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August
1999
Water
Policy News
Newsletter of the Water Resources Education Network
In this Issue
Community Projects Funded, Leaders Network
State Parks Offers Watershed Education Program
Final Swap Goes to EPA
The following items will take you off this page and
place you in other areas of our site:
1999 WREN Funded
Projects- Watershed Ed. for Pollution Prevention
1999 WREN Funded
Projects- Drinking Water Source Protection
Calendar
Community
Projects Funded, Leaders Network
What do geese at Fairmount Park, storm sewers in the City
of York and homes along streams in the Perkiomen and Green Valleys area
watersheds have in common? These problem areas, along with many others
that threaten watersheds and drinking water supplies in Pennsylvania
will be the focus of educational activities carried out by local partnerships
and funded by the Water Resources Education Network project of the League
of Women Voters of PA Citizen Education Fund.
Nineteen local partnerships have been awarded grants of up to $3000
to hold workshops, develop brochures and websites, erect indoor and
outdoor displays and train students and teachers in watershed monitoring
techniques and drinking water protection issues. Eight of the projects
will focus on watershed protection and eleven on drinking water source
protection. Funding for the projects comes from grants to the LWVPA-CEF
from the PA Department of Environmental Protection.
Representatives of the projects gathered recently at an orientation
and networking meeting to share ideas, gather resources and get suggestions
from experienced project leaders, state and federal resource people,
and media and fund-raising experts.
All the projects will be completed in the coming year and interested
community members are encouraged to help project partners. A list of
projects, their activities and contacts can be found on pages two and
three of this newsletter.
State
Parks Offers Watershed Education Program
For years, environmentally savvy teachers have been trained
in and used the Pennsylvania State Parks water quality monitoring program
to teach their students about water resource issues. Now, teachers will
have an opportunity to take their students beyond the stream boundaries
to look at the watershed as a whole through the Bureau of State Parks
new Watershed Education program.
Watershed Education is designed for students in grades six and up. It
incorporates action oriented, multi-disciplinary learning methods to
enhance watershed awareness. It promotes investigation, research and
decision making skills. Community involvement is encouraged. Networking
with community members, other schools, resource agencies and local businesses
will foster use of the community as an extension of the classroom.
Teachers can attend a training workshop sponsored by the Bureau of State
Parks at which they will receive a manual to guide their students. The
Bureau will assist in developing community partnerships and will maintain
a web page and database. The Bureau will also coordinate topic-specific
seminars and student leadership conferences.
For information on how to participate in the program, call Terri Kromel,
Statewide Coordinator, at 717-783-4361. Or call the WREN Resource Center
at 1-800-692-7281 for a list of state parks offering watershed education.
Final
Swap Goes to EPA
DEP has submitted to EPA the Pennsylvania Source Water Assessment
and Protection Program (SWAP), a document required by the Safe Drinking
Water Act to show how the state will meet the requirement that all sources
of drinking water serving public water systems be assessed by the end
of 2001. For Pennsylvania, this means assessing more than 14,000 drinking
water sources. According to the advocacy group Clean Water Action, the
Plan was greatly improved through the public participation process used
to develop it.
The WREN project published a Special Edition of Water Policy News on
the Pennsylvania SWAP, Protecting Drinking Water Sources. The Special
Edition was mailed to the WPN mailing list in April and to all public
water
suppliers in July. If you did not receive your copy, or would like additional
copies to distribute in your community, call the WREN Resource Center,
1-800-692-7281.
This newsletter is a project of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania
Citizen Education Fund - WREN. Funded by a grant from the PA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
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