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    Community Source Water Protection Initiative

    The Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water has partnered with Clean Water Fund and the Clean Water Network in an exciting new project to promote source water protection activities in communities nationwide. The Community Source Water Protection Initiative (Initiative) has been formed to help communities around the country make real water quality protection gains using source water assessments and the tools available through the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal and state programs.

    States are required to complete Source Water Assessments by 2003; the challenge for communities concerned about clean and safe water is to move beyond assessments by utilizing the many laws and programs available to protect drinking water at the source. This project will emphasize providing citizen leaders with information, tools, training and support to develop models for source water protection activities.

    Key activities of the Initiative include:

    Regional Training Conferences:
    Regional training conferences are being planned around the country for community leaders and activists. The conferences are designed to educate participants about resources that are available for source water protection and how to use them. The conferences will include hands-on planning exercises aimed at jump-starting model local protection efforts. The conferences will also provide background and training on integrating water laws and programs to maximize effectiveness around a variety of issues of concern to community, state and regional leaders and activists. Conference participants will leave with valuable tools, plans for action, and new contacts.

    Training conferences are being scheduled for the fall; the first of which will be held in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania for folks from the Mid-Atlantic region. For more information or to register on line please visit the Clean Water Fund web site at http://www.cleanwaterfund.org/swp/.

    Funding Assistance:
    The Initiative is calling on community, public health, consumer, watershed protection and other citizen groups at the state and local level to mobilize local citizens to protect the rivers, streams, wetlands, and groundwater that are the sources of our drinking water. As part of this project, a source water protection assistance fund is available to reimburse participants for activities they carry out in concert with the Initiative's national strategy for turning source water assessments into real water quality gains.

    Through this assistance fund, the Initiative will reimburse state and local organizations for costs (up to $2,000) associated with local and regional source water protection activities. These activities may include education and dissemination of information to Initiative partner groups and the planning and implementation of source water protection projects.

    Pre-approval of all funding requests is required. For more information or to apply for these funds please contact Eddie Scher at the Clean Water Network at 202-289-2395. Organizations must be 501C-3 or be sponsored by a 501C-3 to receive the mini-grants.

    For more information about this Initiative, to find more about regional conferences or to find out how you can get involved please contact Julia Krall, CSADW Coordinator at 202-895-0432 ext. 135 or csadw@cleanwater.org.

    This Initiative is funded in part by a cooperative agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency.