|
||||||
TOSC-TAB Change in Location and Staff The Western Center TOSC-TAB program is experiencing some changes! After operating for more than 5 years under the auspices of the Center for Water and Environmental Sustainability (CWESt), TOSC-TAB is continuing as a single program within the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State. We have new TOSC-TAB
One catalyst of the change was Denise Lach's decision to join the faculty of the OSU Department of Sociology as an Associate Professor. We will miss Denise's expertise, vision, and leadership in TOSC-TAB; however, she says she would like to stay in touch! You can reach Denise at denise.lach@oregonstate.edu or 541-737-5471. Ken Williamson continues to lead our program as Director. Ken's office is in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at OSU. He can be reached at kenneth.williamson@oregonstate.edu or 541-737-6836. Michael Fernandez, Jerry Orlando, Stephanie Sanford, and Weiyi Zhao are in our new offices in the Kelley Building . Our toll-free number remains 1-800-653-6110. The other programs that were part of CWESt will be housed in other research centers on campus. OSU is in the process of creating a new Institute for Water and Watersheds (IWW), enhancing the current water efforts of CWESt through an additional $1.5 million in funding over the next five years. The USGS-funded Water Resources Research Institute is a part of the IWW. The sustainability programs formerly administered through CWESt will continue under OSU's Institute for Natural Resources (INR). Please let us know if you would like more information about these changes in our organization. Outreach Advisory Committee Meeting The Western Center TOSC-TAB Outreach Advisory Committee (OAC) met in Portland on August 8. Members of the OAC present were Rebecca Hillwig (for Ann Levine), Oregon Department of Environmental Quality; Brooks Koenig, retired, Oregon DEQ; Luis Rivera, California North Coast Regional Water Quality Board; Vicki Rosen, EPA Region 9; Lenny Siegel, Center for Public Environmental Oversight; and Kathleen Veit, EPA Region 10. The Hazardous Substance Research Centers of which the TOSC-TAB programs are a part, are not being funded for the fifth year of their cycle though research is continuing with the remaining funding. Given the future loss of funding for the HSRCs and the uncertainty about funding for TOSC after the fifth year of the TOSC grant, the meeting focused on a discussion of "lessons learned in TOSC-TAB.” Five questions guided the discussion: What works for you and the communities? What doesn't work? What services are missing? How do we leverage the capacity at universities to benefit both the EPA and communities? What role should an advisory group play? Ideas generated during this discussion will be useful as we consider the possibilities for TOSC and TAB in the future. In the meantime, we will continue to work with our active communities and establish relationships with new communities that have a need for our services.
|
||||||
|
||||||
| Copyright © 2002-2005 Oregon State University |
||||||
offices in the just-opened, state-of-the-art,