February 7, 2005

Contact: Lori Burkhammer
1(703) 684-2480
lburkhammer@wef.org

WEF TO SPONSOR SERIES OF CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFINGS ON WATER QUALITY MONITORING

USGS will Co-sponsor Three Briefings in February and March

Alexandria, VA - The Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will present three congressional briefings addressing federal water quality monitoring efforts in the United States. The briefings will provide a better understanding of how monitoring and data gained from modeling can yield important information about the nation’s water quality and causes of pollution. USGS National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) scientists will detail their findings of the conditions and causes of nutrient pollution in surface and ground water throughout the country and will highlight how this information is being used locally to improve water quality.

The first briefing, Water Quality Monitoring will be held Friday, February 25 and will explore the questions that can be answered through water quality monitoring and analysis. It will also examine policy options for achieving national monitoring plans that are responsive to the range of policy and management information needs necessary to protect and restore water resources.

The second briefing, Monitoring Extrapolation: Nutrients in the Nation's Rivers will be held Friday, March 4 and will describe the extent to which the nation's rivers and streams are polluted with nutrients. It will explain how NAWQA can provide this information through a combination of data from its carefully designed monitoring strategy and a model developed to accurately predict conditions in un-sampled areas nationwide.

The third and final briefing, Monitoring Extrapolation: Ground Water Quality will be held Friday, March 11 and is currently in development. It is expected to address nutrients in ground water nationwide, possibly including arsenic and MTBE. Information on the interaction of ground and surface water is also expected to be presented with examples from NAWQA findings of pollutants in streams that contaminate ground water and impacts on stream quality. Examples will include situations in which drinking water supplies are affected by ground water/surface water interaction.

Each briefing will be open to the public and will have time reserved for a question and discussion period. Exact locations of the briefings will be announced at a later date.

About WEF
Founded in 1928, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization with members from varied disciplines who work toward the WEF vision of preservation and enhancement of the global water environment. The WEF network includes water quality professionals from 79 Member Associations in over 30 countries. www.wef.org