WPP Water Quality Intern - Unpaid

Who We Are:

The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) seeks to protect, preserve, and enhance Massachusetts' environmental resources and create a clean energy future for all residents. Through the stewardship of open spaces, the protection of environmental resources, and the advancement of clean energy, EEA works tirelessly to make Massachusetts a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family.

  Our commitment to environmental justice ensures that every resident, regardless of background or location, can live in a safe, clean environment and shares equally in the benefits of the clean energy transition.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is the state agency responsible for ensuring clean air, land, and water. Our work impacts every aspect of people's lives and is critical to the health and wellbeing of our residents and visitors. MassDEP is the lead agency for safe management of toxics and hazardous materials, promotion of waste reduction and recycling, preservation of the state's wetlands and coastal resources, air quality monitoring and pollution reduction, and so much more.

Who We Are as an

Employer:

At EEA, we create meaningful, inclusive opportunities that empower our employees to make a real difference in shaping the environmental future of Massachusetts. We foster a workplace culture where diversity is valued, innovation is encouraged, and collaboration thrives. Our employees play a vital role in advancing sustainability, environmental justice, and clean energy solutions, ensuring a positive and lasting impact on Massachusetts and its residents.

Job Description:

The Watershed Planning Program (WPP) in the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is a statewide program with a mission to protect, enhance, and restore the quality and value of the waters of the Commonwealth. Together with other MassDEP programs and state environmental agencies, WPP shares in the duty and responsibility to secure the environmental, recreational, and public health benefits of clean water for all people of the Commonwealth.

As part of the Clean Water Act (CWA), WPP monitors, assesses, and publishes reports on the conditions of all surface waters in the Commonwealth every two years in the "Integrated List of Waters" (or Integrated Reports) and the 303(d) list.

The waters of the Commonwealth include over 3,000 lakes and ponds that provide residents and visitors with drinking water, blue spaces, recreational opportunities, and natural beauty. These diverse ecosystems range from large drinking water sources, like the Quabbin; famous water bodies, like Walden Pond; pristine lakes and ponds in fully forested areas; and smaller ponds providing local swimming areas. Given the importance of lakes and ponds for all people in the Commonwealth, WPP is interested in developing a lake and pond database to support current and future WPP initiatives, such as developing a statewide volunteer lake and pond monitoring program, implementing lake and pond categories to improve the assessment of the Aquatic Life Use in accordance to the Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards, highlighting areas in need of future monitoring, and prioritizing the development of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs).

This project will expand and enhance an existing reference database of lake and pond information built during a prior internship project. Data elements include physical attributes, locational information, available data sources, characteristics, and related metadata. Project objectives for this database expansion are to continue (1) coalescing existing WPP data (e.g., years monitored, existing TMDLs, protection plans, and projects), (2) gathering relevant information from partner agencies and other publicly available resources (e.g., bathometry maps), (3) consolidating modeled data and, where applicable, comparing modeled data to WPP observed data (e.g., modeled maximum depth compared to observed), (4) summarizing spatial data, and (5) compiling biodiversity data.

Job Duties:

* Aid in determining beneficial lake and pond information for all five WPP Sections.

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