AMWA and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) co-hosted the Water Resilience Summit on April 9-10. The summit was a high-level discussion on ways to improve water and wastewater utilities' resilience to climate change, particularly where utility and federal efforts diverge and where federal policies and programs can be enhanced to better support utilities.
The Summit convened 23 utility directors and staff and officials from EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Also participating were insurance and financial experts.
Over the day-and-a-half event, participants engaged in a facilitated dialogue expanding on three themes: resilience, risk tolerance and long-term planning; constraints to local utility resilience and collaborative ways to overcome barriers; and financing and funding for resilience.
“From historic droughts that threaten water supplies to super storms that overwhelm sewer systems, the impacts of climate change are felt at the local level where we treat and manage our water,” noted EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who addressed participants. “That’s why EPA supports AMWA and NACWA’s leadership on building and designing resilient water systems that take climate change into account.”
Participants brought up such issues as permitting challenges related to resource development and capital projects, access to usable and relevant data, best practices by utilities and by federal agencies, cross-federal cooperation, tax incentives and disincentives, access to capital, stormwater management, investment in innovative technologies, flexibility in regulatory enforcement and areas of potential collaboration between utilities and federal agencies.
AMWA and NACWA will prepare a synopsis of the summit and engage members on ways the associations can build upon the ideas offered by participants.