GROUNDWATER SOLUTIONS TOPIC OF MAY 4 CONFERENCE

"Groundwater Protection -- Looking at Solutions" is the subject of a national teleconference to be presented from 1 to 3 p.m. May 4 at the University of Missouri Extension Center at Jackson, 815 Highway 25 South.

The public is invited to participate in the teleconference, which is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters US along with LWV of Cape Girardeau County and the Groundwater Foundation, with both national and local speakers taking part.

Local speakers will be Alan Journet, biology department, Southeast Missouri State University; Jonell McNeely, chief sanitarian, Cape Girardeau County Department of Health; Dave Owen, Director of Soil Conservation Service for Cape Girardeau County; and Frank Wediman, Director of the Regional University of Missouri Extension Service in Perryville.

Program moderator for this national town meeting will be Lee Thornton, associate professor of Howard University School of Communications and senior producer for CNN's "Both Sides Now with Jesse Jackson," and "The International Correspondents."

National speakers will be George Hallberg, Chief of Environmental Research, University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory; Jon Witten, president, Horsley & Witten, water resource and land planning consultant; Susana Almanza, director of PODER, People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources; Becky Cain, chair, LWVUS Education Fund; Susan Seacrest, founder and director of the Groundwater Foundation; Robert Perciasepe, assistant administrator for water, United States Environmental Protection Agency; and Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla., chairman of the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations.

Specific topics to be addressed are: Reducing non-point pollution from agriculture; developing effective well-head programs; and mobilizing citizens and communities.

Two sites in Missouri -- Jackson and Sedalia -- are included in 53 live satellite connections set up for the conference, during which local citizens may ask questions or make comments via telephone at the town meeting locations, offered on C-band satellite -- TelStar 302.