National News Archives 2004
Link to Articles
09/04 - Water Quality Planner Joins Sea Grant Team
09/04 - South Carolina NEMO Website Wins Award08/04 - We're Famous!
08/04 - U4-ia Begins!
08/04 - 8/04 Arizona NEMO, the First Semiarid-Focused Program
08/04 - Vermont Joins the Network07/04 - Dave Dickson is the New National NEMO Network Coordinator
06/04 - NEMO's Great Lakes Programs Featured in "Keeping it On the Land"
06/04 - Northland NEMO's New "Natural Resource Information" Educational Materials03/04 - John Rozum Leaves the Network
03/04 - Around the Network
03/04 - Hub Stays Funded
03/04 - Tracking Connecticut's Changing Landscape
03-04 - Arizona NEMO Has a New Log
The following article is from the North Carolina Sea Grant Marine Extension News Winter 2004 issue.
Timing is everything. And, it’s no coincidence that Kate Ardizone has joined North Carolina Sea Grant as water quality planning specialist when coastal communities are revising their land-use plans under new Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) rules.
The new rules, adopted by the Coastal Resources Commission in 2002, address a variety of sustainable growth and development issues that link land use to coastal water quality. In particular, local governments must address nonpoint source pollution and its impact on water quality as part of long-range planning. Nonpoint pollution sources include erosion >from disturbed land, failing septic systems, as well as stormwater runoff from hardened surfaces or nutrient-rich agricultural and residential tracts.
Ardizone will play a supporting role to local governments and citizens taking steps to comply with the CRC planning guidelines. Ardizone’s position is being supported for a two-year period by Sea Grant and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Division of Water Quality (DWQ).
"My focus is on serving the coastal communities," Ardizone says.
Still in a listening mode, she is attempting to identify the greatest needs. It’s a first step toward helping local governments develop strategies that address land use and water quality.
"There is no one-size-fits-all approach," she says. But there are a host of natural resource-based planning techniques, high-tech and low-tech solutions for coastal communities to consider.
An opening dialogue, for example, could be in helping communities identify natural features, their ecological function, and how they might figure in land-use planning.
Ardizone is well prepared to facilitate such public discourse. In 2000, she served as an outreach program associate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Services Center in Charleston. There, she was project leader in developing "Engaging Communities: Participatory Strategies for Coastal Managers," a CD-ROM that features examples of ways to improve the public’s involvement and understanding of environmental issues.
Most recently, Ardizone was a NOAA Coastal Management Fellow, working for two years with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Coastal Management Program. She co-authored "Filling the Gaps: Environmental Protection Options of Local Governments," a guidebook for local officials challenged to balance resource protection and economic prosperity.
The book was the basis for regional workshops Ardizone conducted on topics such as ecological processes, natural resource-based planning techniques, regulatory options and implementation tools.
Ardizone believes North Carolina is ahead of the game because of the framework that exists for localities to adopt environmentally sensitive land-use plans. CAMA was adopted more than three decades ago as a mechanism to protect coastal resources.
Still, in the face of aggressive coastal growth, there is a lot at stake, says Walter Clark, Sea Grant’s coastal communities and policy specialist.
"Kate’s technical assistance should be especially well received in coastal communities that may not have the resources to plan and implement CAMA guidelines," he adds.
"The goal of this position is to increase the internal capacity of the local governments to perform these tasks on their own in the future," explains DWQ’s Gloria Putnam.
Ardizone will consult with Clark and Putnam, as well as the N.C. Division of Division of Coastal Management (DCM) and N.C. Cooperative Extension Service to identify target audiences for outreach and education efforts. These audiences could include elected officials, developers, professional planners and interested citizens.
When requested, she will assist in reviewing, or suggesting improvements to water quality components of land use plans.
Recognizing that it’s not enough to turn a community on to best management practices without regard to funding constraints, Ardizone will help identify proposed water quality improvement projects that may be eligible for funding.
She adds, "Many solutions to water quality problems can be achieved through appropriate planning, policy enforcement and citizen participation with little or no additional cost to the community."
Ardizone maintains an office at North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Studies at Morehead City. She can be reached at 252/222-6316 or ardizonek@ncsu.edu.
09/04 South Carolina NEMO Website Wins Award
Clemson
Extension Web Site Communications Award
The South Carolina Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (SC NEMO) Website, a S.C. Sea Grant Extension Program project, recently won a 1st Place award for content and graphic design. Content was written by April Turner and site design was by Patty Snow. The award is sponsored by the S.C. Association of County Agricultural Agents. For more information, visit the SC NEMO site. http://www.scseagrant.org/scnemo.htm.
The National NEMO program is highlighted in the preliminary report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, the first presidential commission to review and make recommendations on national ocean policy since the Stratton Commission report was released in 1969.
Recognizing that “land use decisions dramatically affect the health of coastal waters,” the Commission applauds NEMO for educating land use officials about the effects of their actions and policies on water quality and recommends an expansion of such efforts. Specifically, the Commission recommends that: State and local governments should revise their codes and ordinances to require land use planning and decision-making to carefully consider the individual and cumulative impacts of development on water quality, including effects on stormwater runoff. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(1) and other appropriate entities should increase outreach programs that provide local land use decision makers with the knowledge and tools needed to make sound land use decisions that protect coastal water quality(2). (Recommendation 14-11.) A final report has been approved by the Commission and is expected to be released this fall. This recommendation is certainly a testament to the importance of the efforts of all the NEMO Network members and partners in their communities. The full report can be found at website www.oceancommission.gov.
Note
1: The Network Hub provided comments to the USCOP that EPA should
be joined by NOAA, USDA and NASA in the Recommendation, just as
it was in the preamble.
Note 2: According to the USCOP website, key changes to the Preliminary Report
include a recommendation for “significant expansion of the National Sea
Grant College Program” (!!)
Euphoria—however spelled—is the watch-word of the day here at the Network Hub. For one, with the addition of Dave Dickson as our new National Network Coordinator (see article below), we are finally up to full strength at all NEMO line offices. As I ride (once again) into the sunset, let me say that I have enjoyed my brief stint as the Interim Part-time Provisional Network Coordinator. It gave me a renewed appreciation for the great work that you folks are doing out there, and what we yet might accomplish as a network.
Second, of course, we are gearing up for NEMO U4, to be held April 4-7 in Washington, DC. Between euphoria and U4-ia, a whole lot of reality will set in, what with the many details of conference sessions, field trips (can we find a boat trip?), receptions, etc. U4 will have a Big City feel, yet keep the homespun quality that has characterized NEMO U in the past. As John Rozum (remember him?) said to me this spring, “the agenda of NEMO U is almost irrelevant.” By this, we mean that NEMO U is not about topical training, but about strengthening the bonds of communication and collegiality that keep the NEMO Network alive, well and fun to be a part of.
So, I entreat, encourage and otherwise invite all of you to attend U4 in April. I think you’ll be surprised at the quality and diversity of what your Network colleagues have been up to. We’ll have new Network members to indoctrinate, community- level impacts to highlight and, of course, ample interstices for socializing. - Chet Arnold
08/04 Arizona
NEMO, the First Semiarid-Focused Program
-
article by Kristine Uhlman
Arizona NEMO is the first attempt to adopt the national NEMO approach to conditions in the semiarid, western United States. For Arizona, the program is structured within a watershed-defined template and we are focusing our educational outreach efforts on the policy makers, planners, and land use decision makers impacted by nonpoint source water quality issues—including the Stormwater Phase II MS4 communities. GIS-based tools, such as the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool are being used to illustrate the effects of land use change on runoff and erosion, and to model sediment load—the principal nonpoint source pollutant in Arizona.
All four of the deserts of North American occur in Arizona, and with a geographical extent equivalent to the combined size of the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, stormwater could not be more distinct than from other parts of the country.
GIS-based hydrologic watershed modeling software has been developed by the USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center and the University of Arizona in collaboration with the EPA’s National Research Laboratory. The Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment software (AGWA) performs hydrologic model parameterization and results visualization for existing watershed scale hydrologic simulation models of stormwater runoff. AGWA allows the user to spatially visualize changes in hydrologic response through the use of remotely sensed land cover scenes. GIS-AGWA modeling has assisted in characterizing stormwater flow response to urbanization within the San Pedro River Watershed (Miller, et. al., 2002; Hernandez, et. al., 2003), and to model.
Satellite imagery of the San Pedro Watershed taken in June of 1973, 1986, 1992 and 1997, exhibited significant land use change and urbanization, especially within the subwatershed running through the developing community of Sierra Vista. The Sierra Vista subwatershed exhibited profound changes in land use, with nearly a 415% increase in urban area and 38% decrease in desert scrub and grassland. Runoff and sediment yield have been increasing in the urban subwatershed, and flashier flood response has been observed. It is expected that the decreased infiltration capacities and roughness associated with urbanization would increase the potential for localized large-scale runoff and erosion events, but this was not found to be true.
1973
Images above: Land cover change on the Upper San Pedro, after Miller, et al., 2002. (The San Pedro Watershed straddles the Arizona, Mexico boundary, shown as a horizontal line in each of the figures above.)
The Sierra Vista simulations suggest that the increased erosion observed to occur within an arid watershed undergoing a transition to urbanization may be due to more than urban-generated sediments. Sediment starved urban storm runoff due to the increase in impervious surfaces may be responsible for excessive down cutting in ephemeral streams and washes. Without sufficient sediment load, ephemeral streams will down-cut and erode the stream bed aggressively, contributing to the transport and re-distribution of streambed sediment. In the natural south west desert setting, intermittent storm flow acts as a conveyer belt, reloading with sediment with each storm event and transporting sediment on down-gradient. The GIS/AGWA modeling simulations of the Sierra Vista urban subwatershed for the 5-year, 30-minute design storm calculated runoff increasing by 177%, and sediment load increasing by 851% in response to urbanization over the 24 years between 1973 and 1997.
Hydrologic modeling and watershed assessments of the Upper Gila, Bill Williams, and Verde Watersheds are nearing completion, and examples from this work will be posted on the Arizona NEMO website in the future.
Contact
Kristine Uhlman, Senior Program Coordinator, with any questions
or comments about the Arizona NEMO Program at kuhlman@ag.arizona.edu or
by phone at 520-621-5951. www.srnr.arizona.edu/nemo
08/04 Vermont Joins the Network
We are pleased to welcome Vermont’s newly funded NEMO Program. Vermont’s program is headed by Jurij Homziak, Extension Assistant Professor, from the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Extension Project UVM, located in Burlington. Email Jurij at jurij.homziak@uvm.edu.
07/04 Dave Dickson is the New National NEMO Network Coordinator
David
comes to UConn from Washington, DC, where he was the Program Manager
for the National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals
(NALGEP), a not-for-profit organization that represents local government
personnel responsible for ensuring environmental compliance and developing
and implementing environmental policies and programs.
Dave organized and coordinated a number of initiatives for NALGEP, among them the “Smart Growth for Clean Water” project, a partnership with the Trust for Public Land, U.S. EPA, and the U.S. Forest Service that first brought NEMO to his attention (and visa-versa). Recently, he’s also been in charge of the Brownfield Communities Network, a national network of local communities working to demonstrate how the cleanup and reuse of contaminated property can be an effective tool for community revitalization. The NALGEP website says that the Brownfield Communities Network “…is working to harness the substantial knowledge, expertise, and experience of the nation’s leading brownfields communities developed during the past decade and export it to their peers.” Sound familiar?
Dave’s experience with national coordination and community-level projects will obviously stand him in good stead in his new job here at the Hub. As an added attraction, he holds a JD from the University of Colorado School of Law in addition to his Masters from the same University’s Graduate School of Public Affairs, so he will be available to (literally) bail out some of his new colleagues, in the unlikely case that any untoward legalistic activities arise.
Dave will be steeping himself in NEMO-ology over the summer, and begin to acquaint himself with all of you by summer’s end. He notes that “Hopefully, all the nuts out there in the NEMO Network aren’t quite so cranky and unreasonable as Rozum and Gibbons say they are!” [note: Dave was unavailable for a direct quote, this quote was generated using sophisticated verbiage approximation software].
Contact Dave at 860-345-4511. Email david.dickson@uconn.edu.
06/04 NEMO's Great Lakes Programs Featured in "Keeping it On the Land"
NEMO has been featured in the latest issue of "Keeping it on the Land," a newsletter of the Great Lakes Commission. The newsletter not only features a lead article on NEMO with a Great Lakes emphasis, but there is also a separate feature on the Lake Superior project. The article can be found at: www.glc.org/basin/pubs/keeping/pdf/0601-screen.pdf.
06/04 Northland NEMO's New "Natural Resource Information" Educational Materials
Northland
NEMO, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Dakota
County Soil and Water Conservation District are pleased to introduce
two new products to help local communities incorporate natural resources
into their activities:
The Brochure, "A Quick Guide to Using Natural Resource Information" and companion CD-rom "Guide to Using Natural Resource Information in Local Decision Making" are now available in hard copy from the DNR (see below) or in electronic form at the DNR's website: www.dnr.state.mn.us/nrig.
The Guide illustrates how using natural resource information in the local land use planning process can ensure that land use decisions are made in an environmentally sensitive and fiscally responsible way. It outlines a step-by-step Natural Resource-based Planning Process designed to provide planning guidance for people with a wide range of backgrounds and interests, including: local officials, local staff, concerned citizens, developers and other land use professionals.
The Quick Guide brochure serves as an introduction to the much more in-depth CD rom, which provides details about how to do a natural resource inventory, including where to find critical pieces of natural resource data that may already exist for your community.
The CD rom also includes numerous case studies of how communities have used natural resource information in a wide variety of ways.
For more
information or to order the guide on CD ROM, contact: Julie
Westerlund, Community Assistance Coordinator
e-mail: julie.westerlund@dnr.state.mn.us -
tel. 651.772.7938.
3/04 John
Rozum Leaves the Network
As most of you know, John Rozum has stepped down as National Network Coordinator to head up the Connecticut NEMO Program. From our perspective, it's really great news. After a lengthy period with no one at the helm, it was way past time for the Connecticut program to get its act together, and John is just the man for that. And, with the evolution of the Network to a new phase in its development, it's not a bad time to make this change.
For the record: John did a fabulous job, and it is very likely that without John there would be no NEMO Network. The numbers tell part of the story—from 5 to 33 programs in his 4-year tenure. However, the true importance of John's contribution is that few could have delivered the unique combination of topical knowledge, teaching prowess, hard work, imagination and humor that cajoled all you folks into getting into NEMO.
Of course, here at the Hub we needn't get all sentimental about John's departure, because, like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, he's still around. And because of that, the interim period between Coordinators will be less painful, both for you and for us. Kara, as always, is steadily crossing things off the Network to-do list, and I will be helping with the national work until our next Coordinator, for whom we are actively searching, comes on board. About the only major impact is that we feel the need to postpone NEMO U-4 for several months, from this Fall to the Jan-Feb. period of 2005. We hope to make the wait worthwhile. In the meantime, call me anytime with your Network-related needs. -Chet
Maine -
The NEMO program has a new coordinator. LaMarr Cannon brings
with her a solid background that includes both technical and outreach
experience. She was most recently employed at the Maine DEP, where
according to our well-placed sources, she was considered a star employee.
Prior to that, she earned a masters degree in environmental engineering
from Oregon State University, where she worked as a Research Assistant
on a project that focused on modeling stormwater and developing low
impact development options. She also spent a couple of years doing
outreach with a Soil & Water Conservation District in Oregon.
North Carolina - Kate Ardizone will take the helm of a newly funded effort in coastal North Carolina. Some may remember Kate from NEMO U2 in Charleston, where she attended as a representative from Michigan. Kate has worked as a Coastal Services Center fellow for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for the past two years, where she spent a lot of time talking to local township and county officials about alternative stormwater practices. Kate published a manual for Michigan local officials entitled, Filling the Gaps: Environmental Protection Options for Local Governments, that is now being used as the basis for similar efforts in other states. In North Carolina, Kate will be coordinating a collaborative effort between the Sea Grant and Cooperative Extension programs, working in broadening outreach efforts to coastal municipalities.
Pennsylvania - Another new program under the aegis of the PA Sea Grant program will be staffed by Dave Skellie and Sean Rafferty. Dave, the former director of the Erie County Planning Department, will oversee the project, while Sean, a recent graduate of Penn State Erie, will be getting out to the towns and making presentations. The Pennsylvania Sea Grant effort received 3-years of support from the PA DEP.
Arizona - Kristine Uhlman is the new coordinator for the newly-formed Arizona NEMO Program based in the University of Arizona's Cooperative Extension. Besides having one of the coolest NEMO logos, the Arizona NEMO Program is focusing on needs assessment of watershed stakeholders, development and implementation of workshops and other outreach media, and working on various mitigation projects. Kristine comes to this position following 28 years in hydrology, including employment with the US Geological Survey as well as several national and international consulting firms with projects in mine-site restoration, water resource management, environmental site clean-up, and expert witness testimony on topics of contaminant hydrogeology under Natural Resource Damages litigation. So, you now know where to send all your hydrology questions!
Your Network Hub will stay in business for several more years, thanks to the continued support of our federal agency partners. The University of Connecticut was awarded a four-year continuation for national facilitation of the NEMO Network from the USDA CSREES Water Quality Program. Another four-year commitment was made through a grant award from the EPA Office of Water's Nonpoint Control Branch. Thanks to both of these agencies for their continued support.
03/04 Tracking Connecticut's Changing Landscape
The UConn Center for Land use Education And Research (CLEAR), the parent organization for NEMO, has made use of cutting-edge remote sensing techniques to provide data about how the Connecticut landscape has changed since 1985, with a special emphasis on the growth of developed land. The natural forested land of the Northeast, almost completely converted to farmland only a hundred years ago, is now undergoing a transformation to an urban/suburban landscape. With these changes come a number of concerns about the environmental, social and economic impacts of development, some of which have become the subject of intense debate across the state. Connecticut's Changing Landscape, a project under development at UConn for the past two years, is an attempt to bring research-based information and education to these debates. Through a website and NEMO outreach programs, this information is being provided to Connecticut's local land use decision makers and other interested parties across the state. It is the goal of the Center to help create a sound foundation on which to build better land use plans, policies and practices that can accommodate growth while protecting natural resources, community character, and other things that we hold dear about our communities.
To view the land cover data visit the CT's Changing Landscape section of the CLEAR website.
03/04
Arizona NEMO Has a New Logo
Found in the spiritual mythology of the ancient Zuni, Hopi and Pueblo cultures, Avanyu is the Hopi name for the water serpent, “one who lives in the water below the earth, one who carries us through the water of change.” The sacred Avanyu lives in streams and is feathered with a turquoise horn growing from the middle of its forehead. The horn moves, sending rain for crops. When the Avanyu creeps on the ground and snaps its tail, it causes thunder, and when its tongue strikes out of it mouth, it causes lightening. If you see the Avanyu it will bring luck and good health, and it means there is water nearby or that it will rain soon. The symbol of Avanyu signifies the prayer for and representation of water. According to tribal wisdom, those who poison the water must face Avanyu's fiery revenge.