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/index.html 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 Michael Cochrane: 360-392-4299 mcochrane@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
	Mutti’s nitrate loading model indicates that implementing agricultural groundwater protection management practices is a more effective agent for reduced nitrate leaching than land-use change alone. Together, land-use change and the adoption of groundwater protection practices were found to decrease nitrate leaching values by up to 46 percent of their present-day rates. Another aspect of Mutti’s research was to monitor wells for 15 months to determine if there is seasonal variation in nitrate levels within individual wells. He found that there is significant seasonal variation in some wells, but the seasonality wasn’t consistent across the sites. Mutti concluded that effects of seasonality would be dampened when pooling data from multiple wells to look at regional trends from long-term monitoring. Outreach implications are that we can tell household drinking water well owners that their nitrate levels vary, but we can’t tell them exactly what time of year they are the highest, so testing more than once a year may be necessary in some cases. Craner’s model sought to understand direction of groundwater flow, ground-water age, and nitrate transport. This study suggests it may take tens of years to see measurable declines of groundwater nitrate in some locations. In addition to assisting researchers in understanding long-term monitoring data, Craner’s model is being used as an outreach tool. Output from the model helps illustrate to residents the complexity of measuring nitrate reduction resulting from changes in practices, shows how groundwater contamination moves, and drives home that fact that groundwater contamination and clean-up operates on a long time scale. Then both Mutti and Craner collected field data from household wells and shared groundwater protection recommendations with the well owners. This type of outreach in conjunction with research has proven to be an effective method of reaching residents within the groundwater management area. Many residents know about the regional groundwater issues because of their participation in research projects. All three graduate students participated regularly in the GWMA Committee meetings and delivered formal presentations of their research to the committee. Their research continues to contribute to decisions that are being made about which practices to recommend and how to measure impacts from those changes. Irene Rolston was advised by Dr. Deanna Kingston, OSU Anthropology Department. Jeremy Craner and Glenn Mutti were both advised by Dr. Roy Haggerty, OSU Geosciences Department. Rolston and Mutti were partially funded by an EPA Clean Water Act 319 Grant from Oregon DEQ awarded to the OSU Well Water Program. Mutti was also funded by the USGS Small Grants Program through OSU CWESt. Craner was funded by an EPA Region 10 Regional Geographic Initiative Grant. Copies of all the theses, PowerPoint presentations, a web profile of Craner’s model, and contact information are available on the Southern Willamette Groundwater Management Area web site at: http://groundwater.oregonstate.edu/willamette/research.htm.
	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 Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension System. 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
	CSREES is the Cooperative States Research, Education and Extension Service, a sub-agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, and is the federal partner in this water quality program.

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