Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR): A Resource Guide for Professional Science Master’s Degree Programs
Case Studies from Environmental Sciences
Case: Salmon Restoration, Gravel Injection and Mitigation
Discipline:
Environmental Sciences
Title:
Case study salmon restoration and gravel injection and mitigation
Author:
John Nishio, Ph.D.
Gravel injection is commonly used to reconstruct or construct spawning grounds. Construction of
spawning grounds requires heavy equipment and transport of materials to the stream bed.
Construction of the spawning ground may destroy a different type of habitat directly, and during the
process of construction due to heavy equipment moving across meadows, for example. Of course it
is not legal to spill oil. However, it is necessary to use trucks and equipment to develop spawning
grounds. The equipment may leak hydraulic oil. Equipment that enters the water must use
vegetable oil in their hydraulic systems, but trucks that don’t actually enter the water don’t. The
trucks may leak petroleum oil directly in the dry streambed during preparation. Is it worth the cost
of converting all equipment that is used on the project to a different oil?
Teaching Questions

When is it worth it to destroy one habitat to produce another? Put another way, is it
sometimes necessary to mitigate the mitigation process?
o The answer is yes, sometimes. Think of times when that may occur. What might be
possible solutions?

Risk/benefit decisions. What is the intent of the regulation? Allowing some oil allows more
spawning grounds to be constructed, for example. What is the cost to convert all equipment
involved in the project to vegetable oil? Is it better not to do the project?
o This case study is left as more open case, because it is interesting to have students
develop them and think about possible problems.
The issues that may be addressed depending on their responses are the following:

Collaboration

Conflict of interest
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Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR): A Resource Guide for Professional Science Master’s Degree Programs

Social Responsibility

Research Misconduct

Environmental Responsibility
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