Monitoring marshes to help them survive
Photo credit: Newsday/Jennifer Smith | Nicole Maher, left, a wetlands specialist with the Nature Conservancy, measures how much sediment has accumulated on the marsh at Bass Creek in the Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island. In the background Kathleen Conrad, the group's operations manager, records data. (July 7, 2010)
They strode out into the marsh on a steamy summer day, two women lugging a gun case and a stadium bench with plastic footstools duct-taped to either end.
Their destination: a metal rod sticking up in the middle of Bass Creek at Mashomack Preserve, a 2,039-acre complex on Shelter Island owned by the Nature Conservancy.
The steel rod goes about 80 feet down into the marsh. It's one of...
