Forwarded by Jane Clark CEDAR RIVER ASSESSMENT AND CEDAR LAKE TMDL MEETINGS SET A series of public meetings to discuss an intensive monitoring program along the Cedar River watershed above Cedar Rapids will be held June 7-8. The session in Cedar Rapids on June 7 will also include a public hearing regarding Cedar Lake and the work that is being done there on its impaired water status. The meetings on the Cedar River assessment and Cedar Lake will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 7 in the Iowa Room (Third Floor), in Iowa Hall at Kirkwood Community College, 6301 Kirkwood Blvd. in Cedar Rapids. A meeting on the Cedar River assessment will be at 2 p.m. Friday, June 8, in the Charles City Library, 106 Milwaukee Mall, Charles City. A similar meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. that night in Room 107 of Tama Hall at Hawkeye Community College, 1501 E. Orange Road in Waterloo. The meeting regarding Cedar Lake will be to discuss the plan - known as a TMDL or Total Maximum Daily Load - for addressing the problem of chlordane in the lake. The Cedar River assessment will be an extensive, two-year monitoring project of the Cedar River and its tributaries. The goal is to be able to take the information and prepare a TMDL for the Cedar River in 2005. The river is impaired for nitrate and fecal coliform bacteria. "Collecting this much data allows us to narrow down the parts of the watershed where the highest influences may be coming from and focus our attention in those places," said Bill Ehm, coordinator of the DNR's TMDL program. For more information, contact Kevin Baskins at (515) 281-8595. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]