Announcements for August 11, 2009:
- Upcoming TMDL Public Meetings in Virginia -- August and September 2009
- Sierra Club of DC and PPWH Joint Event -- August 22, 2009
- Groundwater Foundation -- Webinar -- August 25, 2009
- 2010 Citizen Monitoring Grant Program -- Applications due August 31, 2009
- Water JAM 2009 -- September 13 - 17, 2009
- Call for Papers and Posters -- Maryland Water Monitoring Council 15th ANNUAL CONFERENCE -- Conference: December 3, 2009; Abstracts due September 18, 2009
- Funding Opportunity -- Hydrologic Sciences -- NSF 09-538 -- Due December 5 or June 1.
- USDA Releases Census of Agriculture by Watersheds
- EPA Approves Alternative Methods for Testing Regulated Contaminants in Drinking Water
- NPDES Overview Course for Permitees -- Available On-line
Please feel free to forward these announcements. When forwarding, please acknowledge the Virginia Water Monitoring Council. Special thank you to Ashley Allison, VWMC intern, for her help in pulling together these announcements.
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1. Upcoming TMDL Public Meetings in Virginia
August 15, 2009 -- For more information, see http://www.deq.virginia.gov/tmdl/homepage.html
- August 18: September 16: Comment period for Pocomoke Sound/Pocomoke River TMDL modification
- August 18: Lawnes Creek - Isle of Wight, Surry
- August 18: Accotink Creek - Fairfax
- August 26: Elizabeth River - Tidewater
- August 27: Meherrin River and tributaries - Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Charlotte, Brunswick
- September 1: Ware, Taskinas, and Skimono Creeks - New Kent, James City, York
- September 1: Cod, Presley, Hull, Rogers, and Bridgeman Creeks, Fountain Cove, and Cubitt and Hack Creeks - Northumberland
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2. Sierra Club of DC and Providing People with Honey (PPWH) Joint Event
Aug. 22, 2009 -- (2 - 5 pm) -- Seafarers Yacht Club, 1950 M St SE, Washington, DC 20003 -- Please RSVP to Diana Artemis at: artemdi@yahoo.com. Program includes, "Today’s Anacostia River is the US’s most polluted river!" and "True Cost of Food / True Cost of Housing (TCOF/TCOH)." For a map to the Seafarers' Yacht Club, visit: http://seafarersyachtclub.org/3calendar.html. For more information see http://www.sierraclub.org/DC/Sprawl/bec/food.html and http://www.ppwh.org.
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3. Groundwater Foundation Webinar
Aug, 25, 2009 (2 pm) -- Sustainable groundwater development using GIS and groundwater modeling will be the topic of the upcoming Groundwater Foundation Webinar. The event will be led by Karen Griffin O’Connor, a Senior Scientist with Olsson Associates in Lincoln, Nebraska. She will share how Olsson Associates uses GIS mapping and groundwater modeling to help promote sustainable groundwater development in Nebraska. She will also present a few project case studies of GIS work with the Lower Platte North and Lewis and Clark Natural Resources Districts. For the groundwater modeling project, she will share the results from a model developed to evaluate the potential impacts of new high capacity wells near Hastings, Nebraska. To register for the event, visit The Groundwater Foundation’s website at www.groundwater.org and click on the Webinars button. For more information, email webinar@groundwater.org or call 1-800-858-4844.
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4. 2010 Citizen Monitoring Grant Program
Applications are due August 31, 2009 -- The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality requests applications that will support citizen volunteer and related water quality monitoring efforts in the Commonwealth. Grant applicants may apply either for the regular grant or for the mini-grant. The regular grant is for any organization that involves volunteer monitoring of water quality in Virginia, and the grant may be used to purchase water quality monitoring equipment, train citizen volunteers, cover lab analyses, etc. (Maximum $5,000). The mini-grant is for organizations new to water quality monitoring. Funds may go towards capacity building of the group through recruitment and similar activities as well as water quality monitoring. To apply for the mini-grant, applicants must not have received a DEQ Citizen Monitoring Grant for the past three grant cycles. In addition, mini-grant recipients must use at least one third of the award directly for water quality monitoring activities (Maximum $1,000). For more information and an application, see http://www.deq.virginia.gov/cmonitor/grant.html or contact Stuart Torbeck at (804) 698-4461 or by e-mail at Charles.Torbeck@deq.virginia.gov.
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5. Water JAM 2009
September 13 - 17, 2009 -- Greater Richmond Convention Center, Richmond, Va -- Registrant Contact Info: Cathy LaRue, Phone: 757-363-1760, Email: cathy.larue@vaawwa.org; Exhibitor Contact Info: Jay Givens, Phone: 540-678-1557, Email: vweaadm@shentel.net. Sponsored by Virginia Water Environment Association and Virginia Section of the American Water Works Association. See http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/default.aspx?EventID=728830.
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6. Call for Papers and Posters -- Maryland Water Monitoring Council 15th Annual Conference
December 3, 2009 -- Maritime Institute, North Linthicum, Maryland -- The conference theme, Water Quality Success Stories: it Ain’t all Doom and Gloom, will focus on the successes in water quality and aquatic habitat improvement programs throughout the State.
Preference will be given to papers and posters that emphasize either documentation of water quality/aquatic habitat improvements or at least one successful aspect of a water quality-related project. Abstracts submitted for oral presentations should describe completed projects with documented results. Abstracts that focus on project plans or updates to projects in progress are more suitable for posters. The deadline for submission of abstracts is September 18, 2009. For instructions on submitting abstracts, see www.marylandwatermonitoring.org or contact: Dan Boward, Executive Secretary; Maryland Water Monitoring Council, Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources, 580 Taylor Ave.; C-2, Annapolis, Maryland 21401; (410) 260-8605; dboward@dnr.state.md.us.
7. Funding Opportunity -- Hydrologic Sciences
NSF 09-538 -- Focuses on the flow of water and transport processes within streams, soils, and aquifers. Particular attention is given to spatial and temporal heterogeneity of fluxes and storages of water, particles, and chemicals coupling across interfaces with the landscape, microbial communities, and coastal environments, to upscaling and downscaling given these heterogeneities and interfaces and how these processes are altered by climate and land use changes. Studies may address aqueous geochemistry as well as physical, chemical, and biological processes within water bodies. These studies commonly involve expertise from many basic sciences and mathematics, and proposals often require joint review with related programs. Cognizant Program Officer(s): L. Douglas James, Program Director, telephone: (703) 292-8549, email: ldjames@nsf.gov; Richard H. Cuenca, Program Director, telephone: (703) 292-4733, email: rcuenca@nsf.gov. See http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2009/nsf09538/nsf09538.htm for more information. Due December 5 or June 1.
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8. USDA Releases Census of Agriculture by Watersheds
The USDA National Ag Statistics Service (NASS) produced its first ever Census of Agriculture by Watersheds in May of 2009. To benefit agricultural and environmental users the new document organizes 38 individual land characterizations of the 2007 Census of Agriculture at the 6-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC) level. The publication is available here.
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9. EPA Approves Alternative Methods for Testing Regulated Contaminants in Drinking Water
The alternative testing methods were evaluated by EPA and determined to be as effective as the promulgated methods for the same contaminants. The methods include:
- 1 EPA method for 29 purgeable contaminants
- 3 vendor developed methods for turbidity
- 1 vendor developed method for nitrate and nitrite
- 1 vendor developed method for free cyanide
EPA is using the expedited method approval process under Safe Drinking Water Act to approve the alternative methods, rather than using the notice-and-comment rulemaking process, so that these new, equally effective methods will be available to stakeholders more quickly. Approval time has been cut from several years to less than a year. For more information, go to EPA’s Web site at http://epa.gov/safewater/methods/analyticalmethods_expedited.html or call Pat Fair (513) 569-7937.
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10. NPDES Overview Course for Permitees – Now Available On-line
EPA is offering segments of its "NPDES Permit Writers' Course" on line. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program is authorized under the Clean Water Act to control the discharge of pollutants from industrial and municipal point sources to waters of the United States. The "NPDES Permit Writers' Course" is a five-day training course covering the key elements of NPDES permit development. The recorded presentations are not intended to replace the "live course." The first installment in this Web-based training, “Establishing Water Quality-based Effluent Limitations in NPDES Permits" is available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/outreach/training/pwtraining.cfm. Questions or comments should be directed to David Hair in EPA's Water Permits Division at 202-564-2287 or hair.david@epa.gov.
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Information provided to the members of the Virginia Water Monitoring Council
To learn more about the Council, please browse the rest of our website or contact Jane Walker at the address below. If you have any water-monitoring related news of regional or statewide interest, send it to Jane Walker and ask that it be distributed to VWMC membership. Tax-deductible contributions can be made to the VWMC to support these information updates and other VWMC activities. Make checks payable to: “The Virginia Tech Foundation” and on the memo portion of the check include “Fund #872802.” Mail contributions to Jane Walker, VWMC administrator, at the address below.
Jane Walker
Research Associate
Virginia Water Resources Research Center
210 Cheatham Hall (0444)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Phone: 540-231-4159
Fax: 540-231-6673
Email: janewalk@vt.edu
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© 2009 Virginia Water Resources Research Center 