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Green Infrastructure

How's My Waterway: A Tool for Exploring Your Water Quality

An updated version of How’s My Waterway (HMW) was released in June 2020. HMW provides a comprehensive overview of water quality data and information in the United States on three different scales: community, state, and national. Collecting data from eight databases across EPA, HMW answers questions about aquatic life, eating fish, swimming, drinking water, restoration, and protection. This tool can help users:

  • Explore information about their drinking water, local stream conditions, and whether their waterways are suitable for swimming or eating fish and if they support aquatic life.
  • Discover if their waterways are being monitored and the location of local monitoring stations.
  • Learn what issues might be affecting their waterways.

During this webcast Stephanie Santell and Kiki Schneider with EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds demonstrated the recently enhanced version of HMW, highlighting its data-rich, user-friendly, accessible, and map-centric features. Participants were empowered to communicate water quality information to their communities in order to protect and restore their waters, and potentially identify new opportunities for green infrastructure application.

Details

October 13, 2020
1:00 - 2:30 pm EDT

Speakers

Stephanie Santell has been with EPA since 2009, starting her career in planning and organizational management before joining the Office of Water. In the Office of Water, she has worked in many diverse Clean Water Act Programs and on various cross cutting policy efforts, including the Water Quality Standards Program, the CWA 303(d) Program, the Water Policy Staff, and most recently as the Special Assistant in the Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds. In addition to How's My Waterway, Stephanie has performed several roles on cross-cutting program initiatives in the Office of Water related to nutrients, ocean acidification, hazard mitigation, environmental finance, stakeholder engagement, and leadership with resiliency activities across the National Water Programs. Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Rochester, and Master's degree in Public Policy with a concentration in environmental policy from American University.
 

Kiki Schneider has worked for EPA since 2010, first in the Office of Environmental Information and now in the Office of Water. Kiki has a background in user-centered design and environmental policy. She has spent most of her time at EPA developing websites and applications that are easily accessible and user friendly. Prior to EPA she spent time at the University of Maryland doing research on technology with children as design partners, where she learned a lot from the kids about design and looking at things through fresh eyes.