A community's quality of life, which depends directly on the health and quality of its local environment, is a common concern among its people. Yet communities often find themselves facing the consequences of poor environmental decisions, both their own and those of others. When agencies work together to help communities solve environmental problems, better decisions result. EPA and Cooperative Extension share the objective of linking resources and people, and both believe that:

Strength brought to the partnership by Cooperative Extension

• Access to adult volunteers in the community who, with training, can further extend the educational message, especially to youth.
• Neutrality as an information source. Extension faculty and staff are not regulators. They are bound by the policies of their universities, not by legal policies and directives.

• Citizen-based efforts make a difference.
• Local efforts are successful when aided by the expertise of both natural resource professionals and education professionals.
• Local, regional and national partnerships are necessary to provide accurate information and ensure it is disseminated effectively and economically to support local action.

Being a federal agency, the EPA often encounters substantial barriers to connecting and working with communities. In contrast, county-based Cooperative Extension faculty have strong relationships with their communities and can help connect communities with EPA's vitally needed resources. Extension faculty can also help inform EPA staff of local needs, issues and characteristics and tailor information and programs to a community.

Since the Initiative started in April of 1997, EPA has worked with local conservation districts and others to identify and begin looking at some of the locally identified issues. EPA participated in several local farm tours and meetings, made presentations at agriculture meetings and conducted some information gathering sessions in the counties.

Land Grant Universities
Alaska
Cooperative Extension Service
Contact Fred Sorensen:
907-786-6311
http://www.uaf.edu/ces/water/
University Publications:
http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/ces/publications/

Idaho
University of Idaho
Cooperative Extension System
Contact Bob Mahler: 208-885-7025
http://www.uidaho.edu/wq/wqhome.html
University Publications:
http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Catalog/catalog.html

Oregon
Oregon State University
Extension Service
Contact Mike Gamroth: 541-737-3316
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/
University Publications:
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/

Washington
Washington State University
WSU Extension
Contact Bob Simmons:
360-427-9670 ext. 690
http://wawater.wsu.edu/
University Publications:
http://pubs.wsu.edu/

Northwest Indian College
Contact Dan Burns: 360-392-4328
dburns@nwic.edu or
http://www.nwic.edu/

Water Resource Research Institutes
Water and Environmental Research
Center (Alaska)
http://www.uaf.edu/water/

Idaho Water Resources
Research Institute
http://www.boise.uidaho.edu/

Institute for Water and Watersheds
(Oregon)
http://water.oregonstate.edu/

State of Washington
Water Research Center
http://www.swwrc.wsu.edu/

Environmental Protection Agency
EPA, Region 10
The Pacific Northwest
http://www.epa.gov/r10earth/

Office of Research and Development,
Corvallis Laboratory
http://www.epa.gov/wed/

For more information contact
Jan Seago at 206-553-0038 or
seago.jan@epa.gov

Our Goal and Approach
The goal of this Project is to provide leadership for water resources research, education and outreach to help people, industry and governments to prevent and solve current and emerging water quality and quantity problems. The approach to achieving this goal is for the Partners to develop a coordinated regional water quality effort based on, and strengthening, individual state programs.

Our Strengths
The Project promotes regional collaboration by acknowledging existing programs and successful efforts; assessing program gaps; identifying potential issues for cross-agency and private sector collaboration, and developing a clearinghouse of expertise and programs. In addition, the Project establishes or enhances partnerships with federal, state and local environmental and water resource management agencies, such as by placing a University Liaison within the offices of EPA Region 10.

CPAI was based on the principle of working with local people to address locally identified environmental issues and then, together, implement sensible solutions. The program has helped focus efforts to assist communities in addressing environmental issues before they become more difficult and costly to fix.

Outreach on regulations about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)
In April 2001, the Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Program held a region-wide meeting on CAFOs, inviting state agricultural and environmental agencies, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Extension faculty, and local conservation districts. The representatives were encouraged to form networks and begin to work together on solving the problems caused by pollution from animal waste.

In December 2002, EPA revised the Clean Water Act regulation for CAFOs. Extension again stepped up to the plate and gathered the same groups in March 2003. This time, more formal steps were taken to coordinate outreach and implementation for the new rules. As a result, all states were aware of the need for outreach and implementation, and the producer groups are more successfully meeting the requirements in each state.

The four land grant universities in the Pacific Northwest have aligned our water resource extension and research efforts with eight themes of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

1. Animal Waste Management
2. Drinking Water and Human Health
3. Environmental Restoration
4. Nutrient and Pesticide Management
5. Pollution Assessment and Prevention
6. Watershed Management
7. Water Conservation and Ag. Water Management
8. Water Policy and Economics

A cooperative program consisting of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture
and
the Land Grant Colleges and Universities.

- a Regionally-Based National Network -