**[National Water Quality Monitoring Proposal]{.underline}**

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the National Science and
Technology Council (NSTC) \[Subcommittee on Water Availability and
Quality (SWAQ) and Joint Subcommittee on Oceans (JSO)\] propose an
initiative to address all three Ocean Commission recommendations in
Chapter 15: Creating a National Water Quality Monitoring Network. The
Ocean Commission recommends:

-   development of a national monitoring network that coordinates and
    expands existing efforts

-   that the network include coverage in both the coastal and upland
    areas that affect them, and is linked to the Integrated Ocean
    Observing System

-   that the network has clear goals, specifies core variables and an
    appropriate sampling framework, and is periodically reviewed and
    updated.

CEQ and NSTC request that the Advisory Committee on Water Information
(ACWI), through the National Water-Quality Monitoring Council (Council),
provide advice, counsel, and recommendations that address the U.S.
Commission on Ocean Policy recommendation regarding the creation of a
"coordinated, comprehensive" national water quality monitoring network.
The primary task of this advice is to recommend a design for a National
water-quality monitoring network (hereafter referred to as the
*network*). The *network* would be designed to address and integrate
watershed, coastal waters, and ocean monitoring, based on common
criteria and standards. The *network* would provide information on water
quality that, when interpreted with other information such as economic
and land use data, would provide relevant scientific information to
assist resource management and decision making. The *network* design
should identify the major overarching management questions that need to
be addressed and the fundamental elements of this national monitoring
network (such as atmospheric deposition, surface water, ground water,
and water quality, including biological monitoring), emphasizing the
"federally funded backbone" of water quality networks and programs.
General classes of monitoring activities should be discussed, in cases
where there are more programs than practically can be addressed on an
individual basis, for example volunteer monitoring programs. Specific
tasks are to:

1.  Define the elements of the recommended *network* and the
    corresponding overarching management questions that they address,
    and explain how the elements interrelate;

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1.  Describe how the recommended *network* addresses important issues
    and management questions through case studies of existing monitoring
    activities;

2.  Determine which management questions and *network* components are
    not being adequately addressed with existing activities; why the
    questions cannot be answered (for example, lack of data, existing
    data cannot be shared across boundaries); and what is needed; and

3.  Recommend specific actions intended to better coordinate existing
    networks so that they more effectively yield information needed to
    achieve the proposed *network*. Consider limitations of existing
    resources and the tradeoffs of redirecting or adding new resources.

4.  Recommend specific actions to enhance compatibility of the national
    water quality monitoring network with the nascent Ocean and Earth
    Observation Systems, as recommended by the U.S. Commission on Ocean
    Policy, including data management and quality standards.

The description of the *network* would draw upon case studies of
existing monitoring activities to demonstrate the way it addresses
important issues, and existing limitations, redundancy and monitoring
needs. Examples of potential case studies include:

-   Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico for the issue of excess
    nutrients and hypoxia, including progress made by the Mississippi
    River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force.

-   Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) of federal,
    state, and tribal governments with interest in coordinated
    monitoring of watershed condition, fish population, and management
    effectiveness.

-   Gulf of Maine and associated areas potentially affected by invasive
    species and nutrients, including efforts to form a NW Atlantic
    Coastal Monitoring consortium.

-   Chesapeake Bay monitoring activities related to satisfying and
    measuring progress toward the goals of the federal and multi-state
    Chesapeake 2000 agreement.

As indicated in the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's recommendations,
NOAA, NASA, EPA, USGS, USACE, and other federal agencies as appropriate
would collaborate in and support this assessment. The advice, counsel,
and recommendations are being sought from the ACWI to gain participation
of state, tribal, and other government and private sector entities
involved in monitoring. The framework should consider recent documents
that address monitoring needs and limitations at both the national scale
and for specific case studies (list follows).

*This activity will:*

-   *Identify key management questions that a coordinated, comprehensive
    monitoring network must address.*

-   *Demonstrate the role of existing programs, their relationship, and
    existing and potential synergies.*

-   *Identify the monitoring needs that cannot be addressed by existing
    programs.*

-   *Put in perspective the degree to which monitoring needs can be
    satisfied by reducing redundancies among existing monitoring
    activities.*

-   *Demonstrate coordination among lead federal agencies for monitoring
    and their capability to work with other monitoring and stakeholder
    entities.*

-   *Identify additional mechanisms needed for state or regional
    monitoring councils, monitoring clearinghouses, and technical
    coordination that establishes standard methods and procedures*

-   *Provide a basis for defining supplemental resources to fill
    existing monitoring gaps.*

-   *Provide a monitoring network design that will facilitate a stronger
    scientific foundation for making national, regional, and local
    management decisions.*

It is expected that ACWI/Council would help to finalize this charge, and
agree on an appropriate process to proceed. The tasks agreed to would be
completed within one year (by January 2006) with at least one interim
report to ACWI, CEQ, and NSTC in September 2005.

Recent reports that should be considered for this assessment include:

-   Final Report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (US COP) *An
    Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century*, Washington, DC (US COP 2004),
    \[<http://www.oceancommission.gov/documents/prepub_report/welcome.html>\].

-   The General Accounting Office (GAO) Report: *Watershed Management:
    Better Coordination of Data Collection Efforts Needed to Support Key
    Decisions*, (GAO, 2004),
    \[<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04382.pdf>\].

-   A recent report by the National Academies\', NRC: *Confronting the
    Nation\'s Water Problems: The Role of Research,*
    \[[http://books.nap.edu/books/0309092582/html/index.html\]]{.underline}.

-   The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (CENR) Report
    *Assessment of Coastal Hypoxia and Eutrophication in U.S. Waters,*
    (CENR, 2003)
    \[[*http://coastalscience.noaa.gov/publications/hypoxia.pdf*](http://coastalscience.noaa.gov/publications/hypoxia.pdf)\]

-   An Interagency report on research needs related to nutrient
    pollution in coastal waters: *Nutrient Pollution in Coastal Waters:
    Priority Topics for an Integrated National Research Program for the
    United States* (Howarth and others, 2003).

-   Interagency work toward creating The Integrated Oceans Observing
    System (Parts I, II, and III)
    \[<http://www.ocean.us/documents/componentsIOOS.jsp>\].

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-   Interagency work toward developing the Draft Strategic Plan for the
    U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System
    \[<http://iwgeo.ssc.nasa.gov/draftstrategicplan.asp>\].

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-   The Heinz Center Report: The State of the Nation's Ecosystems.
    Measuring the Lands, Waters, and Living Resources of the United
    States. The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the
    Environment, 2002
    \[<http://www.heinzctr.org/ecosystems/report.html>\]

-   The National Academy of Public Administration Report: Understanding
    What States Need to Protect Water Quality. The National Academy of
    Public Administration, December, 2002.
    \[[[http://209.183.198.6/NAPA/NAPAPubs.nsf/]{.underline}](http://209.183.198.6/NAPA/NAPAPubs.nsf/)\]

-   The General Accounting Office Report: Inconsistent State Approaches
    Complicate Nation's Effort to Identify Its Most Polluted Waters
    (GAO, 2002).
    [[http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02186.pdf]{.underline}](http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02186.pdf)

-   The report of the CENR, Environmental Monitoring Team, *Integrating
    The Nation's Environmental Monitoring and Research Networks and
    Programs: A Proposed Framework* (CENR, 1997).
    \[<http://www.epa.gov/cludygxb/Pubs/framewrk.pdf>\]

-   ACWI/NWQMC *Framework for Monitoring* published in Water Resources
    IMPACT, September 2003 (Peters and Ward, 2003)
    [[http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/monitoring/pubs/0309impact.pdf]{.underline}](http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/monitoring/pubs/0309impact.pdf)

-   The General Accounting Office (GAO) Report: Water Quality: Key EPA
    and State Decisions Limited by Inconsistent and Incomplete Data,
    (GAO, 2000), \[<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00054.pdf>\]

-   The National Academy of Science, NRC: Assessing the TMDL Approach to
    Water Quality Management,
    \[<http://books.nap.edu/books/0309075793/html/index.html>\]

-   The National Academy of Science, NRC: Opportunities to Improve the
    U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Assessment Program,
    \[<http://books.nap.edu/books/0309083052/html/index.html>\]

-   A report of the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient
    Task Force, Monitoring Modeling and Research Workgroup, A Science
    Strategy to Support Management Decisions Related to Hypoxia in the
    Northern Gulf of Mexico and Excess Nutrients in the Mississippi
    River Basin, 2004, \[<http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/circ/2004/1270>\]

**National Water Quality Monitoring Working Group Members:**

Coordinator: Malka Pattison <Malka_pattison@ios.doi.gov>

Peter Grevatt, EPA

Charles Spooner, EPA

Barry Burgan, EPA

Jennifer Linn, EPA

Macara Lousberg, EPA/CEQ Oceans Task Force

Robert Mason, USGS

Toni Johnson, USGS

Gail Mallard, USGS

Beverley Getzen, USACE

Stephanie Bailenson, NOAA

Robert Magnien, NOAA

George Smith, NOAA

Bruce Parker, NOAA/NOS

Douglas Brown, NOAA

Andrew Larkin, NOAA/CEQ Oceans Task Force

Carl Lucero, USDA-NRCS

Howard Hankin, USDA/CEQ Task Force

Jared Entin, NASA

Joseph Skorupa, FWS

Gene Whitney, OSTP

Cynthia Decker, Navy

Jim Kinney, BOR