Water Watch: Alabama Citizen Monitoring Group is Model for the World

William (Bill) G. Deutsch, Ph.D., research fellow in fisheries and allied aquacultures at Auburn University and member of the AU Water Resources Committee, leads Alabama Water Watch, a citizen-based monitoring group that has become an international model for grassroots resource management.

Bill Deutsch

 

Alabama Water Watch began 15 years ago as a fledgling effort to help Alabama citizens protect their local water resources.  It is now an award-winning, internationally recognized program that is helping communities worldwide protect their water supplies.

Alabama Water Watch is dedicated to developing networks of citizen volunteers to monitor Alabama’s lakes, streams, and coasts.  Founded in 1992 under the leadership of Bill Deutsch, the Alabama Water Watch Program was established through Clean Water Act grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

Alabama Water Watch trains citizen monitors to become the “eyes and ears” for waterbodies.  Volunteers collect data on their local waterbodies and are able to enter, analyze, and access their data via the AWW online database.  The result is increased local awareness and public outreach related to water quality as well as neighbor-to-neighbor work with polluters and the development of science-based, citizen-involved action plans.

According to Deutsch, Water Watch’s goal is to get communities truly involved with their water protection.  And involved they are.  To date, AWW has generated 250 citizen groups that have collected 48,000 water quality records and tested some 700 waterbodies in the state.

The program has also spawned board games called BIO-ASSESS and MacroMania that simulate biological assessment and watershed evaluation of streams in the classroom.  Water Watch is now putting the finishing touches on the Discovering Alabama’s Living Streams curriculum, which will be available statewide later this year, for grades six through 12 to teach aquatic science.

For additional information, contact Bill Deutsch at wdeutsch@aces.edu or (334) 844-9119

SWaMPed with Success

Map of Saugahatchee Watershed

 Recently, the Opelika/Auburn news ran an article about the implementation of the Saugahatchee Creek Watershed Managment Plan (SWaMP), a project directed by AU Water Resource Committee Member, Bill Deutsch in conjunction with his work with Alabama Water Watch. 

This highly successful community oriented project was used as a case study during the recent AU Water Resources Workshop conducted for members of the Alabama Permanent Joint Legislative Committee on Water Policy and Management.

The Tallapoosa Watershed Project (one of the two intergated watershed projects funded by the AU Water Resources Center) will also focus on the Saugahatchee in its first year and will add a research component to the ongoing efforts in this watershed.

To read the article, visit: SWaMPed with Success

25x’25 Applauds Farm Foundation for Underscoring Food Price Complexities

The National 25x’25 Alliance today commended the Farm Foundation for its new study that underscores the complex and multiple factors influencing food prices today. “We fully agree with the Farm Foundation that as policy leaders engage in the debate on future policy options, it is important to understand that the issues affecting food prices are multifaceted and should be addressed with care and consideration,” said 25x’25 Project Coordinator Ernie Shea.

In releasing the study, What’s Driving Food Prices, Farm Foundation President Neilson Conklin said the challenge for public and private leaders is to identify policy choices that help the world deal with the very real problems created by today’s rising food prices without jeopardizing options that can enhance productivity and improve our environment.

Written by Purdue University economists Wallace Tyner, Christopher Hurt and Philip Abbott, the study identifies three broad sets of forces driving food price increases: global changes in production and consumption of key commodities, the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, and growth in the production of biofuels. The authors made no attempt to calculate what percentage of price changes are attributable to the many disparate causes, instead choosing to study the interplay of the forces driving food prices.

Key findings include the rapid economic growth in developing countries is leading to growing food demand and dietary transition from cereals toward more animal protein, raising global consumption of agricultural commodities; growth in agricultural productivity has slowed; the effects of speculative activity in commodity markets is unclear; the link between the U.S. dollar exchange rate and commodity prices is strong and more important than many other studies imply; the long-term impact of higher oil prices has yet to be felt; and credits, tariffs and the Renewable Fuel Standard are factors causing increased corn prices, but quantitatively, most of that price increase is driven by high oil prices.

Shea said the information raised by the foundation’s study will help agricultural, environmental, consumer and energy groups meet the challenge of addressing the critical public policy issue of meeting our global responsibility to sustainably and responsibly meet dietary needs and reduce dependence on fossil fuels through increased agricultural productivity. “25x’25 stands ready to engage all stakeholders in a comprehensive discussion of all steps that can be taken to facilitate new energy opportunities while continuing to ensure an ample, affordable and safe supply of food, feed and fiber,” he said.

25x’25 is a diverse alliance of agricultural, forestry, environmental, conservation and other organizations and businesses that are working collaboratively to advance the goal of securing 25 percent of the nation’s energy needs from renewable sources by the year 2025. 25x’25 is led by a national steering committee composed of volunteer leaders. The 25x’25 goal has been endorsed by over 700 partners, 30 governors, 16 state legislatures and the U.S. Congress through HR6,  which was signed into law by President Bush on December 19, 2007. 25x’25 is a special project of the Energy Future Coalition (EFC). The EFC is a broad-based non-partisan public policy initiative that seeks to bring about change in U.S. energy policy to address overarching challenges related to the production and use of energy.

Auburn Energy Partner Video: Gadsden’s Biodiesel Project

Container for collecting used cooking oil

Recently, Mark Hall, a renewable energy specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, put together a short video describing our ongoing project with the Gadsden, AL to produce biodiesel for municipal fleet vehicles from recycled cooking oil.

Check it out by pasting this link into you browser: 

mms://wms.aces.edu/media/satellite/ppt/agrcrops/gadsden_biodiesel.wmv

If you have questions or would like additional information, contact Mark Hall at (256) 532-1578 or Steve Taylor, Director of the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts at (334) 844-3534.

Special thanks to our friends in Gadsden for their role in the video and as an Auburn Energy Partner!