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January
2001
Water
Policy News
Newsletter of the Water Resources Education Network
In this Issue
Pennsylvania to Host 2001 Groundwater Guardian Conference
WREN 2001 Grants Available
Growing Greener Grants Available
Pennsylvania Groundwater Guardians Recognized
Camphill Village Stream Stewards
Monoshone Creek Festival
Unraveling the Mystery of TMDLS
Spring=Water Festivals
New Videos are Available in the WREN Resource
Center
Pennsylvania
to Host 2001 Groundwater Guardian Conferences
The Groundwater Foundation has selected Pittsburgh as the
location for the annual Groundwater conference and Groundwater Guardian
Designation ceremony. WREN, PA Rural Water Association and others will
be working with the Foundation to assure a fun and resource filled three
days.
"The conference is a valuable event for anyone involved with education
about water resources, whatever your audience," said Sherene Hess,
WREN Project Manager. "Attendees will learn about successful activities
undertaken in communities across the country, and go home inspired to
share what they've learned in their own communities".
The conference theme is "technologies communities can use to protect
their drinking water."
Dates are November 14-16 and the location is the Pittsburgh Hilton and
Towers. WREN will provide scholarships to PA community representatives
interested in attending. Contact Hess at 724-465-4978, email: sherenehess@yourinter.net
for information.
WREN
2001 Grants Available
Once again, WREN is making small grants (up to $5,000) available
to community coalitions undertaking water resources education activities.
Projects may relate to protection of drinking water sources or to watershed
protection.
Grant guidelines are available by calling 800-692-7281 or may be found
in our grants area.
Deadline for applications is April 3 and successful applicants will
be notified by May 15. A meeting for successful grantees will be held
June 14-15 in Boiling Springs. Funding for the grants program comes
from the PA Department of Environmental Protection.
Growing
Greener Grants Available
PADEP has announced the third round of Growing Greener grants for
local watershed-based planning, restoration and protection efforts.
Watershed and other non-profit groups, Conservation Districts, schools,
governments and water systems are eligible to apply for funding. Deadline
is March 9.
Eligible proposals will address nonpoint source pollution in the short-term
or long-term.
The grant application is available on the DEP website: www.dep.state.pa.us
Pennsylvania
Groundwater Guardians Recognized
Congratulations to the Groundwater Guardian communities
of Allegheny County, Lebanon County, Mars Area School District (Lawrence
County), Telford (Montgomery County), Washington County, Antis Township
(Blair County), and Kutztown Borough (Berks County) all receiving recognition
for three years or more. New Groundwater Guardian communities this year
are Carbon County and Carroll and Franklin townships and Dillsburg borough,
York County.
Groundwater Guardian is an international program that supports, recognizes,
and connects communities working to protect groundwater. It is designed
to empower local citizens and motivate communities to take voluntary
steps toward protecting their groundwater resources.
The Water Resources Education Network (WREN) also earned Groundwater
Guardian designation in 2000 marking its fourth straight year of designation
as a Groundwater Guardian Affiliate.
To attain Groundwater Guardian designation, communities must commit
to and complete "Results Oriented Activities" throughout the
year. To learn more about each of these communities' groundwater protection
efforts and accomplishments, visit the local
projects area on our Website. For more information about how to
become a Groundwater Guardian Community, visit the Groundwater Foundation's
website at http://www.groundwater.org/
Camphill
Village Stream Stewards
Camphill Village Kimberton Hills in Chester County has teamed up with
Phoenixville High School, Stroud Water Research Institute and Upattinas
Alternative School to bring an environmental stewardship message to
fellow landowners on a small tributary to French Creek. The Team has
created a streambank stewardship project that includes landowner education,
native plantings, fencing and removal of invasive species.
Camphill Village itself operates a small dairy farm, with grazing cattle
that formerly had unlimited access to the stream. Many neighboring landowners
are also dairy farmers. Under the guidance of Village leaders, Phoenixville
High School students met with several neighboring landowners and explained
the value of good riparian management. Students and Village residents,
who are adults with developmental disabilities, along with Americorps
volunteers, undertook the streambank planting project over the summer
months. Stroud Water Research conducted a Stream School on healthy streams
for the Americorps volunteers.
Phoenixville students have been conducted water monitoring on the stream
and will be posting results on a website that is under development.
The students also made a presentation about the project to West Vincent
Township Supervisors.
For more information on the project, contact Judy Stevens, 610-935-0300,
or email: camphillwater@nni.com
Monoshone
Creek Festival
Stroud Water Research Center attracts a curious crowd at
the Monoshone Creek Festival with their fifteen foot inflatable frog.
"Erp" (a coastal plain leopard frog) leads visitors to SWRC's
interactive exhibit, Stream Day, which includes six stations on various
aspects of water quality. Other displays at the creek celebration included
student-produced information on preventing non?point source pollution.
Following the festival students at Fulton Elementary School learned
about water quality testing along with Senior Environmental Corps members
from the Center in the Park in Northwest Philadelphia.
Monoshone Creek flows through and under the Germantown area of northwest
Philadelphia and suffers from all the insults of urban development.
It receives urban stormwater from the area before flowing into the Schuylkill
River. Philadelphia Water Department, a partner in the Monoshone Creek
project, is helping to educate residents about the impacts of urban
runoff on their drinking water source both in terms of water quality
and the added expense for treatment.
For more information contact Vivian Williams at 610-268-2153 X. 249
or email vwilliams@stroudcenter.org.
Unraveling
the Mystery of TMDLS
Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, has been described as
a watershed budget for pollutants -- how much of a pollutant can be
assimilated by a stream without causing the stream, or its uses, to
be impaired. In 1997, following a lawsuit brought by environmental groups,
PA DEP and US EPA reached an agreement on a 12-year schedule for developing
TMDLs for all impaired streams. Impaired streams are identified in the
state's "303(d)" report, named for the Section of the Clean
Water Act that requires it. DEP is now two years into the development
of TMDLs and on schedule. A TMDL defines a plan for reducing the loading
of the pollutant(s) that are causing impairment of the stream. To learn
more about the process, streams affected, and public meetings on draft
TMDLs, visit the DEP website, www.dep.state.pa.us
and Directlink to TMDL.
PA DEP is also in the midst of assessing all the waters in the state
to determine their existing quality (the Unassessed Waters Program)
and is finding additional impaired streams in the process. This five-year
program began in 1997 and is about 50% complete. Streams are being assessed
using biological monitoring. Although previous reports showed most impaired
streams were affected by acid mine drainage, the Unassessed Waters Program
has determined that an equal number of stream miles is affected by agriculture.
For more information about either program, contact Carol Young, at
717-783-2952 or email: cayoung
@state.pa.us
Spring=Water
Festivals
This Spring Pennsylvania will have two major water
festivals and several smaller ones. Washington County Watershed Alliance
will host its sixth annual Children's Groundwater Festival for more
than 1100 sixth grade students at California University on Tuesday,
May 16. This highly successful event is organized and hosted almost
entirely by volunteers with assistance coming from high school and University
students and county agencies. Contact: Steve Carbol at the Washington
County Conservation District, 724-228-6774.
The Lehigh Valley Water Suppliers, in partnership with The Discovery
Center of Science and Technology, will host a festival at Cedar Crest
College in Allentown on May 10. Hydromania! will target 800 4th graders
from Lehigh Valley schools. Contact: Liesel M. Adam at 610-398-2503
or email: lieseladam@lehighcountyauthority.org
Both festivals are modeled on the Nebraska Children's Groundwater Festival,
which continues this year on March 13 at Grand Island, NE. This annual
event reaches thousands of students and their teachers and has been
replicated around the world.
New
Videos are Available in the WREN Resource Center Learn
more in our video area on the Website.
A Guide to Water Testing
(The Washington County Watershed Alliance, 10 minutes, 2000)
This short video explains water monitoring. Trained volunteers demonstrate
two forms of equipment, the Kick-Net and the D-Frame Net which are used
to collect insects from both rocky bottom and muddy bottom streams.
In addition to illustrating the collection of micro organizims, the
video gives a brief description on the process of testing for various
chemicals in a stream.
Stormy Weather: Clean Water Begins and Ends with You
(Philadelphia Water Department, 1999, 22 minutes)
"Stormy Weather" takes a gritty look at the hazards of stormwater
runoff in Philadelphia.~ The densely populated urban watershed, with
its concentration of people, pets, vehicles and other pollution sources,
poses extreme risks to the health of rivers and our drinking water sources.
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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