Center  for Watershed  Protection:
   A National Clearinghouse for Watershed Information
   and Commnniration
Staff chat in a stream during a
sampling event.
Collecting a water sample from a pipe
discharging from an industrial facility
into a stream.
The Center for Watershed Protection
staff.
                                               Targeted Watersheds
                                             Capacity  Building Grant
      The Center for Watershed Protection (the Center) is a
      nonprofit organization headquartered in Ellicott City,
      MD. Founded in 1992, it works to protect, restore, and
enhance our streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and bays, by
creating  viable solutions and partnerships for responsible land
and water management, so every community has clean water
and healthy natural resources to sustain diverse life.
Watershed Capacity Building  Efforts
The Center's involvement with watershed professionals and groups
has revealed a growing demand for technical and organizational sup-
port to improve their capacity to do more effective watershed work.
To address this need, the Center provides direct assistance and train-
ing to watershed practitioners.
Mini-Grants to Watershed Organizations
The Center will provide direct assistance for up to 10 organizations
through a mini-grant program. Organizations will apply for a mini-
grant to receive technical capacity building assistance based on
their specific needs. Examples of potential technical support include
scoping a watershed plan, designing and constructing a bioretention
facility, developing budgets for watershed plan implementation and
estimating pollutant reductions and costs. The Center will also offer
training on specific field and desktop methods, applying stakeholder
involvement methods to adopt and implement the plan and basic
technical  support on land use planning, best management practices
and watershed restoration techniques.
Watershed Institutes and University-based Curriculum
The Center will also expand its Watershed Institutes and university-
level watershed curriculum programs. The Watershed Institutes are

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four-day intensive courses, involving classroom
training and field work that culminates in the de-
velopment of watershed plans. The Institute teach-
es general methods and techniques that can be
applied to a wide variety of watershed situations
and prepares participants to go home ready to use
what they have learned  in their own watersheds.
To improve the quality of watershed management
instruction at the university level, the Center will
develop partnerships with several universities and
create a teaching network to share watershed-
related instructional materials, curriculum and
resource information among professors. Through
an existing partnership with the University of
Maryland University College, extensive internet-
based watershed classes are available. The Center
will work to expand the current student base, as
well as develop new classes and modules on urban
watershed protection and restoration.
For More Information:
www.cwp.org
Lisa Fraley-McNeal
Center for Watershed Protection, Inc.
lfm@cwp.org
Locations of past Stormwater
Institutes and Watershed Institutes
sponsored by the Center for
Watershed Protection.
    PA's Targeted Watersheds Grar
    program is a competetive gran
    program designed to encourag
    collaborative, community-drive
approaches to meet clean water goals.
      For more information about
     selected watersheds, please vi
       http://www.epa.gov/twg
           840-F-08-001Q

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