Wednesday Roundup: Five News Stories & Resources You Don't Want to Miss

Information overload. Analysis paralysis. Overflowing in boxes. We all wrestle with these issues every day. One small way the Habitat Program staff can help the beleaguered watershed groups of the nation wade through the information morass? The Wednesday Roundup.

Each Wednesday we'll summarize five important news stories or new resources you don't want to miss if you are working on water quality and river habitat issues. This isn't every news item you might find interesting, but rather a short list of some critical opinion pieces, news items or resources you might have otherwise missed in the information deluge:

Top Five Items You Might Have Missed: 11/16/11 to 11/23/11
1) Protecting the Law that Protects our Rivers: Defining the Scope of the Clean Water Act.

The New York Times weighed in this week on one of the most important issues of the day (and decade) for anyone who wants safe, clean water -- the issue of which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act. Read more about what the Times had to say and find a link to a handy action-alert for weighing in on the issue.

2) Supercommittee Failure Could be Superbad for EPA, and for Water Issues.

As reports that the "supercommittee" charged with finding a long-term budget reduction deal failed spread across the internet this week, everyone scrambled to figure out what the failure means for their interest area. For those of us who love rivers, the most obvious question is what this means for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's budget, and the priorities for that smaller budget. Learn more about what the failure could mean for EPA’s water programs.

3) Rooftop to Rivers.

Natural Resources Defense Council released an update to their report, Rooftop to Rivers report (originally released five years ago). This update presents the newest data from fourteen cities using green infrastructure (methods that use natural features to keep water closer to where it falls) to manage and treat stormwater and reduce sewer overflows. Check out their six-point “Emerald City Scale” used to measure the cities against six core criteria. For more information on the Emerald City Scale, visit their blog on the topic.

4) Delaware Says No Fracking Thanks.

States are waking up to the dangers of fracking. This week Delaware announced they would vote against a regional plan to allow fracking in the Delaware River watershed Governor Markell said: “This risk is a significant concern for Delaware and therefore, until we have confidence that the Commission's Natural Gas Development Regulations, coupled with the state and local regulations upon which they rely, are adequately protective of this water supply, I have a duty to current and future generations of Delawareans to vote no.”

5) New EPA Document Provides Practical Examples of the Power of Bioassessments.

So this resource technically was released before this week's Roundup window, but it only came to our attention this week. The U.S. EPA's new report -- A Primer on Using Biological Assessment to Support Water Quality Management -- provides what has long been missing in our opinion: concrete examples of the power of bioassessments when applied to protecting and restoring our rivers. Get inspired by these case studies and think about how you might use these approaches in your watershed.