Watersheds & Water Quality—Current Projects
Massachusetts Watershed Initiative
Although recognized nationally as a model for watershed innovation,
the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative (MWI) is still in its formative
stages. Critical to the success of the Initiative will be strategies
to raise watershed awareness, promote community involvement in resource
protection, and enhance capacity at the local level to understand
and address environmental issues. NREC is an active partner in support
of the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative.
Objectives
- To work with various partners involved in the MWI to develop
and implement outreach plans on a statewide basis and within the
27 designated watersheds
- Develop outreach programs and materials focusing on: the relationship
between watershed health and quality of life, impacts of land use
practices on watershed resources, best management practices for
watershed protection, and technical issues related to watershed
and water resource protection
- Implement and support community-based watershed protection projects
- Provide technical assistance and training in watershed assessment,
modeling and monitoring
- Protect watershed resources via land use planning
- Involve schools in watershed-based community projects
- Involve University students in Massachusetts Watershed Initiative
projects
This project is piloting an approach to community-based watershed
protection in the Mill River watershed, a sub-basin of the Connecticut
River watershed. The Mill River Watershed Project is an effort to
identify and address environmental issues within five communities
(Hatfield, Whately, Deerfield, Conway, and Northampton). The project
involves working with municipal boards, conducting a variety of watershed
assessments, targeted outreach, involving teachers from local schools
in environmental education, and convening stream teams and a watershed
council to facilitate public participation.
Objectives
- Involve communities in identifying and addressing environmental
issues in the watershed
- Assess water quality and habitat conditions in the Mill River
and its tributaries
- Identify opportunities to protect farmland and forest health,
and to enhance wildlife habitat and recreational values
- Provide local officials with sound scientific information as
a basis for sound decision-making
- Offer young people an opportunity to learn about the environment
and to develop a sense of responsibility for their communities
- Develop a coordinated approach to resource protection across
town boundaries
Hazardous Materials Program
This program increases consumer knowledge and understanding of groundwater
as a resource and the effects of solid and hazardous material disposal
to water quality issues. The Barnstable County Hazardous Materials
Program and Hazardous Materials Hot Line offers technical assistance
and educational support to town household hazardous waste coordinators
for household hazardous waste collections and the implementation
of permanent collection programs for recyclable hazardous materials.
Staff specialists also provide the public easy access to up-to-date
information on the proper disposal of household hazardous materials
on Cape Cod. Questions answered include what is hazardous waste,
how to package hazardous waste for disposal, where and when these
items may be safely disposed, and how to reduce the use of hazardous
materials in homes and businesses.
Objectives
- To increase consumer knowledge and understanding of groundwater
as a resource
- To increase consumer knowledge and understanding of solid and
hazardous waste disposal in relation to water quality issues
- To assist towns in implementing new programs for recycling hazardous
materials
- To assist towns to increase participation in household hazardous
materials collection and recycling programs through enhanced education
and outreach
Watershed Education
NREC provides curriculum materials, training, and demonstration
projects to build a constituency of educators and general public
who can ably teach the science and environmental civics of watershed
protection and engage others, including youth, in problem solving
and action to protect the environment. Projects provide a real world
context for teaching and learning that integrates science and math
content standards, and secondarily associated history and social
science and language arts standards of the Massachusetts Educational
Frameworks. This program serves as a model for schools, watershed
communities, watershed associations, Massachusetts Bays Program,
and other educational institutions for involving youth in building
environmentally healthy and sustainable watershed communities.
Objectives
- Partner with the Massachusetts Bays Program to chart a course
for the implementation of the CCMP priority action plans to achieve
environmental results
- Assess and integrate school / Dept of Education educational
needs with the objectives of the Massachusetts Bays Program, NREC,
and the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative
- Increase educators’ learning and teaching of core interdisciplinary
content and educational strategies to investigate and problem-solve
environmental issues
- Establish educational programs for informal educators, citizens
and community leaders, and science and social specialists that
will provide a knowledge base necessary to understand specific
watershed problems and set some problem solving and mitigation
strategies into motion
- Promote use of research and educational resources through teacher/leader
workshop brochures, Newsletters, news releases, email distribution
list, public exhibition and teacher recognition awards for class
stewardship projects
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