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WaterNews for October 21, 2003G. Tracy Mehan, III WaterNews is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water. Inside this week’s WaterNews
World Water Monitoring Day Great Success!A special issue of WaterNews will be coming soon devoted to the many successful events of World Water Monitoring Day. From Edgewater, Md. where Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko monitored to Hancock County, Miss. and New Orleans, La. where Assistant Administrator G. Tracy Mehan III led several World Monitoring events, volunteers and school groups joined EPA officials to make the first World Water Monitoring Day a tremendous success. We will be highlighting events from Madison, Wis. to Westford, Mass. and across the U.S. Below are several links to media coverage: http://www.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031016/NEWS/310160308/1026/NEWS01 http://www.dailycomet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031016/NEWS/310160325/1013/NEWS01 Forests Are New York City’s Best Hope For Long Term Supply of Clean Water--Study compares cost of new treatment plant with protection of forests in watersheds by Mark Hurley Washington, D.C. - A new study by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The World Bank shows that protecting forest areas in New York City's watersheds provides the most cost-effective means of supplying the city with high quality drinking water and results in significant health and economic benefits. The new report - Running Pure - demonstrates that more than a third of the world's 105 biggest cities - including New York - rely on fully or partly protected forests for much of their drinking water. Well-managed natural forests in New York City's watersheds can minimize the risk of landslides, erosion, and sedimentation. Forests in New York's Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watersheds substantially improve water purity by filtering pollutants, such as pesticides, and in some cases capture and store water. "Cities need cleaner, cheaper, and more secure water supplies now and in the future," said Bob Irvin, director of ecoregional conservation at WWF. "But as urbanization increases, so too will pressure on the forests that protect watersheds and water quality. Protecting forests in New York City's watersheds provides a low-tech, highly effective solution that New Yorkers should support." According to the report, adopting a forest protection strategy can result in massive savings because it is cheaper to protect and manage forests than to build water treatment plants. The cost of building a new water treatment plant for New York was estimated at $6-8 billion in startup costs and $300-500 million in annual operating costs, while the costs of protecting land and forest resources were estimated at $1-1.5 billion over ten years. The nine million residents of New York and surrounding areas receive their drinking water supply mostly from the Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watersheds. These watersheds together deliver 1.3 billion gallons of water daily to the New York City metropolitan area. Forests constitute 75% of the total land area in these watersheds. The Catskill Forest Preserve, for example, protects approximately 25% of the watershed from further development. "For many cities, time is running out," said David Cassells, a senior environmental specialist at The World Bank. "Protecting forests around water catchment areas is no longer a luxury but a necessity. When the forests are gone, the costs of providing clean and safe drinking water to urban areas will increase dramatically." Over a billion mainly poor city dwellers around the world are deprived of drinking water or adequate sanitation. In urban areas with inadequate freshwater supply, poor sanitation, and bad hygiene practices, the infant mortality rate is 10-20 times the norm. The WWF/World Bank report "Running Pure: the importance of forest protected areas to drinking water" can be found at www.forest-alliance.org EPA Issues Decision on Dioxins in Land-Applied Sewage SludgeOn Friday, October 17, the Acting Administrator signed a Federal Register notice announcing EPA’s final decision not to regulate dioxins in land-applied sewage sludge. The Agency has found that dioxins from this source do not pose a significant risk to human health or the environment. The theoretically most highly exposed people are those who apply sewage sludge as a fertilizer to their crops and animal feed and then consume their own crops and meat products over their entire lifetimes. EPA’s analysis shows that, even for this theoretical population, only 0.003 new cases of cancer could be expected each year or only 0.22 new cases of cancer over a span of 70 years. The risk to people in the general population of new cancer cases resulting from sewage sludge containing dioxin is even smaller due to lower exposures to dioxin in land-applied sewage sludge than the highly exposed farm family which EPA modeled. You can find a pre-publication version of the FR Notice at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/biosolids. Hypoxic Zone Meeting Set For St. Louis, Mo.On November 19, 2003, Federal and State Officials will convene in St. Louis, Mo., for the Tenth Meeting of the Task Force to discuss issues in the Mississippi River Basin that lead to the Hypoxic Zone in Gulf of Mexico. Reducing the size of the Hypoxic Zone has been re-emphasized in the EPA 2005 Strategic Plan. The goals of the meeting include 1) providing an update to the Task Force on recent activities and progress on the January 2001 Action Plan (http://www.epa.gov/msbasin/actionplan.htm), 2) proposing a Gulf Scorecard that lists funding programs, such as the Farm Bill Conservation Programs, and activities that can contribute to nutrient reduction in the Gulf and be useful as a measuring tool for our progress, 3) sharing innovative approaches to nutrient management and the implementation process and schedules, and 4) considering the activities the Task Force and Working Committees will aim towards over the next year. Registration is open to the public at http://www.epa.gov/msbasin/new.htm. Please contact Katie Flahive 202-566-1206 or flahive.katie@epa.gov for more information. Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA) ConferenceEPA’s Office of Water’s Drinking Water Academy made presentations at the recent ASDWA conference on two projects: electronic sanitary surveys and the ability of states to protect security related information, which was presented during a post-conference security meeting. For more information, please contact James Bourne at 202-564-4095. Subscribe to WaterNewsPlease forward this message to your friends and colleagues who share an interest in water-related issues and would like to hear from EPA's Office of Water. To subscribe to the WaterNews listserv: Send an email message, leave the subject line blank, and address it to: In the body of the message write: Subscribe WaterNews firstname lastname (Please leave one blank space between each word, do not include any other message, and use your actual name- i.e. Subscribe WaterNews Robert Jones) A welcome message will appear in your email box once you are officially subscribed.
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