected on stormwater monitoring over the past few years.  At the … Continue reading →

The partners in the Delaware River Basin Initiative gathered to exchange strategies and make new plans.  I got a better idea of data needs from the watershed organizations and will be developing some new monitoring plans based on what I … Continue reading →