Sorry. Registration is now closed for the AOC Conference and Virtual Beach Workshop.
Annual U.S. Areas of Concern Conference
The annual Area of Concern (AOC) conference will be held October 1-2 in conjunction with the State of Lake Michigan and Great Lakes Beach Association Conference.
The AOC conference will convene participants from the 30 U.S. AOCs to review recent developments affecting the program; discuss approaches for implementing delisting targets; build capacity to implement on-the-ground restoration actions; identify opportunities to address AOC restoration priorities under President Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative; improve linkages between the AOCs, Lakewide Management Plans (LaMPs) and other programs; and consider actions that will strengthen the regional U.S. AOC program.
The conference is intended for all parties involved in efforts to restore the U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, including members of local AOC groups, state and federal agency staff, LaMP participants, academic partners, consultants, and other interested parties.
You must register separately for this meeting.
For more information, please contact:
Matt Doss
Great Lakes Commission
734-971-9135
mdoss@glc.org
"Virtual Beach" Training Workshop, Oct 1, 2009
Learn to use Virtual Beach
Virtual Beach - Model Builder is free software that can be used to build and run statistical models to predict concentrations of pathogen indicators in real-time, based on meteorological, onshore, and near shore conditions. Conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, in partnership with the U.S. EPA, this workshop will introduce users to the software and provide hands-on training through a real-world case study. The registration deadline is Sept 21 and space is limited. There is no extra charge for this workshop, but you must also be registered for the State of Lake Michigan and Great Lakes Beach Association Conference. PDF description and registration.
Training will be conducted in two sessions:
I Introduction, Data Input, and Model Building (8:30-11:00 am)
II. Model Evaluation and Nowcasting (1:00-3:00 pm)
Background
The multi-agency Advanced Monitoring Initiative project entitled “Developing Water and Land Tools to Forecast Bacterial Exposure in Beach Settings” was initiated in 2007 to develop, synthesize, compare, and promote tools that can provide early warnings about pathogen indicator levels. Led by researchers and tool developers from EPA, USGS, NOAA, state and local governments, and universities, this project integrates several approaches that link environmental observations to the forecasting of microbial exposure, including statistical, hydrodynamic/process-based, and non-point source pollution models.
As part of this project, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is conducting technical assistance and outreach to promote available decision-support tools that enable beach managers to predict recreational water quality in real-time. The principal focus has been on “Virtual Beach-Model Builder”
(VBMB) software, which was developed by EPA to provide beach managers with a free, user-friendly tool for building and deploying multiple linear regression (MLR) models for predicting beach water quality based on meteorological, nearshore, and onshore conditions.
MLR models provide a useful approach for predicting short-term fluctuations in fecal indicator bacteria and have proven to be more accurate than the “persistence model;” i.e., the previous day’s monitoring results. Operational “nowcast” models have been deployed at several beaches in Porter County Indiana (Swimming Advisory Forecast Estimate, “SAFE”), Lake County Illinois (“SwimCast”), and Cuyahoga County, Ohio (“Ohio Nowcast”), and recently in Ozaukee County Wisconsin. WDNR’s technical assistance and outreach work is aimed at laying the groundwork for a more widespread transfer of nowcast methodologies and decision-support technology in order to reduce the number of closures, advisories, and false non-advisories issued across the Great Lakes.
For more information contact:
Adam C. Mednick
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
608-261-6416
adam.mednick@wisconsin.gov
Lake Michigan LaMP Forum Meeting, Sept. 28, 5 - 7 pm, Milwaukee Room
Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordinating Council, Oct. 1, 1 - 5 pm, Executive C/D
Beach Health Interagency Coordination Team, Oct. 1, 1:00 - 5:00 pm, Pere Marquette Room
The Lake Michigan Stakeholders Meeting has been cancelled