The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a major partner with our Pacific Northwest Regional Water Resources Team. We interact with EPA Region 10 in many ways; however, we consider EPA’s Agriculture Sector Team to be our most important partner within EPA. Consequently, we work closely with the EPA agriculture sector team on many water-related issues in the Pacific Northwest. We physically meet with the EPA agriculture sector team on a quarterly basis. Because of this close working relationship the EPA leader of this team is also a member of our regional water team that is primarily composed of university personnel. Karma Anderson was hired in January 2009 to be the Agriculture Sector Advisor for EPA Region 10. Karma is a Colorado native with degrees in agronomy (Colorado State University) and environmental policy (University of Denver). She has an excellent background in agriculture as she has worked for the New Mexico Environmental Department and the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado. Karma Anderson is replacing Dr. Karl Arne who retired last year as the EPA agriculture sector team leader. In the late 1990s Karl was asked to serve as Agricultural Sector Lead for the Region. As Ag Sector Lead, Karl has seen several changes through the years. This arose from an earlier effort, the Columbia River Plateau Agriculture Initiative, in which EPA staff representing several programs worked together with farmers and others in five eastern Washington counties. This effort, which promoted collaboration and cooperation as a means to attain environmental improvements, proved successful and encouraged the EPA staff that this approach was an important tool for EPA. This in turn led to the formation of an Ag Sector Team of EPA staff involved in agricultural issues. This effort was started by Dr. Chris Feise, when he served as Extension Liaison to EPA in the mid-1990s, and later taken over by Karl when Chris took over as director of the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at WSU.

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.
	In addition to earning a BS degree in agronomy and a MS in Environmental Policy, Karma started a PhD program in environmental conflict resolution. Karma has extensive experience in western agriculture. She was the first agriculturalist employed by the New Mexico Environment Department. For six years she worked at this job doing compliance assistance and enforcement and worked on water quantity issues. She then worked for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service in the San Luis Valley in Colorado for two years. She followed this position with a job in the Colorado state Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office as the state Water Quality Specialist. In this job she was involved in watershed planning and worked on water quality in relation to AFOs and CAFOs. At this job she also gained experience in air quality issues, as she was involved in the Rocky Mountain Nitrogen Deposition Reduction Plan. Her primary interest at EPA is to bridge the gap between the environment and agriculture. Karma is interested in EPA addressing agricultural issues in a non-regulatory way. She wants to improve relationships between agricultural producers and the Environmental Protection Agency. To do this it is important to improve EPA’s understanding of agriculture. However, producers also need to be made more aware of and understand the regulatory requirements that EPA is mandated to address. Karma feels that the agriculture industry in the Pacific Northwest faces major air quality and water quality issues. Atmospheric issues facing the agricultural industry in the region include dust (PM-10 and PM 2.5 standards) and greenhouse gasses (both nitrogen and carbon). In the water area CAFO (confined animal feeding operations), AFO (animal feeding operations), nutrient management plans, and pesticide application methods are all important regional issues. The cycling, waste management, and application of nitrogen to agricultural lands and associated nutrient management plans are major issues in many watersheds in the region. Under her leadership EPA is also very interested in developing alternative pesticide application methods which can reduce buffer area requirements.
	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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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 May 15, 2009