Girl Scout Water Drop Patch Project is even Better

The popular Water Drop Patch Project, co-produced by Girl Scouts of the USA and the Environmental Protection Agency is getting updated and improved. The manual, designed for adults' use with Girl Scout Brownies through Ambassadors (grades 2-12) and divided into grade-level, age-appropriate watershed activities, now aligns to the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience. Updated information and new and expanded girl-lead, learning by doing help Girl Scouts: discover, connect, and take action. Girl Scouts who complete the requisite number of activities receive a beautiful patch emblazoned with a white egret.

Here are some possible activities: Older Girl Scouts (grades six and up) can participate in the International Coastal Cleanup on Saturday, September 20, 2008. This event attracts almost 400,000 volunteers worldwide to pick up trash and marine debris from the nation's waterways. Girl Scouts (grades 4 and up) can go out and sample the nation's waters as part of World Water Monitoring Day (September 18th - October 18th.). Both activities are supported by EPA's Office of Water. Two exciting new activities added to the revised manual include the construction of a rain garden to help control stormwater runoff and the creation of a watershed outreach video.

For more information, visit: http://www.epa.gov/adopt/patch/. Free hard copies of the manual can be ordered by calling the National Service Center for Environmental Protection at 1-800-490-9198 or emailing: nscep@bps-lmit.com.(#EPA 840-B-07-001). Patches can be ordered from the GSUSA on-line store http://goshop.girlscouts.org/gsusaonline/ or at Girl Scout council shops. Adults should consult with Safety-Wise to ensure Girl Scout safety guidelines are followed when working with girls. The Water Drop Patch Project is nationally recognized as part of the Girl Scouts? of the USA's Linking Girls to the Land program.

Click on Title link for more information. Source: EPA WaterHeadlines

Improved Data Exchange Now Includes Biological and Habitat Water Data

EPA's Office of Water has announced the release of Water Quality Exchange (WQX ) version 2.0, a data transfer system which now allows states, tribes and other organizations to share their biological and habitat monitoring results. Since February 2007, WQX version 1.0 has provided a way for states, tribes, and other organizations to share physical, chemical and fish tissue water monitoring data. Because many monitoring programs use biological and habitat data as the basis for assessing water quality, WQX version 2.0 enhances the richness of information available for data sharing, analysis, and improved decision making by watershed managers. All data shared using the WQX framework can be accessed on-line in the STORET Data Warehouse, EPA's repository for water quality data.

Visit http://www.epa.gov/storet/wqx.html for more information. Source: EPA WaterHeadlines

New "Fish Kids" website teaches youth about contaminants in fish

EPA's National Fish Advisory Program just released a new Fish Kids website - a fun website that uses interactive stories and games to teach kids ages 8-12 about contaminants in fish and fish advisories. Whether they catch their own fish, or buy it at a store, kids and their families can use this site to learn how to choose fish wisely! The site, selected as the August site of the month by kids.gov - the official kids portal for the U.S. government, helps children and their parents choose the healthiest fish to eat, using interactive stories and games.

Visit the site at http://www.epa.gov/fishadvisories/kids/ .

Click on Title link for more information. Source: EPA WaterHeadlines

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)

Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, in the new limno-lingo, represent a serious issue. When I was in lake school many years ago, we knew that certain algae could be hazardous. But these were marine algae that caused red tides or were rare events in freshwater, and then usually in cow ponds. Now HABs are front and center at many lakes.

The EPA report, Scientific Assessment of Freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms (available from EPA as a PDF) is the latest compendium of HAB science and is the techno-tell-all of what we know and what we no not know about HABs. We know for example that:

“Freshwater HAB toxins can have a broad range of negative impacts on humans, animals, and aquatic ecosystems. Many cyanobacteria can produce neurotoxic, hepatotoxic, dermatotoxic, or other bioactive compounds, and blooms of toxigenic cyanobacteria pose a particular threat if they occur in drinking water sources.”

A lot of new words and jargon that say in essence that these blooms can’t be good.

Seriously, as lake managers, we cannot ignore HABs. HABs pose threats beyond what we have traditionally dealt with as lake managers. HABs threaten water supplies, human health, and fish and wildlife.

What we don’t know or at least don’t know well includes risk assessment, analytical methods, toxicity pathways, or the appropriate response framework. The report provides an assessment and roadmap to better attend to these needs.

Of course, if we confront lakes experiencing HABs, we cannot wait for the answers to all the unknowns. We can fall back on our tried-and-true approaches to lake management - lake management basics – which ought to be relied upon to minimize and manage the impacts of HABs.

This means priority ought to be given to nutrient management. Specifically,

• Top priority for watershed protection for those lakes not yet affected by HABs
• For lakes already experiencing HABs, watershed rehabilitation may be too slow, so in addition, we should initiate in-lake nutrient reduction methods.
• In cases where nutrient reduction may not be timely or sufficient, other in-lake techniques should be used.
  

These strategies and techniques are explained fully in the textbook, Restoration and Management of Lakes and Reservoirs or the manual, Managing Lakes and Reservoirs – both available in the NALMS Bookstore (currently off-line). You may also purchase Managing Lakes and Reservoirs through Amazon.com using the Lake Stewardship Store.

Article by Dick Osgood, President of the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS), used by permission. Click on the Title for more information and to read NALMS' latest newsletter.

EPA releases information guides to help public water systems comply with the Ground Water Rule

EPA has released a new information guides to assist states and public water systems understand requirements of the Ground Water Rule (GWR). The GWR, which was finalized in November 2006, will provide for increased protection against microbial pathogens in public water systems that use ground water as a source of drinking water. Public water systems need to begin actions to comply with the GWR in December 2009.

A Quick Reference Guide provides a simple and straight-forward description of the rule, critical deadlines, requirements for drinking water systems and states, and information on monitoring requirements. A series of fact sheets provide more detail about specific topics covered by the rule, including monitoring, sanitary surveys, and public notification.

Electronic versions of the documents are available on the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/gwr/compliancehelp.html.

Click on Title link for more information. Source: EPA WaterHeadlines

WaterSense Program: More Educational Materials for Kids and Teachers

EPA has announced The WaterSense program has an exciting new set of educational materials for kids and teachers.

A Day in the Life of a Drop teaches students about the connections between the sources of the water they use and how that use affects human health and the environment. These fun learning materials include a teachers guide, two student worksheets, a spreadsheet to track water use at home, and a pledge for students and their families to filter out bad water habits. The new curriculum can be found on EPA's Web site at www.epa.gov/watersense/water/drop.htm.

Click on Title link for more information. Source: EPA's WaterHeadlines.

Water Quality Modeling Workshop in Baltimore, Maryland

EPA will convene a 1 day water quality modeling workshop, "Water Quality Modeling to Support Management Actions," from September 9 to 10, 2008, at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. The meeting is being coordinated with a Water Environment Federation (WEF) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) conference scheduled for September 11, 2008. Attendees of the workshop will obtain an understanding of EPA-supported models that can be used to address regulatory and water quality planning objectives. The workshop will focus on tools available to meet multiple objectives like watershed planning, smart growth, trading, TMDL development, and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit development. The workshop will identify objectives that can be addressed within EPA's BASINS environment and provide participants with an opportunity to provide feedback to guide future development of BASINS and other modeling-related tools. (BASINS or "Better Assessment Science Integrating Point & Nonpoint Sources" is a multi-purpose environmental analysis system that integrates a geographical information system (GIS), national watershed data, and environmental assessment and modeling tools.)

More information about the workshop is available at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ftp/basins/training/training-200809.html

Click on Title link for more information. Source: EPA WaterHeadlines

A look at Lake Michigan invaders

Jane Dauffenbach, regular contributor to the Lake Stewardship Blog, offers this link on invasive species, adding

Great underwater video and nice summary of the current Lake invaders

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Underwater, a disturbing new world

A Tribune team follows researchers to the bottom of Lake Michigan as they try to explain the rapidly shifting ecosystem

By James Janega|Chicago Tribune reporter

July 30, 2008

OFF ATWATER BEACH, Wis.—This place should be an underwater desert.

But as the three researchers wearing scuba tanks and lead weights drop through the water, the landscape of rounded stones 30 feet below is disturbingly full of strange, new life.

In just a few years, the gravel and white boulders that for centuries covered the bottom of Lake Michigan between Chicago and the Door County, Wis., peninsula have disappeared under a carpet of mussels and primitive plant life.

The change is not merely cosmetic. In the last three years or so, scientists say, invasive species have upended the ecology of the lakes, shifting distribution of species and starving familiar fish of their usual food supply.

Click on Title link to view entire article. Thanks to Jane Dauffenbach of Aquarius Systems for the submission.