EPA Webcast: Watershed Financing—Moving Beyond Grants

Deadline: Tuesday, October 16th

Sign up for Watershed Financing—Moving Beyond Grants
An EPA Watershed Academy Series webcast on funding.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007Two-hour audio Web broadcast
Eastern: 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Central: 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. Mountain: 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Pacific: 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
You must register in advance to participate in the Webcast.

A Watershed Academy Webcast: Community leaders and local officials often focus watershed protection efforts on one or two funding sources, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's section 319 funds. This approach to funding is understandable given the complexity of the problems, issues, and potential solutions available. Finding public funds – usually in the form of grants – is often the easiest and least politically costly financing solution to very entrenched issues and problems. Yet, anyone with experience in designing and managing watershed restoration projects knows that there is not enough public funding or private grants to recover watersheds and habitat areas. Creating a watershed-financing plan that identifies and leverages sustainable funding sources is key to successful implementation of any community effort, including watershed restoration and protection. Essential elements of developing a watershed finance strategy and key steps in the financing planning process will be discussed. Concepts will be demonstrated through presentation of successful watershed finance case study examples.

Instructors:

Tim Jones, Environmental Protection Specialist, USEPA Coastal Management Branch Tim has provided environmental finance training to community-based watershed organizations and solid waste managers for over 10 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Offices of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds and EPA’s Office of Solid Waste. Tim also provided soil conservation training to farmers and environmental education training to elementary school teachers for over five years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Dan Nees, Senior Associate of People and Ecosystems Program, World Resources Institute Dan comes to the World Resources Institute (WRI) from the University of Maryland, where he served as director of the Environmental Finance Center (EFC). Throughout his career, he has worked extensively with communities, local officials, and watershed organizations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and Mid-Atlantic on a broad variety of environmental finance issues. Dan’s areas of expertise include financing and environmental policy as it relates to stormwater protection, low impact development, and green infrastructure. He has written several papers on important emerging issues including financing land preservation, the role of financing authorities and institutions in ecosystem restoration, and the benefit of green infrastructure and low impact development techniques on urban wet weather management.

The Watershed Academy The Watershed Academy is a focal point in EPA’s Office of Water for providing training and information on implementing watershed approaches. The Academy sponsors live classroom training and online distance learning modules through the Watershed Academy Web at www.epa.gov/watertrain.

For more information, visit www.epa.gov/watershedacademy. Registration Registration for this Webcast opens October 5, 2007. You must register in advance to participate in the Webcast. To register, visit www.clu-in.org/live. The Webcast will be a Web-based slide presentation with a companion audio portion. There are two options for accessing the audio portion of the Webcast: by phone OR by streaming audio broadcast (not both). When registering, you will be able to select the audio option you prefer to accompany the Web-based slides. If you choose the streaming audio option, you will not be able to participate by telephone. However, you will be able to submit questions online for the presenters to answer during the Webcast. Closed-captioning is available. Upon registration, you will receive complete participation instructions.

Please note that there are a limited number of toll-free phone lines available, so register early to guarantee your spot. Because of the limited number of spaces, we strongly encourage you to reserve a conference room and invite your colleagues and other partners to participate.

If you register after that limit is reached, you will be added to a waiting list. After the Webcast is over, an audio version of the Webcast will be available—visit www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts for more information. Questions? Visit www.clu-in.org/live or contact Helen Siverling at helen.siverling@tetratech-ffx.com or 703-385-6000. The materials in this Webcast have been reviewed by EPA staff for technical accuracy. However, the views of the speakers and the speaker’s organization are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of EPA. Mention of any commercial enterprise, product, or publication does not mean that EPA endorses them.