WASHINGTON — The National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) hosted a Water Resilience Summit this week, as part of Water Week 2014, according to a press release.
Following a number of discussions with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leadership earlier this year, NACWA and AMWA recognized the need to explore the legal, economic and practical challenges to utility climate change resilience and to explore collaborative solutions with federal agencies, reported the release.
At the Summit, key municipal and federal agency leaders and economic experts engaged in a facilitated discussion, noted the release, 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 and opportunities for partnership.
“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. That’s why EPA supports AMWA and NACWA’s leadership on building and designing resilient water systems that take climate change into account," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy during her keynote address.
In addition to utilities from coast to coast, continued the release, federal agencies represented included EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior (DOI), the Department of Energy, the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
