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Watersheds
Watershed News from Around the Nation
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Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds news
Community Spirit on the Anacostia River - Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Bladensburg, MD was the site of the Anacostia Watershed Society's (AWS) 15th Annual Trash Cleanup and Earth Day Celebration on Saturday, 4/18/09. Volunteers were able to remove 51 tons of trash and floating debris from 30 sites along the river in one day. Designated as "impaired by trash" in early 2007, the Anacostia is only the second river in the United States to receive this dubious recognition. An estimated 20,000 tons or trash and debris enter the river each year. Following the cleanups, volunteers and the public were invited to help celebrate the day with food, live entertainment, and community spirit. AWS gave away tote bags in order to support initiatives in Washington, DC and Maryland seeking to reduce plastic bag waste on the Anacostia. EPA's Mid Atlantic Region was one of the event's sponsors.
Award Winners for 2009 Protect Philadelphia's Hidden Streams are Honored - On Thursday, April 30, the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary and the Philadelphia Water Department will host an awards ceremony at the Fairmount Water Works to honor the winners of its 2009 “Protect Philadelphia’s Hidden Streams” art contest. In all, over 1,500 entries were received. The first-place drawings for each age category will be displayed on advertisements for one year inside SEPTA buses and trains, where they will be seen by millions of commuters. These, along with eight other award-winning entries, will be published in a free calendar. Winning videos will also be highlighted in the calendar, in addition to being featured on YouTube (keyword search “Delaware Estuary”) and the websites of both the Philadelphia Water Department and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. Since 2000, this competition has helped to educate thousands of schoolchildren about pollution that occurs when rainwater flows across the land on its way into nearby waterways, washing pollutants like fertilizers, litter, and leaky motor oil into storm drains. View the winning drawings and short films
EPA Contributions to reforestation in Appalachia Coal Country featured in Newsweek magazine - On March 27, 2009 Newsweek magazine featured an article on reforestation in the Appalachia Coal Country .This reforestation effort is encouraged and attended by the Eastern Coal Regional Roundtable (ECRR) located in Mullens, West Virginia, an interregional/interstate forum funded in part by USEPA FY2007 Targeted Watershed Initiative Grant (TWIG) funds. Stakeholders from 9 states participate in mini-roundtable discussions to identify barriers to grassroots watershed work in the Appalachian coal country. Reforestation activities are only one of many environmental and community efforts of the ECRR. The Roundtable was originally created and funded in FY2000 by USEPA/OWOW and other Federal agencies as one of several watershed forums throughout the US to promote interstate and local discussions to identify and evaluate possible resolutions of environmental problems that are unique to those discrete geographic areas.
Currently, the ECRR is conducting free training and informational sessions twice a year throughout Appalachia for local watershed groups. The goal of the ECRR is to empower those watershed groups to be better able to identify and address local environmental issues which their communities could encounter. To date, the ECRR held two training sessions with two more planned in the Spring and Fall 2009, and a final gathering in Spring 2010. More than 200 people from over 50 local watershed groups attended the first sessions. These sessions covered water monitoring practices, data management, partnership building, and fiscal sustainability, including writing and implementing fundraising plans, board development and providing environmental protection to the Appalachian coal country waterways.
Anacostia Watershed - part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, 85% of which resides within Maryland and 15% within the District of Columbia
Chesapeake Bay - the largest estuary in the U.S., about 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland to Norfolk, Virginia
Elizaberth River Watershed - the Elizabeth River Project has received $1.18M in EPA grants; this river flows through Virginia into the Chesapeake Bay
Schuylkill Watershed - includes parts of 11 counties in southeastern Pennsylvania
Watersheds Map - large-scale watersheds in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia
Watershed Plans - Nonpoint Source Pollution - what is being done to reduce polluted runoff
Data - national water databases
Tools to Evaluate Our Progress - environmental indicators and the Logic Model
Nonpoint Sources - polluted runoff, comes from diffuse or scattered sources in the environment rather than from a defined outlet such as a pipe
Monitoring - taking and testing water samples
Stormwater - runoff from land and impervious areas such as streets, parking lots, and roofs during rain and snow events; regulated under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program
Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) - the maximum amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standard
