Good afternoon: Changes in climate and its impacts may test OSWER’s ability to fulfill its mission to protect human health and preserve and restore our land resources. On Friday, November 01, 2013 OSWER released its draft Climate Change Adaptation Implementation Plan for public review and comment. The Implementation Plan provides detailed information about potential program vulnerabilities (i.e.the impact of increased flooding at Superfund and Brownfields sites or more wildfires near contaminated sites) and identifies 26 priority actions OSWER plans to begin over the next 3 years to help communities adapt to a changing climate. The priority actions include, reviewing remedy effectiveness, management of storm debris, and emergency management planning. Many of these actions engage with our partners in state and local governments, as well as communities.
We are very interested in your comments and plan to hold a few webinars over the next few months to provide an overview of the plan. A schedule will be posted on OSWER’s web page.
OSWER’s Climate Change Adaptation Implementation Plans can be viewed at:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/fed-programs/EPA-impl-plans.html.
The comment period closes on January 3, 2014.
If you have any questions, please contact Jennifer Brady on 202-566-1701 or via e-mail brady.jennifer@epa.gov