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Extension
Launches Water Quality Site
Above: Dr. Jim
Hairston, Alabama Cooperative Extension System water quality
scientist, discusses the Alabama Water Quality program Web site.
Hairston, who serves as water quality program coordinator for Alabama,
says the site covers all aspects of water quality, with a special
emphasis on drinking water and its relationship to human health.
Auburn,
June 18, 2003
--- As
part of a nationwide initiative to educate Americans about water
quality-related issues, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s
water quality team has created one of the nation’s most comprehensive
sources on water quality information.
The site,
www.aces.edu/waterquality, was developed to serve as the
primary Web-based source of water quality information for
Alabama
residents and to complement the USDA’s Cooperative State Research,
Education and Extension Service’s (CSREES) Water Quality Program web
site.
The CSREES Water
Quality Program is a national partnership of university scientists,
instructors and extension professionals working to increase public
awareness of water quality-related issues and to address ever-changing
water quality needs. The section of the
Alabama
site dealing with drinking water and health also comprises a key
component of the national site.
“People think
Extension deals only with agricultural issues,” said Dr. James
Hairston,
Auburn University professor of agronomy and soils and coordinator of
the Alabama Water Quality program. “And it’s true because agriculture
is a major focus of Extension programming. But drinking water quality
affects all Americans no matter what their background.”
Hairston, widely
recognized as one of the land-grant university’s leading experts in
drinking water as it relates to human health, provided primary
leadership for the development of the
Alabama site and
was one of three state water quality coordinators who assisted with
the development of the drinking water section of the national site,
www.usawaterquality.org.
Information on the
Alabama Water Quality program is organized under eight different water
quality themes and a general information category, which are further
divided into more than 100 subtitles.
One of the most
popular sections of the site is a database of frequently asked
questions providing more than 2,300 questions and answers on numerous
water quality-related topics.
Each section of
the site also is equipped with a refined key word search.
Alabama geographic
information also is featured on the site.
“I don’t know of
one municipal drinking water Web site in the country where you can get
this kind of information,” said Lisa McKinley, who serves as the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s Extension liaison for Region 4.
“Any question you may have, you can answer it immediately by visiting
the Alabama Web site.”
She cited the
Alabama Water Quality program site as a major factor behind an EPA
proposal to expand its partnership with Extension programs throughout
the country to heighten public awareness about water quality issues.
In addition to
drinking water, the Alabama Water Quality program site also carries
information about environmental restoration, volunteer citizen
water-quality monitoring and animal waste management.
The Alabama water
quality team also has developed the nation’s largest online glossary
of water quality-related terms – everything from abandoned well rights
to zebra mussels.
Freelance writers
have used information gleaned from the site to prepare articles for
Consumer Digest and several other national publications. Scholars
from several countries also have used information from the site to
prepare water quality-related information for presentations at several
international conferences.
(Source:
Dr. James E. Hairston,
Alabama
Extension Water Quality Scientist and Auburn
University
Professor of Agronomy and Soils, 334-844-3973.)
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