River Whisperer

Chance events brought the two river enthusiasts together. Their meeting yielded a longtime mentoring relationship between a Utah State University professor and a teen scientist who has garnered impressive awards in national and international science competitions, including the 2006 Intel Science Talent Search title and three-time state winner of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize.

Aggie freshman Shannon Babb and Nancy Mesner, program leader for USU’s Natural Resources Extension, met about five years ago when Mesner led a watershed science “Stream Team” workshop for a group of Utah County teachers. In the ensuing years, the two have stayed in touch as Babb, who graduated with multiple honors from Utah’s American Fork High School this past spring, has sought advice from Mesner on a number of water research projects.

But their initial meeting, prompted by the need for Shannon’s mother, Anita Babb, to earn continuing ed hours, almost didn’t happen.

“I needed to earn some hours for certification and had a small window of time to complete them,” recalls Anita, who currently teaches Reading Recovery classes at Legacy Elementary School in Highland.

She noticed an advertisement about a two-day USU Extension workshop to be taught at a local river site and promptly called for registration information. Alas, the course was about to be cancelled due to lack of interest. “I asked, ‘If I can get enough interested participants together, will USU still hold the class?’” Anita said.

The answer was yes and Anita set to work rounding up warm bodies, including her husband, Stephen, an instructor at Stevens-Henager College, and then 13-year-old daughter, Shannon.

Convincing Shannon, a lifelong water aficionado, to come along was no problem, said Anita. Though the only youngster in the group, Shannon enthusiastically donned waders and joined adult participants in the hands-on watershed curriculum’s activities.

Equipped with water testing and monitoring skills learned at the workshop, Shannon embarked on a number of self-initiated studies in her hometown region that have captured the attention of water scientists, government water professionals and legislators.

“I’ve learned to listen to the river,” says Shannon, who has doggedly monitored the water quality and studied the health of the Spanish Fork River’s ecosystem for several years.

Her six-month longitudinal study, Troubled Waters, in which she determined causes of pollution in the river and identified remediation strategies, won her the Intel prize. From May through October of 2003, Shannon and her father awoke at 4 a.m. several days a month to perform chemical, physical and biological tests at sites on the river’s primary tributaries, Thistle Creek, Soldier Creek and the Diamond Fork River, as well as sites upstream and downstream from the city of Spanish Fork.

The pair’s research activities were not without peril. Shannon encountered a cougar during one trip that “was more scared of me than I was of it,” she said.

On another trip, the two were caught in a snowstorm and “sank to our necks in snow.” On yet another occasion, Shannon’s father fell in freezing water. “It’s important to always have a change of dry clothing,” says Shannon, who carries about 50 lbs. of gear during her research outings.

Recipients of the prestigious Intel award have gone on to become Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science winners and MacArthur Foundation fellows.

“Intel’s science talent search is like the holy grail in youth science research,” says Shannon, of the prize that carries a $100,000 college scholarship. “And I was shocked when I heard my name. First of all, it rarely goes to students in environmental science, is usually awarded to someone east of the Mississippi and most of the recipients have been male.”

This past year, Shannon completed a yet-to-be-published study, Deadly Waters: A Twelve-Month Water Quality Study of a Newly Erupted Sulfur Spring and its Longitudinal Effect on Diamond Fork Creek, in which she reveals the source of milky white hydrogen sulfide in a Spanish Fork River tributary.

Nowadays, Shannon, who wields the tools of her trade – a kick net, a turbidity tube and a dissolved oxygen testing kit – with familiar ease, has a curriculum vitae rivaling those of doctoral candidates. With her mounting list of achievements and scholarship awards, Shannon has been sought after by numerous schools around the country, but she chose Utah State as her college destination. USU’s Watershed Sciences Department, says Shannon, is one of the few of its kind in the world and she looks forward to continued study in her chosen field.

During a week of activities surrounding Intel’s awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., where she had the opportunity to meet President Bush, several members of Congress, EPA chief Steve Johnson and United Nations water quality director Richard Robarts, Shannon publicly thanked Mesner for her help in what has become “an amazing journey.”

“Because Shannon mentioned me, I’ve been getting emails from around the country asking what I did to mentor her,” says Mesner, who serves as associate dean of USU’s College of Natural Resources and associate professor in the Watershed Sciences Department. “I always answer, ‘What Shannon’s accomplished, she’s done herself.’ My job is simply to plant a lot of little intellectual seeds and provide a little nourishment along the way.”