As of January 30th Jan Seago is our new land grant institution (LGI) liaison to the EPA Region 10 office in Seattle, Washington. The goal of the liaison position is to increase the visibility of water resource research, outreach, and education programs conducted by the land grant institutions in the Pacific Northwest by developing cooperative programs with EPA Region 10. This liaison position supports water resource programs in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and is jointly administered by the five associated land grant institutions (Northwest Indian College, Oregon State University, University of Alaska, University of Idaho, Washington State University). The goal of the liaison position is to strengthen collaboration between LGIs, state Water Research Institutes, and the Environmental Protection Agency Region 10. The water resource programs of the EPA and LGIs are complementary rather than competitive. Karl Arne describes the partnership between the outreach component of land grant institutions and EPA Region 10 as “aligning two organizations so they work well together.” Arne, EPA’s regional agriculture sector team leader, is EPA’s liaison to the LGI’s regional water program. “Extension’s expertise meshes with ours – but it is different,” he says. Jan Seago, new EPA Region 10 liaison. Ms. Seago is the fourth person to fill the liaison position which has been in existence since 1989. Jan replaces Sharon Collman who served in this capacity for the past two years. Sharon has taken a job with her first love — urban integrated pest management (IPM) with Extension in Snohomish County. We appreciate Sharon’s numerous contributions and wish her well in this new phase of her career. Seago is excited to become the region’s new liaison to EPA Region 10. She sees this job as “something new and innovative to do — there are tremendous networking possibilities.” Jan relates that she likes to be challenged with new things all the time. Jan comes to the liaison position with a background in public policy and water resources. Her passion is seeing that science gets used — so that good laws are crafted and passed. Jan Seago brings many talents to her new liaison job. Her experience includes many years working with the public — which she enjoys immensely. Another plus she possesses is the knowledge of working protocols within both federal agencies and Extension. Most recently, Jan has been a member of Washington State University’s (WSU) water resource team. This team has more than 15 active members. In the five years she served on this team her role changed from initially being a team support person and web master into being the team’s co-leader along with Bob Simmons.

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.
	As a co-leader of WSU’s water resource team Jan has been very active on the regional Pacific Northwest Water Quality Team. She has authored several PNW WATER UPDATES that are widely read; however, her most visible contribution to the regional team has been in the development of watershed management satellite conferences. Together with Bob Simmons, they developed the highly successful watershed management-themed annual regional satellite conference series. With input from the grass roots level, Jan developed topics, found speakers, wrote scripts, and produced these successful conferences. Over 4,000 people viewed the 2005 conference on stormwater management. The 2004 Watershed Issues regional teleconference, “Improving Community Development in Watershed Restoration,” received the 2005 Shirley Davis Award for Excellence in Teleconferencing. This award was presented to Jan and the WSU communications staff by the National University Telecommunications Network (NUTN) at their annual conference in San Francisco, California last June. Fortunately, in her capacity as liaison, Jan will continue to lead this regional satellite broadcast educational effort. Jan plans to continue the strategy of inclusiveness and collaboration characteristic of previous liaisons to EPA. She has worked extensively with the two previous liaisons. Consequently, she is well aware of the position’s requirements and the special partnership between LGIs and the EPA. She sees the EPA and NRCS as natural partners for land grant institutions in water quality programming. In addition to these partnerships Jan feels that it is important to effectively link with state agencies throughout the Pacific Northwest. It is an understatement to say that Ms. Seago is hitting the ground running. Welcome aboard Jan!!! Jan can be reached at 206-553-0038 or by e-mail at seago.jan@epa.gov.
	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 Agricultural 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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