By all accounts, our 5th biennial regional water conference titled “Water and Land Use in the Pacific Northwest: Integrating Communities and Watersheds” held on November 4-6, 2009 at the Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington was regarded as a huge success by the participants! This year’s event was again hosted by the State of Washington Water Research Center in cooperation with the other PNW land grant partners in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and a tremendous regional steering committee. Conferences themes focused on the need for multidisciplinary integration of water and land use planning. By focusing on regional challenges and opportunities for sustainable growth and ecosystem protection, the 3-day event was able to draw over 200 scientists, decision makers, and planners from the Pacific Northwest region. The conference involved workshops, field trips, oral and poster presentations, awards, and ample opportunities for networking. Winners of the student conference poster competition (from l to r) are Yarrow Murphy (t-3rd), Jonathan Thomle (t-3rd), Muhammad Barik (1st), Travis Lopez (t-3rd), and Brian Chaffin (2nd).

The steering committee, comprised of representatives from the Oregon Water Resources Department, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Central Washington University, Idaho State Department of Agriculture, Washington Department of Ecology, Umatilla County Department of Resources and Development, OSU Sea Grant Extension, the Center for Distance and Professional Education at WSU, and our PNW Water Quality Team, worked diligently for over a year to put together an exciting program relevant to the needs of the PNW region. Our audience included representatives from federal and state government, conservation districts, universities, private consulting firms, tribal organizations, non-profit organizations, and interested citizens. The conference began with pre-event activities including both a workshop and a field trip. The “Managing Wet Weather with Green Infrastructure” workshop was intended primarily for municipal governments with wet weather management responsibilities, i.e., stormwater, combined sewer overflows, sanitary sewer overflows, and nonpoint source runoff. The workshop focused on how these programs can be effectively managed using green infrastructure technologies and approaches, while also providing benefits related to climate change, urban heating, energy savings, and community livability. A field trip tour examined local Low Impact Development installations along the Columbia River including stops to see a successful urban green roof, redevelopment of apartment complexes for stormwater reduction and mitigation, and wetland enhancement projects at an airport facility and an integrated park, wetland, and stormwater control facility. Engineers, designers, and representatives from the Port of Portland and the City of Vancouver joined the tour to illustrate incentives, barriers, and lessons learned at each stop.

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.
	A new and engaging film titled “Water Before Anything” was shown in an evening event. The film looks at the possibilities of water conflict as a force to bring people together rather than pushing them apart. As the world faces a future of water scarcity and diminished water quality, this film is a compelling story of one area in the United States and how it is dealing with the issues of water conflict. The technical portion of the conference included keynote presentations from renowned USGS scientist Dr. Robert Hirsch and Ms. Gail Achterman from the Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State University. Feedback on the evaluation forms overwhelmingly praised the insightfulness and value of these two speakers. These thought-proving talks set the framework for sessions involving the science of carrying capacity, the intersection of economics and land use, planning for change, stormwater mitigation, building consensus among stakeholders, modeling impact of land use decisions, local leadership in action, co-management of land and water, economics of water and land resources, and stormwater management. Abstracts and presentation links can be found by visiting the SWWRC website at www.swwrc.wsu.edu and clicking on conferences. We would like to thank our conference sponsors, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington State Department of Ecology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10, Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University, Washington State Department of Transportation, and State of Washington Water Research Center for helping keep the conference affordable by providing financial assistance, scholarships, and valuable expertise. If you missed the event, don’t despair. We are already planning our next event and look forward to seeing everyone again in 2011!
	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. 2008-51130-04734.

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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 February 15, 2010