Water Headlines for June 23, 2008

Benjamin H. Grumbles
Assistant Administrator
Office of Water

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:

• Estuaries Preparing to Be Climate Ready
• EPA Awards the Water Quality Standards Forum Cooperative Agreement
• Successful Meeting of the US-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program Partners
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Estuaries Preparing to Be Climate Ready

EPA has selected six estuaries to be case studies for local action to protect sensitive coastal ecosystems and economies from the potential effects of climate change. This is the first step in EPA’s new "Climate Ready Estuaries" effort to build local ability to adapt to climate change.

"EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries work will help coastal communities understand and adapt to climate change," said Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. "Our aim is to build capacity for local decision makers and resource managers to help take pro-active, practical steps for bays at risk."

The six pilots include New Hampshire Estuaries Project, Massachusetts Bays Estuary Program, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, Albemarle-Pamlico Sounds National Estuary Program, Charlotte Harbor Estuary Program and San Francisco Estuary Project.

Each estuary program will receive technical assistance to assess and reduce their vulnerability to climate change. The programs will apply analyses and tools to help them make decisions to protect their communities and build knowledge to help other communities adapt to a changing climate. Communities with plans approved by their local stakeholders will be designated as "Climate Ready Estuaries" by EPA. The Climate Ready Estuaries effort will take the lessons learned from the pilots to provide information and leadership to other coastal communities around the nation. Under the Climate Ready Estuaries framework, EPA will use the 28 National Estuary Programs, Web-based resources and other means identified through the initial pilots to support local efforts in all of the nation’s coastal communities to effectively plan and adapt to climate change.

The Climate Ready Estuaries program is one of more than 40 specific actions to respond to the water-related impacts of climate change that are described in a draft strategy developed by the National Water Program. The draft strategy is designed to help water resource managers adapt their programs to a changing climate. For more information on Climate Ready Estuaries: http://www.epa.gov/owow/estuaries/cre.html. For information on the water climate change strategy: http://www.epa.gov/water/climatechange.

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EPA Awards the Water Quality Standards Forum Cooperative Agreement

EPA has awarded a cooperative agreement to Water Environment Federation (WEF) to conduct the Water Quality Standards (WQS) Forum. The WQS Forum is a four-year, $400,000 cooperative agreement aimed at providing information sharing and technical solution transfer between the states and EPA on WQS issues. The key elements of the cooperative agreement are:
- Development of a state-only WQS Forum (including at least ten states, one from each EPA region) that involves monthly conference calls and at least one face-to-face meeting per year;
- Development of a state-EPA workgroup (including Forum members and select EPA participants) that meets face-to-face at least once per year and holds bimonthly conference calls; and
- Development of a training and information dissemination strategy to enhance knowledge of WQS topics identified by the Forum.
Office of Science and Technology staff and the WEF project team kicked off work on the cooperative agreement on June 17. In the next month, WEF plans to compile a list of possible Forum members and issue a request for a professional facilitator who will facilitate calls and meetings for the term of the cooperative agreement. For more information, contact Janita Aguirre at 202-566-1149.

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Successful Meeting of the US-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program Partners

On June 11, 2008, representatives from EPA Headquarters, Regions 6 and 9, the Mexican National Water Commission CONAGUA, the North American Development Bank, and the Border Environment Cooperation Commission held meetings in Washington, D.C. In addition to reviewing binational water infrastructure program successes, the participants also discussed future planning for ongoing environmental and public health projects along the US-Mexico Border. To date, the program has resulted in nearly 24,000 homes with new drinking water service and over 100,000 homes with new wastewater collection service. It is estimated that approximately 7 million people will benefit from all of the completed projects.

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