Stream Cleaner is an interactive program found on the blackboard in the middle and high school  classrooms.  As the core of the pollution curriculum, it explores the relationship between people's actions and their impact on the environment.  The issues raised by Stream Cleaner are the same issues that people in the Potomac region are working on to help clean up both WV rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.  To read or printout background information or Stream Cleaner's content, click here.

West Virginia Potomac Tributary Strategy.  The Chesapeake Bay is a national and local treasure, and an important source of livelihood, recreation and cultural heritage for the region. However, after receiving pollution from the surrounding landscape for many years, the Bay is in trouble. The states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed - Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia - the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are working together to clean up the Bay. They have determined that the key to restoring the Bay’s health will require reducing the flow of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment flowing from each of the Bay States into the Bay, and have set maximum amounts for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in each State’s waters. West Virginia agencies and stakeholders have developed a Potomac Tributary Strategy that seeks to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution while minimizing economic and social burdens on our community.  To read a summary, click here.  To read the entire document (it's 50 pages long), click here then click on Potomac Tributary Strategy.  To read about the Chesapeake Bay model and how it relates to WV's Potomac Tributary Strategy process, click here.

Links

A West Virginia success story!  Cleaning up the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac using Best Management Practices and community support.  

Bacterial Source Tracking (BST) - Bacterial Source Tracking (BST) is new methodology that is being used to determine the sources of fecal bacteria in environmental samples (e.g. from human, livestock, or wildlife origins). BST methodology has been described as having the ability to turn nonpoint sources into point sources. BST is also called fecal source tracking, microbial source tracking, and/or fecal typing.

Center for Watershed Protection - Founded in 1992, the Center for Watershed Protection is a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation that provides local governments, activists, and watershed organizations around the country with the technical tools for protecting some of the nation’s most precious natural resources: our streams, lakes and rivers. The Center has developed and disseminated a multi-disciplinary strategy to watershed protection that encompasses watershed planning, watershed restoration, stormwater management, watershed research, better site design, education and outreach, and watershed training.

Conservation Technology Information Center - Established in 1982, the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) is a national, nonprofit public-private partnership working to promote the enhancement of soil and water quality by equipping agriculture with realistic, affordable, and integrated solutions. CTIC envisions agriculture using environmentally beneficial and economically viable natural resource systems.

USEPA - Clean Water Act - USEPA - Clean Water Act Web Site. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. As amended in 1977, this law became commonly known as the Clean Water Act. The Act established the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States. It gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry. The Clean Water Act also continued requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters.

USGS Water Data for the Nation - These pages provide access to water-resources data collected at approximately 1.5 million sites in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Online access to this data is organized around the categories listed to the left. The USGS investigates the occurrence, quantity, quality, distribution, and movement of surface and underground waters and disseminates the data to the public, State and local governments, public and private utilities, and other Federal agencies involved with managing our water resources.

USGS Water Science for Schools - The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Water Science for Schools web site offers information on many aspects of water, along with pictures, data, maps, and an interactive center where you can give opinions and test your water knowledge.

WV Nutrient Criteria Committee - The West Virginia Environmental Quality Board has convened a study group to provide assistance and recommendations for developing nutrient criteria for nutrient parameters for inclusion in the Water Quality Standards Rule (46 CSR 1 - Requirements Governing Water Quality Standards). Beginning in June 2002, this group was charged with the development of a Nutrient Criteria Plan, that outlined a systematic approach to developing nutrient criteria, for submission to Region 3, USEPA. Following development of that plan in 2002, the study group known as the WV Nutrient Criteria Committee (NCC) was further charged with development of nutrient criteria in accordance with the timetable and approach outlined in that plan.

WVDEP - Division of Water and Waste Management - WV Division of Environmental Protection, Division of Water and Waste Management's mission is to preserve and enhance West Virginia's watersheds for the benefit and safety of all. The Division of Water and Waste Management strives to meet its mission through implementation of programs controlling surface and groundwater pollution caused by industrial and municipal discharges as well as oversight of construction, operation and closure of hazardous and solid waste and underground storage tank sites. In addition, the Division works to protect, restore, and enhance West Virginia's watersheds through comprehensive watershed assessments, groundwater monitoring, wetlands preservation, inspection and enforcement of hazardous and solid waste disposal and proper operation of underground storage tanks.

West Virginia Save Our Streams - The West Virginia Save Our Streams (WVSOS) program is a volunteer monitoring program that trains West Virginia citizens of all ages, how to monitor, and become watchdogs over their local wadeable streams and rivers. WVSOS uses a streamside biological approach to monitoring, which involves collecting a series of benthic macroinvertebrate samples, placing the organisms in trays of water, sorting them into look-alike groups, and calculating a stream condition index, which, assigns a rating to the stream site. This information, along with the habitat assessment survey, provides the volunteer enough information to make a general assessment of the stream site. By monitoring additional sites along the stream, the volunteers can make an assessment of the stream's overall health.