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Water Headlines for January 11, 2007Benjamin 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:
EPA Commits $10 Million to Protect the Nation’s BeachesThirty states and five territories will share $10 million in grants for beach water-quality monitoring and public notification programs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday, January 9. Beach water-quality monitoring helps local authorities identify what steps to take to reduce pollution and can lead to advisories or closures when bacteria concentrations reach unhealthy levels. The grant amount is based on the length of the beach season, miles of beaches and number of beachgoers. All 35 coastal and Great Lakes states and territories maintain monitoring programs using the EPA funding. "The Bush Administration is committed to keeping America's beaches and Great Lakes shores clean and healthy," said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. "By improving water quality and informing beachgoers, EPA is helping States and communities protect public health and coastal ecosystems and economies." EPA is also focusing efforts on developing new technologies to rapidly analyze beaches for bacteria contamination. Studies involving state-of-the-art detection methods, coupled with population and illness surveys, are under way at various beaches to evaluate the new analytical approaches. During the past seven years, EPA has provided nearly $62 million under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000. Before the BEACH Act passed, state and local monitoring and notification programs often differed across the country and provided varying levels of swimmer protection. EPA estimates that Americans make 910 million trips to coastal areas each year, spending about $44 billion. If all 35 eligible states and territories apply and meet the performance criteria, the distribution of the funds for year 2007 is expected to be:
More information: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/beaches/grants/ Deadline Approaching for Quality Trading Awards ProgramThe nomination deadline for the Blue Ribbon Water Quality Trading Awards Program is January 16, 2007. This new awards program recognizes outstanding leadership in designing or implementing water quality trading programs and policies that have achieved or will achieve environmental and economic benefits. Trading programs allow facilities facing higher pollutant control costs to meet their regulatory obligations by purchasing environmentally equivalent (or superior) pollutant reductions from another source at lower cost. Programs may nominate themselves or be nominated by a third party. For more information about Water Quality Trading, please visit http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/trading.htm For more information about the Blue Ribbon Water Quality Trading Awards Program including the Federal Register notice on the program, please visit http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/trading/awards.html Water Efficiency FactoidDid you know if every home replaced their old toilet with a new high efficiency toilet, more than 900 billion gallons of water would be saved per year - enough to supply almost 10 million U.S. households? More information: http://www.epa.gov/watersense/ 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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