March, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 11 
Organization has set up a task group to develop 
guidelines on quality assurance methods 
related to aquatic ecology. A request is being 
put forth for any information related to the 
above mentioned area. Anyone interested can 
respond to Martyn Kelly at 
Bowburn_Consultancy@ CompuServe .com. 
Ron also let us know that Paul Scott had sent 
an email with the well received news that his 
book is at the printers. The Mollusca specialists 
were over-joyed. 
Upcoming meetings were reiterated. The AMS 
will be holding its conference in conjunction 
with the WSM this year from July 7-12 at San 
Francisco State University. There is also a 
Coastal and Estuarine Risk Assessment Forum 
from July 20 - 21,2000 at the Virginia Institute 
of Marine Science (William & Mary campus). 
For more information please see the VIMS web 
site at: 
http: //www. vims .edu/env/departments/ 
ri skchem/ev ents .html. 
The officers were then queried as to any issues 
they had. Secretary Megan Lilly voiced her 
concern over a recent trend she’s seen 
developing within the last year. Because of the 
number of taxonomic problems which arose 
during the B’98 survey, SCAMIT meetings 
have been being held on a bi-monthly basis for 
the last year or so (which, as of the writing of 
this newsletter, has ceased and we are back to 
the normal once a month schedule). Within the 
last 4 months a number of meetings have been 
canceled at the last minute (the Friday 
afternoon before the Monday meeting) because 
of a lack of interest on the part of many of the 
potential attendees (some people were burned 
out from the bi-monthly schedule). The 
secretary took issue with this because 
inevitably some attendees were not receiving 
the notice of cancellation in advance (it being a 
last minute decision) and were showing up to 
meetings which had been canceled. Setting 
aside time to attend a meeting, only to arrive 
and find it canceled, must be frustrating to say 
the least. So, the Secretary would like to put 
forth a request that in the future a minimum of 
a week’s notice of cancellation be given, if this 
cannot be done, then the meeting needs to go 
forward as planned. 
Don Cadien reminded those present that it is 
time to call for nominations for the upcoming 
SCAMIT officer elections. John Ljubenkov 
and Don then proceeded to nominate the 
existing suite of officers. Ron Velarde 
(president) accepted the nomination as well as 
Megan Lilly (secretary). 
John Ljubenkov told us about a web-site, 
http://www.sciplus.com/ 
where surplus microscopes and related 
equipment can be found relatively 
inexpensively. John has already purchased and 
received a dissecting scope, and is expecting a 
new compound scope as well. These items are 
coming from financially strapped institutions in 
Russia, and are good equipment at very 
advantageous prices ($595). The dissecting 
scope came with an integral substage, and a 
light source to fit it. We will report on the 
compound scope once John receives it and has 
a chance to evaluate its optics. 
The taxonomy portion of the meeting started 
with mollusca. We had Dot Norris joining us 
from the City and County and of San Francisco 
and she had brought a small, unidentified 
bivalve from just outside the mouth of SF Bay. 
It was studied with great fervor, but the 
members present were not able to identify it. It 
was felt that it was probably an introduced 
species and left at Bivalvia sp for the time 
being (see front page). Megan Lilly had 
brought a small Eulimidae from ITP Station 
2685(1), 7/28/99,398 ft. Upon examination the 
animal was identified as Vitreolina macra.As 
well, a Cyclostremella californica was 
identified from ITP regional station 2679, 8/3/ 
99,40 ft. Tony Phillips (CLAEMD) had 
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