EPA Chief, President Williams to Launch Water Innovation Cluster

The EPA’s chief administrator, Lisa Jackson, will join U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills, UC President Gregory H. Williams and local officials on

Tuesday, Jan. 18

, to launch the Water Technology Innovation Cluster (WTIC) involving Southwestern Ohio, Southeastern Indiana and Northern Kentucky.  The WTIC will research and develop new environmental technologies to help improve water quality.

The announcement event is invitation-only, but the press is invited. The morning announcement event will take place at the EPA research laboratory in Cincinnati (Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center, 26 W. Martin Luther King Drive). Press wishing to attend this event should RSVP to press@epa.gov.

In addition to the announcement itself, there will be two other activities on Tuesday marking the WTIC’s launch.

President Williams and Administrator Jackson are scheduled to sign a memorandum of understanding strengthening the relationship between the EPA and UC on Tuesday afternoon.

At

3 p.m

. in Room 544, Baldwin Hall, UC’s Center for Sustainable Urban Environments will sponsor a seminar featuring Dr. Paul Anastas, known as the “father of green chemistry” and the U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator of Research and Development at EPA headquarters in Washington D.C. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Anastas will discuss “Designing Tomorrow,” focusing on using sustainable design principles in tandem with holistic approaches and systems thinking, to effectively design products and processes to protect and even improve upon human health and the environment. (The location for this seminar is a change from a previous announcement.)