Water Program Priorities

Monitoring
Monitoring remains a top priority for the Division, indeed it has taken on a new dimension. Over the past several years we have worked closely with the states to develop and implement monitoring strategies, and recent budget priorities from HQ have increased funding available to promote strong state water quality monitoring programs. We need to help the states to implement their strategies. We expect that our programs will be increasingly expected to demonstrate environmental results, and that we will need to be able to show how our program efforts actually contribute to those results. Whether to demonstrate the effectiveness of our surface water programs to OMB or to be able to show that we are improving watershed health as required under the Agency's new strategic plan, we need access to sound environmental monitoring data. Marcus Peacock is adding a new level to this in his eco-region reviews, in which we will be expected to report progress of certain key indicators against specific milestones on a frequency of once every six weeks. Such frequent reporting will call on not only good water quality monitoring, but also close monitoring of carefully selected program indicators. Our ability to demonstrate results, environmental improvements linked to our program efforts, may define the long term viability of our programs.

Nutrient Reduction
One of our environmental priorities is to improve water quality by eliminating or reducing excessive nutrient loadings. We share this priority with Region 7, and have identified it as a joint "eco-region" priority to our deputy administrator Marcus Peacock. Excessive nutrient loadings are one of the most commonly identified causes of water quality impairment in the Region and the effects can be felt far downstream, for example as hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Sources are varied, but are often agriculture-related nonpoint or wet weather-related point sources. Agriculture is a major economic sector in Region 5 and agricultural production contributes to significant water quality problems. At the same time, improvements in management practices used by farmers around the Region have reduced sediment and nutrient loadings, created new wetlands, and in a variety of other ways led to water quality improvements. Under this priority we will work with our partner state agencies and the agricultural sector, using innovative, voluntary approaches and our program tools, to promote agricultural management that will reduce nutrient loadings and manage point source loadings of nutrients to improve water quality and watershed health. Core program activities will play a central role in this priority, for example helping states implement and meet milestones in their nutrient standards development strategies, and targeting our inspection resources at CAFOs that are contributing to impaired watersheds on the states' 303(d) lists. Our Agricultural Advisor to the Regional Administrator, Tom Davenport, will provide leadership and direction, but it falls to all of us to pursue opportunities to promote improved partnership with the agricultural community and to manage our program responsibilities to help address this environmental problem.

Grants Management
The Water Division’s goals and environmental priorities are achieved in part through assistance awards to our state, local, and tribal partners. We target our grants within the discretion that we have to support the environmental outcomes identified by the Agency. In response to the vulnerabilities in grant management that have surfaced via OMB focus on accountability which is part of the President's Management Agenda and a recent GAO audit, we have in turn increased our focus on how we manage the 300 active grants within the Division. Our priorities in the grants management area include making timely awards, pro-active post award monitoring, improved reporting of environmental results, and timely closeouts. In order to measure our success in these areas, we have established performance goals which include awarding grants within 60 days and preparing them for closeout within 150 days after expiration. In the Water Division grants management is a Division-wide process, while the administration of our grants is concentrated in the State and Tribal Programs Branch, the technical contact staff for each grant are located throughout the Division. Our grant management expectations are clearly laid out in the CY06 performance agreements of our managers and staff.

Effective Implementation of PARS - Good performance management leads to the effective accomplishment of organizational goals and increased job satisfaction. Performance management is not an annual event, but is a system for managing employee work. The new PARS provides a process for communicating/linking organizational goals and individual performance expectations to ensure accountability for achieving the Agency's strategic goals. We will assess the effectiveness of PARS implementation in FY05-06; ensure that performance standards are measurable, understandable, verifiable, achievable, and focus on accomplishments/outcomes rather than activities; improve our performance appraisals and employee self-assessments. We will recognize and reward good performance and address poor performance.

See Also:

• EPA Administrator's Action Plan
• National Water Program Strategic Plan & National Program Guidance