The Senate and House of Representatives return from recess this week.  The Senate will attempt to move forward again with the Energy & Water Appropriations bill after it stalled last week because of an amendment to prevent the Obama administration from purchasing additional "heavy water" from Iran's nuclear facilities.  (See N EMWI's website

here   for a fact sheet on the Senate's bill). A few regionally-relevant hearings will take place on Thursday in the House--on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, affordable housing, and manufacturing. Details are listed below.

• Dr. Colleen Cain, Senior Policy Analyst, NEMWI
• Mr. Frank Ford, Senior Policy Advisor, Thriving Communities Institute
• Mr. Michael Braverman, Deputy Commissioner, Permits & Code Enforcement, City of Baltimore

NEMWI's Elin Betanzo presented findings from the NEMWI Lake Erie Water Monitoring Study at the National Monitoring Conference in Tampa, FL on May 4, 2016. Betanzo also shared results from the Susquehanna River Basin Shale Gas Water Monitoring Study at the conference.

The Lake Erie Water Monitoring Study identified the water data needed to measure the effectiveness of agricultural management practices at the watershed scale. Compared to the water data needed, most of the existing small watershed monitoring sites in the Lake Erie drainage basin are not in the right locations for evaluating agricultural management practices, are not sampled with sufficient frequency to accurately calculate nutrient loads, or lack information on agricultural management practice implementation within the watershed. The study found that additional targeted small watershed monitoring sites are needed in the basin, but it is even more critical to locate monitoring sites in priority watersheds, collect water data with sufficient frequency and duration, and implement a high density of agricultural management practices within those watersheds to be able to measure the effectiveness of these practices for improving the health of Lake Erie.

The Susquehanna River Basin Shale Gas Water Monitoring Study found that even after 10 years of high-volume hydraulic fracturing began widespread use for shale gas development in the Susquehanna River Basin, there is still no systematic large-scale, long-term groundwater monitoring effort in the Basin that could identify whether water quality is changing as a result of shale gas development. Federal, state, local and academic water surface water and groundwater monitoring sites are not located in the right locations, water samples are not analyzed for the needed parameters, and sampling frequency is insufficient for detecting water quality trends related to shale gas development activities in the basin.

Both studies identify the need for better water monitoring coordination throughout the study basins including industry or agriculture agency participation to identify the most effective monitoring sites, ensuring that the right data are collected in the right locations with the right supporting information.

Study files and supporting information are available here and here.