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Water Headlines for July 30, 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 Launches New Tribal Portal Web siteEPA launched the first-of-its-kind portal website to help the tribal community and the public find tribal environmental information and data through a single web-based access point. The new tribal portal site allows EPA to consolidate and share environmental information through a central, easy-to-navigate structure. Various EPA programs, such as enforcement, waste, underground storage tanks and water, are also consolidating their tribal information through this website. Visit the tribal portal: http://www.epa.gov/tribalportal/. Tribal Access to Water InfrastructureThe Environmental Protection Agency and four other federal agencies signed two important tribal infrastructure agreements to improve water infrastructure on tribal lands and focus efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and basic wastewater facilities to tribes. The first agreement promotes coordination between federal tribal infrastructure programs and financial services. The second agreement was created to improve access to safe drinking water and wastewater facilities on tribal lands. The agreements were signed by EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Visit the Web site at: http://www.epa.gov/tribalportal/mous.htm. Stormwater and the Clean Watersheds Needs SurveyThis year, EPA will begin working with stormwater Phase I and II communities and state permitting authorities to better document stormwater capital needs (costs for stormwater infrastructure that will be needed over the next twenty years) in the Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS). The CWNS is a report to Congress (issued every four years) on the capital needs for wastewater, stormwater, and nonpoint sources. While stormwater has been a listed category in the CWNS for some time, reporting of these needs by Phase I and II communities has been very limited. In preparation for the 2008 CWNS, EPA would like to work closely with community stormwater managers to better document and report these important needs. In order to help improve reporting and reach out to local government managers, EPA is announcing a series of webcasts on the CWNS process. The first few webcasts will provide an overview of the CWNS and the process used to document and report capital project needs. In the early fall, there will be a webcast targeted toward Phase I and II stormwater managers. We encourage you to attend these webcasts so that your capital needs for stormwater infrastructure are documented and recognized in the next CWNS and presented to Congress. For more information on these free webcasts, visit: http://www.epa.gov/cwns/cwns2008.htm. EPA Issues National Management Measures to Control Nonpoint Source Pollution from HydromodificationEPA has issued a guidance document called National Management Measures to Control Nonpoint Source Pollution from Hydromodification. This guidance document provides background information about nonpoint (NPS) source pollution and offers a variety of solutions for reducing NPS pollution resulting from hydromodification activities including dams, channelization and channel modification, and streambank and shoreline erosion. The background information includes a discussion of sources of NPS pollution associated with hydromodification and how the generated pollutants enter the Nation’s waters. The document presents practices that can be used to implement the management measures discussed in this guidance and provides a discussion of assessing and addressing water quality problems on a watershed level. Available models and assessment approaches that could be used to determine the effects of hydromodification activities are also discussed and dam removal information, including permitting requirements, process, and techniques for dam removal are provided. This guidance document is posted at: http://www.epa.gov/nps/hydromod/. For further information call Chris Solloway at 202-566-1202. 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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