In November, 2003 at 53 Cooperative Extension sites in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, over 500 people gathered to discuss and learn about funding watershed restoration projects in the Pacific Northwest. The attendees represented Extension faculty and staff, Conservation District personnel, city and county planners and members of watershed groups. This was the second conference in a series of satellite conferences focusing on watershed issues. The conference, Funding Watershed Restoration Projects in the PNW, centered on an innovative access-based planning tool, Plan2Fund™ developed by the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) at Boise State University. This computer software assists in organizing and prioritizing goals and objectives as well as the tasks that need to be accomplished to reach them. The software also assists in budget development for each task, delineating local funding and in-kind services to ascertain the amount of outside funding that will be needed. As a companion to this planning tool the Directory of Watershed Resources, a searchable database of more than 700 sources from foundation grant initiatives to federal programs with watershed dollars, was introduced and demonstrated. By using the Plan2Fund to identify gaps in funding and the associated types of activities, the Directory of Watershed Resources can then be easily searched. Complementing this array of planning and funding aids, a private enterprise environmental grant writer and a public sector grant evaluator offered advice on structuring proposals for funding. Developing a sustainable funding stream for large, long-term projects assures implementation of plans. Comments on the grantsmanship section of the conference ran from gratitude to raves that the workshop offered more comprehensive knowledge than most week-long seminars. The panel discussed emerging trends in public and private funding, as well as identified grants and low-cost loan programs to finance infrastructure and restoration work.

Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Coordination Project Partners 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 Charlotte Clausing: 360-392-4319 cclausing@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
	The Project Land Grant Universities, Water Research Institutes and EPA Region 10 have formed a partnership to provide research and education to communities about protecting or restoring the quality of water resources. This partnership is being supported in part by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). 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.
	Ninety-six percent of the participants completed evaluation forms at the hosting sites. Ratings for the program and the presenters all exceeded 4 from a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 as the highest. The participants also felt that they would benefit from subsequent watershed conferences presented in a similar manner. The topic of this workshop had been suggested by participants in the first conference in the series, Living on the Edge: Grassroots Watershed Planning in the PNW (May, 2002). An archived videostream of the broadcast is available at: http://caheinfo.wsu.edu/video/other.html. Accompanying materials and links to the software distributed at the broadcast are available at: http://cru84.cahe.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/pubs/DVD0011.html.
		National Water Quality Program Areas 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. Animal Waste Management Drinking Water and Human Health Environmental Restoration Nutrient and Pesticide Management Pollution Assessment and Prevention Watershed Management Water Conservation and Ag. Water Management Water Policy and Economics
	This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No 2008-51130-4734.

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HOME | About | Calendar | Contacts | Links | PNW Water Updates | Sitemap NIFA National Water Quality Program This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2008-51130-04734. all external sites will open in a new browser window page last modified on August 27, 2006