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Water Headlines for April 7, 2006Benjamin H. Grumbles Water Headlines is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water. In This Week’s Water Headlines:
Izaak Walton WebcastEPA employee Rod Frederick participated in a Webcast in conjunction with the Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA) about making your backyard wetland friendly on March 28. The Webcast is available on-line as an archived streaming video, along with list of resources. This is part of the League’s promotion of wetlands preservation and a highlight of their activities for American Wetlands Month. The League will offer two series of live Webcasts called Conserving Wetlands Through Land Management. In March and April, they will provide homeowners and small business owners information about gardening and other backyard techniques to conserve wetlands and improve water quality. Then, beginning in May, IWLA will explore how to treat highway runoff with affordable and manageable techniques that replicate pre-construction hydrology. See www.iwla.org for more information. 1996 Protocol on Ocean Dumping Enters Into ForceA significant milestone for the protection of the marine environment was reached on March 24 with the entry into force of the 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972 (known as the London Convention). The 1996 Protocol is a freestanding treaty that updates and significantly improves the 1972 London Convention. Unlike the London Convention, which lists substances that may not be dumped, the Protocol prohibits ocean dumping of any materials except those specifically identified in the Protocol. For the materials that may be considered for dumping, the Protocol provides assessment procedures that must be followed before such dumping is permitted. The United States, which was in the forefront of countries negotiating the Protocol, currently is evaluating the legislative changes that would be necessary to ratify the 1996 Protocol. For more information on ocean dumping, visit: www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/regulatory/dumpdredged/dumpdredged.html Water Efficiency FactoidWeather-based irrigation controllers use local climate data to provide the right amount of water to keep landscaped areas looking beautiful. With proper programming, weather-based controllers can reduce water use by an average of 20 percent compared to conventional equipment, potentially saving over 11 billion gallons of water per year across the US - enough to fill 18,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Subscribe to Water HeadlinesPlease forward this message to your friends and colleagues who share an interest in water-related issues and would like to hear from EPA's Office of Water. To subscribe to the Water Headlines listserve: Send an email message, leave the subject line blank, and address it to: In the body of the message write: Subscribe Water Headlines first name last name (Please leave one blank space between each word, do not include any other message, and use your actual name- i.e. Subscribe Water Headlines Robert Jones)
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