The Environmental Protection agency has released new guidance to provide the tools needed to develop and implement an effective outreach campaign as part of a state or local water quality improvement effort.
This guide, Getting In Step: A Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach Campaigns, is an update of the 1998 publication Getting In Step: A Guide to Effective Outreach in Your Watershed. This updated version includes more specific information on how to work with the mass media to conduct an outreach campaign. It also provides new information on how to incorporate social marketing techniques into a campaign to generate sustainable behavior changes that will protect water quality.
The guide will teach users how to listen to the needs of their audience rather than just blindly handing out fact sheets or reports that sit on shelves and collect dust. It shows the important roles that audience research and program evaluation play in changing personal behavior.
The step-by-step approach to social marketing and outreach planning and implementation in this guide will help users determine the most effective vehicle to reach their target audience and motivate behavior change.
As a companion to the guide, EPA and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food have jointly developed a how-to video called Getting In Step: A Video Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach Campaigns. This 35-minute video provides background on the six steps for conducting an environmental outreach campaign and includes four in-depth case studies that showcase successful local outreach programs from across the country.
In addition to the outreach guide and video, EPA recently published a new guide in the Getting in Step series on stakeholder involvement.
The document, Getting In Step: A Guide for Conducting Watershed Outreach Campaigns, and other guides to watershed development programs, is available at http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/outreach/documents/getnstep.pdf.
Meat, Poultry Products Final Rule Signed
EPA has released its final rule establishing wastewater controls for the Meat and Poultry Products industry. The regulation applies to about 170 facilities that generate wastewater from meat and poultry slaughtering, further processing, or rendering operations and discharge directly to waters of the U.S.
When the rule is implemented through NPDES permits, the discharge of total nitrogen should be reduced by almost 27 million pounds per year. Discharge of conventional pollutants such as biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, oil and grease will be reduced by about 4 million pounds per year.
It will cost the industry about $58 million per year to comply with this rule. A Fact Sheet on the new rules is available at: http://epa.gov/guide/ mpp/final-fs.htm
