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Water Latest News and Updates
EPA Releases Handbook to Help Water Utilities Plan for Sustainability
The U.S.EPA has released a comprehensive handbook to help water sector utilities build sustainability considerations into their planning. "Planning for Sustainability: A Handbook for Water and Wastewater Utilities" will help utilities ensure that water infrastructure projects across the nation, including those funded through the state revolving fund programs, are sustainable and support the long-term sustainability of the communities these utilities serve.
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EPA Releases New Tool with Information about Water Pollution Across the U.S.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the release of a new tool that provides the public with important information about pollutants that are released into local waterways. Developed under President Obama's transparency initiative, the Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) Pollutant Loading Tool brings together millions of records and allows for easy searching and mapping of water pollution by local area, watershed, company, industry sector, and pollutant. Americans can use this new tool to protect their health and the health of their communities.
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EPA Issues Final Guidance to Protect Water Quality in Appalachian Communities from Impacts of Mountaintop Mining
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released final guidance on Appalachian surface coal mining, designed to ensure more consistent, effective, and timely review of surface coal mining permits under the Clean Water Act and other statutes. The guidance, which replaces the interim-final guidance issued by EPA on April 1, 2010, is based on the best-available science and incorporates input and feedback from over 60,000 comments received from the public and key stakeholders.
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New EPA Tool Focuses on Reducing Nitrogen and Phosphorus Pollution
To facilitate state and local efforts to reduce nutrient pollution, EPA is releasing a new Nitrogen and Phosphorus Pollution Data Access Tool. The goal of the tool is to support states in their nitrogen and phosphorus analyses by providing the most current data available on: the extent and magnitude of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution; water quality problems related to this pollution; and potential pollution sources in a format that is readily-accessible and easy-to-use.
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Free Training on How to Comply with Water Requirements
Want to learn how to find and fix illicit discharges and connections? How to develop an effective municipal stormwater program for construction sites? What you need to know about the industrial stormwater general permit? Find self-paced training and archived webinars on these topics and a variety of other topics related to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) at EPA's NPDES training site
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EPA Launches Climate Ready Water Utilities Initiative
EPA has launched the Climate Ready Water Utilities (CRWU) initiative to assist water and wastewater utilities in implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, with the goal of a more resilient water sector.
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New, Updated Design Manual for Nutrient Removal at Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants
The U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development has just published its new, updated design manual for the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus at municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This manual presents an extensive state of the technology review of the engineering design and operation of nitrogen and phosphorous control technologies and techniques applied at WWTPs.
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Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO)
NEMO was created in the early 1990's to provide information, education and assistance to local land use boards and commissions on how they can accommodate growth while protecting their natural resources and community character. The program was built upon the basic belief that the future of our communities and environment depend on land use, and, since land use is decided primarily at the local level, education of local land use officials is the most effective, and most cost-effective, way to bring about positive change.
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Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule
The Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule includes requirements for oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response to prevent oil discharges to navigable waters and adjoining shorelines. The rule requires specific facilities to prepare, amend, and implement SPCC Plans. The SPCC rule is part of the Oil Pollution Prevention regulation, which also includes the Facility Response Plan (FRP) rule.
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Clean Watersheds Project
The Clean Watersheds Project is an interdisciplinary collaborative watershed monitoring project that uses Google Earth Pro to store and share watershed data. The main goal is to empower our community of parents, teachers, students and environmental experts to collect, post, and analyze data about our changing watersheds in an effort to improve the health of our national watersheds.
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New User Friendly Website for Small Water Supply Operators
Friday, October 23, 2009-- With funding from the Midwest Technology Assistance Center (MTAC), researchers at the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois have developed a new user friendly website for small water supply operators. The idea behind the site is that many operators either don’t have much web experience or don’t have time to search for things on the web, especially when a search engine can sometimes return thousands of possible hits, so we have done the searching for them. The focus we have taken is What is best for the operator?, meaning how can we make things easier and better for them when they are looking for answers.
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Pond/Wetland Management Guidebook
EPA just released a new guidebook that describes maintenance and inspection practices for existing wet ponds and wetlands. The guide includes checklists for use during construction and routine maintenance of ponds/wetlands, and also includes a home owner pond inspection checklist. Maintenance profile sheets describe how to address eight different common maintenance issues. The Pond/Wetland Management Guidebook is available at:
http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/pondmgmtguide.pdf
Issue Summary
Water pollution can hurt our ability to use water in our homes, for recreation, and in commerce. It also harms other forms of life. Local governments can work to protect water in all its forms: on the ground, underground, and coming out of the tap through effective waste water, drinking water, and land use strategies.
Resources
The Healthy Watersheds Web site offers links to a series of resources to help managers educate the public, including EPA's 2003 "Getting in Step: A Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach Campaigns", which presents key principles, techniques and information for effective watershed outreach.
Links
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