Town of Surfside Beach officials and citizens received professional guidance and instruction on important environmental issues facing their community recently at a training session led by the Coastal Waccamaw Stormwater Education Consortium. The workshop gave officials a deeper understanding of the health and environmental implications of nonpoint source pollution (stormwater runoff) and helped them prioritize the implementation of the municipality's stormwater management plan.

The four-hour training session is being offered free to area municipal governments by the Consortium, a cooperative organization formed earlier this year in an effort to address stormwater issues and maintain the quality of the region's water resources.

Agencies that made presentations at the workshop included staff from Coastal Carolina University's Waccamaw Watershed Academy, S.C. Sea Grant Extension and Clemson Extension, and North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Coastal Training Program.

The Town of Surfside Beach was the first governmental body in the region to host the workshop, which is tailored to the needs of the specific municipality or location.

For more information, contact Karen Fuss, environmental educator for Coastal Carolina University's Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies, at 349-4058.