You are invited to join an Exchange Network Integrated Project Team (IPT) that will be building and reviewing tools that will enable broader sharing of drinking water information, including compliance and monitoring data. The workgroup will be holding a kickoff conference call on January 5, 2012, from 1:00 – 2:30 PM EST. On the kickoff call, we will review the draft Charter (see attached), identify co-chairs for the group, and determine a schedule for future calls. If you are interested in participating in this effort, please email kristen.durance [at] ross-assoc.com.

This group will build on the outputs of an effort begun by the State-EPA Implementation Workgroup (IWG), which was led by EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, several state agencies, the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, the Environmental Council of the States, and the Association of State and Territorial Health Associations.

The mission of the Drinking Water IPT is to define the necessary data exchange schemas, web services, and other resources necessary to support the exchange of drinking water data over the National Environmental Information Exchange Network. The IPT will use the data elements from the existing SDWIS XML schemas along with the data elements identified by the IWG as the basis for the new schemas. The IPT will also identify opportunities to satisfy information needs of stakeholders from the environmental and public health communities, including partners on the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network. The resulting data exchange will allow primacy agencies for the Safe Drinking Water Act to report data to U.S. EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Information System; allow states to voluntarily share additional compliance monitoring data with U.S. EPA; enable states, EPA (and other providers of drinking water data) to voluntarily share drinking water data with a variety of data consumers (e.g. environmental and public health agencies at federal, state, and local levels); and support public tools for accessing and understanding drinking water information.