Region 5 Harmful Algal Bloom Clean Water Act/Safe Drinking Water Act Workshop and Public Meeting Chicago, IL

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water, along with EPA Region 5, conducted a Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) Workshop on April 27th and 28th, 2016, in Chicago, Illinois. The goals of the workshop were to:

• Share information and build relationships among federal, state and Tribal Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act programs in Region 5 by making connections and identifying shared HAB-related goals, needs, and barriers, particularly as they relate to source water protection.
• Identify short- and long-term next steps and key actions that federal, state and Tribal programs can take to address common HAB-related goals, needs and barriers.
• Facilitate further engagement and shared learning post-workshop with continued engagement among participants.

The workshop was structured to incorporate presentations by subject matter experts followed by discussions amongst participants to share lessons learned from their experiences in both drinking water and ambient water on topics such as: monitoring, analyzing, predicting, preventing, and treating HABs, as well as evaluating the health and ecological effects of HABs and communicating these health risks to the public.

• Region 5 HAB Workshop Contacts April 2016 (xlsx) (20.7 KB)
• Agenda EPA Region 5 HABs Workshop (pdf) (180.26 KB)
• Draft regional CWA-SDWA integration guide (pdf) (225.7 KB)
• Speaker bios (pdf) (32.51 KB)
• Draft state CWA-SDWA integration guide (pdf) (213.76 KB)
• Reasons to integrate CWA-SDWA programs (pdf) (105.39 KB)
• Ohio’s HAB Experience (pdf) (845.88 KB)
• EPA’s Drinking Water Health Advisories and Recreational Criteria for Cyanotoxins (pdf) (1.17 MB)
• National HAB Occurrence: Results and Approaches (pdf) (3.86 MB)
• NOAA’s Great Lakes harmful algal bloom program (pdf) (10.91 MB)
  Part 1: Prediction, monitoring and experiments
• Ohio EPA's Experience with Harmful Algal Blooms at Public Water Systems (pdf) (4.34 MB)
• Binational Phosphorus Load Reduction Efforts to Prevent Lake Erie HABs (pdf) (4.01 MB)
• Current Research Efforts on Nutrient Load Reduction Methods (pdf) (2.9 MB)
• Targeting High Impact Farm Fields Using Nutrient Management Models to Reduce Phosphorus Discharge and Decrease HAB Production (pdf) (5.11 MB)
• Waterbody Management Approaches for CyanoHABs (pdf) (7.98 MB)
• Microcystins Analysis Methods (pdf) (1.37 MB)
• An Introduction to EPA’s Drinking Water Mapping Application to Protect Source Waters (DWMAPS) (pdf) (1.73 MB)
• Impacts of Early-Stage Drinking Water Treatment on Cyanobacterial Toxin Release and Degradation (pdf) (2.47 MB)
• Overview of U.S. EPA’s Activities to Support Public Water Systems to Manage Cyanotoxins in Drinking Water (pdf) (1.53 MB)
• Indiana’s Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program (pdf) (2.05 MB)
• Harmful Algal Blooms and Public Health Surveillance: The One Health Harmful Algal Bloom System (OHHABS) (pdf) (2.38 MB)
• Florida Department of Health Aquatic Toxins Program (pdf) (2.54 MB)
• Minnesota’s experience with human and animal illness investigations and state interagency HAB workgroup collaboration (pdf) (1.03 MB)
• Toxicological Summary and Suggested Action Levels to Reduce Potential Adverse Health Effects of Six Cyanotoxins May 2012 (pdf) (927.44 KB)
• Peer Review Comments on: Toxicological Summary and Suggested Action Levels to Reduce Potential Adverse Health Effects of Six Cyanotoxins and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’S Responses (pdf) (601.34 KB)