Clark Fork Symposium Scheduled Next Week – Scientists, Public Invited

The University of Montana will host the 2015 Clark Fork Symposium next Thursday, April 23 through Friday, April 24.

"The Clark Fork Symposium is an event that we put on about every five years since 1985 where we bring interested citizens and scientists together to discuss what we've learned about conserving and restoring the basin in the past five years and what our upcoming challenges are," Environmental Studies Professor Vicki Watson said. "It includes both some public, friendly presentations, but also some more wonky technical presentations."

Watson said the symposium will begin with the Water Supply Outlook Forum, featuring reports from the National Weather Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, operators of reservoirs in the state and others.

"We've been seeing more things trending positively than trending negatively," Watson said. "Partly, that's because of the tremendous amount of work people have been putting in to restoring the upper river in particular. The state Natural Resource Damage Program has been doing a lot of restoration work up there. We're wrapping up the final superfund project in the upper river too. Basically they are just coming to report on what they're doing, what improvements they're seeing, and what they hope to do next."

The symposium will be at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Missoula.

Here's a list of symposium events: