WaterNews for June 18, 1998

WaterNews is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water.

New Internet Sites for Beach and Fish Advisories

On June 12, Vice-President Gore announced a new public right-to-know initiative, an EPA Internet site for citizens interested in checking the health and environment of their favorite beaches. Through the Internet site, located at: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/beaches/, citizens can get information on whether their beach is monitored for microbial pollution and on advisories and closings for those beaches. The information is limited to those beaches that have responded to EPA's survey. The site currently has information on more than 1,000 beaches and continues to expand as responses are received. A similar website has been developed to provide access to state fish advisories, available at: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/. EPA also has developed a Beach Action Plan, a five-year strategy to develop stronger, faster and more accurate beach monitoring programs for states. The program will strengthen beach water quality standards, improve public access to information on beach water quality and increase research to address health problems related to swimming. These initiatives were key action items called for last February when President Clinton launched a new Clean Water Action Plan, a comprehensive blueprint for completing the job of cleaning up our rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

Final Framework for Unified Watershed Assessments Now Available

The President's Clean Water Action Plan also calls on states and tribal governments to work with other governments, appropriate agencies, and the public to assess the condition of water resources on a watershed basis. These unified watershed assessments are an opportunity to combine existing assessments and build on current cooperative efforts to identify common priorities for water quality. A Unified Watershed Assessment Framework has been published in its final form to assist states, tribes, and others with the unified watershed assessment process. The framework describes general approaches and information to guide governments and other interested parties in assessing the condition of the nation's waters.

The Action Plan sets aggressive deadlines for the watershed assessment process. Draft watershed assessments and draft watershed restoration priorities are scheduled for public comment by August 1, 1998. Final assessments and final watershed restoration priorities are scheduled to be completed by October 1, 1998. The President's FY 1999 budget proposes $568 million in new funding to implement the Action Plan, and a large part of this new funding is to support implementation of watershed restoration action strategies. The Unified Watershed Assessment Framework is available on the Internet at http://www.cleanwater.gov/uwafinal/ [Link no longer available, October 2004].

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