Dick Engberg
Authored by: Dick Engberg, Technical Director, American Water Resources Association

May 9, 2011

Certainly climate change is one of the hot button issues of our time. Recognizing this, the American Water Resources Association’s (AWRA) Spring Specialty Conference addressed climate change, but in a different way than other conferences on the subject. Many conferences have attempted to determine whether climate change is part of a natural cycle, whether it is occurring as a result of increased carbon dioxide emissions, or whether it is a combination of the natural cycle and the emissions.

The AWRA Conference held in Baltimore, MD, April 18-20, 2011, began with the premise that climate change, whatever its cause, is real, and because it is real, its impacts on water resources must be anticipated and managed in order to minimize their potential impacts on America’s population and economy. Therefore, the focus of this conference was on adaption issues, options, and strategies to manage climate change impacts on water resources.

Following opening remarks by AWRA President, Michael E. Campana, the conference plenary session was keynoted by Steven L. Stockton, Director of Civil Works of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of the federal agencies responsible for managing climate change impacts on water resources. Mr. Stockton described not only the multiple challenges that his agency faces but also detailed some of the work underway to mitigate the affects of sea level changes on Corps facilities.

Following Mr. Stockton, a Plenary Panel moderated by Gerald E. Galloway of the University of Maryland included federal, state, local and industry representatives who gave their perspectives on adaptation and strategies either in planning stages or actually underway. For example, strategies have been developed using decision analysis frameworks to address sea level rise and to address effects of changes in precipitation patterns and increased temperatures on water resources, human health, agriculture, existing infrastructure, and ecosystems.

Thirty-four technical sessions comprised the final 2.5 days of the conference. These sessions included 95 individual presentations and two panel discussions. One interesting presentation on the topic “Sea Level and Coastal” dealt with pulsed reservoir releases to mitigate salinity intrusion. A case study from Alexandria, Virginia dealt with storm sewer infrastructure planning with climate change risk.

Several presentations included the use of models to predict a variety of time-related climate change scenarios including sustainability of water demands. The water-energy nexus came under discussion in talks related to hydroelectric operations and planning for the uncertainty related to climate change. Integrated water resources management and adaptive management were cited by many presenters as extremely important in the light of the unpredictability of climate change impacts. Finally, agricultural, urban and industrial water demand in times of climatic change and preparation for climate extremes were discussed and scenarios presented. The need to involve stakeholders in participatory decision-support processes was stressed by several speakers.

Conference attendees were treated to a presentation by Jamie Workman, a Reporter and Consultant from San Francisco, and author of “Heart of Dryness.” He spoke about his several years of working with Kalahari Desert bushmen to adapt to water scarcity and climate change, and, based on what he had learned from the bushmen, developing incentive-driven strategies including water trading and energy credits.

Two hundred twenty-three attendees came away from the conference with enhanced understandings of decision making during times of greater uncertainty, and the need for developing highly flexible and robust adaptive management strategies that will respond quickly and efficiently to the inevitable climate change faced by the United States and worldwide.


Dick Engberg is Technical Director of the American Water Resources Association, Middleburg, VA. He is a hydrologist with more than 45 years of experience including 26 years with the U. S. Geological Survey, and 10 years as Manager of the National Irrigation Water Quality Program of the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.

Friends of the Earth: Middle East
Authored by: FoEME Leadership – Gidon Bromberg (Israeli Director), Nader Khateb (Palestinian Director), and Munqeth Mehyar (Chairperson and Jordanian Director)

April 11, 2011

In January of this year, Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) and Water Resources and Action Project (WRAP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding expressing the desire for ongoing collaboration between the two organizations. As a result of this memo, the two organizations will work together to improve water usage practices and access to potable water in East Jerusalem and Palestine.

FoEME is a unique organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists. Its primary objective is the promotion of cooperative efforts to protect shared environmental heritage. In so doing, it seeks to advance both sustainable regional development and the creation of necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region. FoEME has offices in Amman, Bethlehem, and Tel-Aviv, and is a member of Friends of the Earth International, the largest grassroots environmental organization in the world.

Originally founded as “EcoPeace” on December 7, 1994 at an historic meeting held in Taba, Egypt, FoEME came about as environmental non-governmental organizations from the Middle East met with the common goal of furthering sustainable development and peace in the region. For the first time ever, Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists agreed to join forces in an effort to promote the integration of environmental considerations into the regional development agenda.

FoEME”s three co-Directors were honored by TIME Magazine as Environmental Heroes of 2008. FoEME received a UNDP/UNEP SEED Finalist Award in 2008 and in 2009 was granted the prestigious Jeff Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship. In addition, the April 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine features the work of FoEME concerning the rehabilitation of the lower River Jordan. FoEME also recently received the first Onassis Prize for the Protection of the Environment and the EURO-MED AWARD FOR DIALOGUE within the theme “Intercultural Dialogue for Ecological Sustainability.”

The vision created by the organization is that we are neighbors sharing the same resource that physically crosses our respective communities, with the actions of one impacting the other and the state of water systems and habitats as a whole. The people and wildlife of our region are dependent on many of the same natural resources. Shared surface and sub-surface freshwater basins, shared seas, common flora and fauna species and a shared air-shed, are some of the characteristics that necessitate regional cooperation. Examples include the Jordan River Basin, a major source of freshwater in a water scarce region, the Gulf of Aqaba, a highly sensitive eco-system giving life to arguably the world”s most beautiful coral reef, and the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and the world”s saltiest non-shallow body of water. These are all examples of unique shared eco-systems in the region that necessitate regional cooperation if they are to be preserved.

By promoting this vision, we are developing the understanding that on water and environmental issues we are in the same boat together and that we are dependant on each other for mutual long-term success. FoEME promotes this vision and understanding through joint advocacy and within its projects in the different communities, with the Amman office leading the required change in Jordan, the Bethlehem office in Palestine and the Tel-Aviv office in Israel. While the same vision is espoused in all three countries, it is tailored to the appropriate cultural context in each country.

Our projects can be categorized according to the following themes:

Geographical Context – The Dead Sea Rift Valley runs from the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat, in the south, along the Arava Valley, through the Dead Sea, up the Jordan River into the Sea of Galilee and beyond, connecting the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of our projects are located along this shared, complex ecosystem.

Socio-Economic Based Projects – Focus on issues such as sustainable water use, water privatization, trade, sustainable development, water as a human security issue, developing renewable energy and healthy food practices.

Climate Change – Stands on its own, as being one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet today, especially to our scarce water resources.

All of FoEME”s transboundary projects include Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian youth, adults, mayors and municipal representatives in community work, as well as Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian scientists, researchers, and other experts in research based work, all working together to foster platforms for dialogue to promote environmental sustainability and peace.

Major projects and research are being undertaken by FoEME, focusing on the issues of shared water crisis of Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians. Through the development and implementation of numerous projects and scientific research initiatives, EcoPeace/FoEME has successfully demonstrated the willingness of peoples to work together to protect and rehabilitate their natural environments upon which their livelihoods depend. The integration of the top-down advocacy approach coupled with the bottom-up community approach has proven to be an effective organizational strategy that creates a platform for dialogue for peace and coexistence seeing successful initiation and implementation of cross border environmental projects. The following paragraphs outline the major initiatives that are being undertaken by FoEME.

  • The “Good Water Neighbors” (GWN) project was established by EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East in 2001 to raise awareness of the shared water problems of Palestinians, Jordanians, and Israelis. The GWN methodology is their original idea that is based on identifying cross-border communities and utilizing their mutual dependence on shared water resources as a basis for developing dialogue and cooperation on sustainable water management. GWN has created real improvement within the water sector by developing awareness on water and sanitation issues, building trust and understanding that has led to common problem solving and peace building among communities – even in the midst of conflict. Five sets of “partnering mayors” have signed on Memorandums of Understandings focusing on a specific water issue that is negatively affecting both communities, promoting their jointly identified solutions, such as; waste water treatment networks, peace parks, better agricultural practices/wise water use, and more.
  • Equitable water allocation between Palestinians and Israelis is an especially important issue for FoEME; as they are the only regional environmental organization in the Middle East that can tackle this issue with an excellent knowledge base, trust of both sides, and effectiveness in cooperation. FoEME has most recently offered a “Model Water Agreement” that is based on a dynamic agreement between the sides, and suggests an alternative to the “temporary agreement” in effect since 1995 that has failed to preserve shared water resources, especially the Mountain Aquifer, allowing for over pumping by Israel, pollution of groundwater and surface water originating in the West Bank and continuing into Israel, and the unfair allocation of shared water resources.
  • A component of the GWN project is the creation of “Neighbors Paths.” The purpose of the “Neighbors Paths” is to show the natural and cultural heritage of each one of the 28 “Good Water Neighbor” communities and to learn about their water resources both in the past and in the present. Many trails highlight the rich history found in the region but also reveal degradation and pollution, often ‘not seen’ by local residents themselves and certainly not usually shown to tourists. All community-based tours deal with the issue of the interdependence of the water sources between Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian neighboring communities. The concept of the Neighbors” Paths has been designed to achieve a synergetic effect of education, change in people”s attitudes and ultimately of sustainable development.
  • FoEME recently launched a new component to the Good Water Neighbors project, called “Community Geographic Information System” (CGIS). CGIS is a joint Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian educational initiative. As with most of FoEME`s projects, the CGIS revolves around shared water issues. Its purpose is to give high school students the ability to identify environmental hazards in their local area. The novelty of this project is the introduction of advanced GIS technology for the purpose of creating environmental hazard maps. These maps deal with water contamination issues and are constructed by the participating GWN communities, which seek to advance cross border understanding and cooperation over shared water issues. The community”s involvement in creating GIS maps is one more step in raising local awareness about the state of the environment in general and water issues in particular.
  • FoEME has recently concluded an independent socio-economic and environmental assessment of the proposed Red Sea/Dead Sea canal project. Partners in research included the Geological Survey of Israel, that studied the environmental impacts on the Arava Valley and the Dead Sea; the Royal Scientific Society (Jordan) that studied the environmental impacts on the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat; and the Water and Environment Development Organization (Palestinian NGO) that together with the Royal Scientific Society studied the socio-economic effects of the proposed canal. This research places FoEME in the unique position as a well-informed stakeholder on the issue, giving a strong basis on which to found an opinion and launch a campaign.
  • FoEME has undertaken scientific research projects detailing the geographical characteristics of the most important underground water source in the region – the Mountain Aquifer. FoEME first identified the major sources of pollution – sewage and solid waste. The reports describe the different solutions that have been proposed and the factors that prevent the implementation of sewage solutions or solid waste disposal facilities, as well as drawing conclusions and recommendations to protect the Mountain Aquifer. In an additional pilot project, FoEME produced “Municipal Guidelines” to help municipalities alleviate groundwater pollution of the Mountain Aquifer.
  • FoEME researched the projections that are being made for climate change and its impacts on the water resources in a selection of Middle Eastern countries and territory; Egypt, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Jordan, along with adjacent river basin countries. The study focuses on the anticipated impact this will have on our water resources and how this will affect human societies and economies, as well as the ramifications that this is likely to have on human security and political stability within this already volatile region.
  • The Jordan River Rehabilitation Project includes multiple studies undertaken by FoEME to raise awareness of the plight of this endangered River, to strengthen the knowledge base, and to enable political decision-makers in Israel, Jordan and Palestine to act to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River. Their first study, “Crossing the Jordan,” aimed to bring to the public”s awareness the challenges and threats facing the River; their “Environmental Flows” study answers the question – how much water is required to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River? Likewise, their “Economic Study” answers the question – from where and at what price can Israel, Jordan and Palestine allocate water to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River? Uniquely, each of these studies is undertaken tri-laterally with Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian experts working together. And an additional study, undertaken separately in each riparian country, reviews the key political barriers that must be overcome to enable water reform.
  • The Sharhabil bin Hassneh Eco Park is embedded in EcoPeace/FoEME’s larger program of rehabilitating the Jordan River Valley, with the goal to establish a model for preserving ecologically important habitats within the Jordan Valley. The EcoPark serves to increase public awareness about the natural importance of the area and promoting sustainable development efforts in the river basin.
  • The Jordan Valley Environmental Education Centre in Auja (“the Environmental Centre”) is another demonstration of FoEME’s commitment to advancing environmental education and sustainability in the Middle East. The Environment Centre includes outdoor educational groves and an ecotourism guesthouse. The Environmental Center plays an important role in helping alleviate the impact of water scarcity and environmental degradation on Palestinian communities through education about environmental and water realities and widespread dissemination of conservation measures. The Environmental Center also contributes to poverty alleviation in vulnerable communities through increasing capacity for sustainable, urban agriculture as well as for local provision of ecotourism services through the Environmental Center Guesthouse.

FoEME”s work with WRAP will compliment the organizations” multilevel approach and ongoing projects. Through its Good Water Neighbors program, FoEME has been working with students and teachers to install water saving devices, including rainwater collection units in communities throughout Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. In addition, the eco-friendly parks established by FoEME incorporate principles of water conservation in their planning and implementation. WRAP”s board is made up of individuals with a wide range of relevant expertise including water usage management, corporate sustainability and cross-cultural communication in the Middle East. The combined experiences of the two organizations will contribute to this collaborative endeavor.

The organizations will begin by installing rainwater collections units in East Jerusalem and Palestine. The first project of this kind will be conducted at the Sur Bahr Girls School in East Jerusalem. Following FoEME”s multilevel approach, the rainwater collection system will also be used as a teaching tool as students and teachers will be incorporated in the design and construction of the unit, and water usage curriculum related to the project will be given to teachers. At the same time, the project will help to bring attention to the need for improved water allocation and usage practices in the West Bank and highlight the benefits of international cooperation and expertise sharing to sustainable global development. FoEME looks forward to working with WRAP and hopes this exciting project will be one of many.

Ada L. Benavides
Authored by: Ada L. Benavides, Project Manager, Headquarters, United States Army Corps of Engineers

April 5, 2011

Management of the water resources of the United States is a complicated business. The States take the lead, but the Federal government has been involved nearly since its creation.

Some trite-but-true expressions are most meaningful today:

  • We suffer from information overload.
  • The Federal government is so fractured that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
  • We keep reinventing the wheel.
  • Federal data are just not readily available.
  • Technology transfer is a good thing, but too hard to do.
  • Knowledge is power, and we need it.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers heard these laments often from state and local water resources managers and others during its national assessment in 2008-2010 to explore ways to collaborate with States, interstate organizations, non-governmental organizations, and others to improve water resources planning and management and sustain critical water resources for the future. At regional conferences conducted as part of this process, the Corps received a strong call to make data and information about water resources more integrated and accessible. States indicated that they desire quantitative data about resources levels and conditions, increased monitoring to collect and evaluate such data, trend information, and technical expertise that they lack but know the Federal government possesses – especially to plan and manage their resources at a watershed scale.

A key recommendation of the Building Strong Collaborative Relationships for a Sustainable Water Resources Future project, summarized in the national report Responding to National Water Resources Challenges (August 2010, visit the Report Website) was to move toward integrated water resources, specifically to assist states in collaborating with Federal agencies for more integrated management of water and related land resources.

This validated a previous recommendation the Corps made to create a data hub for information exchange and Federal support to address water needs across the nation. Theme 7 in the national report recommends Technology Transfer and Knowledge Capacity Building: Base the development of water resources plans and decision making upon good science and the sharing of information and technology. Increase scientific and management knowledge and technology/technological capabilities at all levels of government. Theme 4 meanwhile recommends that the Federal government Promote opportunities and mechanisms for collaborative water resources planning and management.

The Federal government plays a major role in supporting water resources planning and management. Federal agencies monitor, develop sound science and prediction models, make predictions, manage, conserve, regulate, protect, mitigate, restore, and handle emergency response and recovery planning and operations. Moreover, the Federal government possesses a myriad of expertise, knowledge, and experience to provide assistance for more integrated development and management of the nation’s public water resources. Since effective water management is a national imperative to provide for drinking, irrigation, and municipal and industrial use, protect life and property from flooding and droughts, support economic security through navigation, protect health and the environment, and mitigate the escalating risk of climate change and aging water infrastructure, it cannot be ignored.

A key outgrowth of the Corps’s National Report is the action to develop a Federal Support Toolbox for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to provide a single nationwide hub of data, information, models and other support assistance about water management that can be made accessible today across Federal resources agencies, State water resources officials and others managing water resources activities in the Nation. The objective of the Federal Support Toolbox for IWRM – Federal Toolbox or FTB – is to share a wealth of information and provide access to water resources research, technologies, tools, and experts. The FTB would include scientific and technical data and information, models and tools, planning and policy authorities, regulations, policies, guidelines, lessons learned and best management practices, including case studies about collaborative efforts and partnerships; as well as other reports and research. As a single identifiable repository for a tremendous amount of information housed in agency-specific systems and databases, the FTB holds the promise to become a system of knowledge and expertise that can be leveraged to augment the knowledge and capabilities of resource planners regionally and at state and local levels so as to close their information gaps.

Federal agencies themselves welcome the opportunity to begin sharing their information across agencies. Another 2009 Corps assessment of 12 Federal water resource agencies revealed the desire of these agencies to streamline access to Federal water resources capabilities; to share technology information, models, and best practices; to leverage resources more effectively; and to improve collaboration.

The availability of vetted, aggregated, organized, user-friendly, and accessible information in a Federal Toolbox should not only support enhanced technology transfer and knowledge capacity building about water issues, but also build a more solid foundation for water resources planning and decision making grounded in good science, information and technology sharing, technology development, and innovation. Water resources technical professionals and decision makers would have access to forecasts, integrated services, modeling at various geographic scales, cataloging of models and tools, and a compendium of best management practices. This powerful information system will also stimulate development of new constructs, models, and technologies to continue the process of knowledge capacity building, especially to help close information gaps for States, Tribes, localities, and interstate and non-governmental organizations.

Building the Federal Support Toolbox will take collaboration among Federal agencies; no single agency has the resources to create the Toolbox on its own. As collaborative partnerships are formed to access, analyze, and apply the data, information, and knowledge available from each agency, the potential for gaining insight, wisdom, and understanding about water resources needs, strategies, and solutions grows exponentially.

One very positive outcome of the Building Strong Collaborative Relationships initiative was the recognition that there is a strong building block for the FTB in the form of the Integrated Water Resources Science and Services system (IWRSS). IWRSS is a collaborative project already underway among the Corps, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to create an interoperable scientific system for water resources management. IWRSS is dedicated to integrating water resources information and simplifying access to it, increasing the accuracy and timeliness of water information, and providing high-resolution information and forecasts for geography from summit to sea. Key to making this happen will be a strong participatory process to coordinate interagency activities toward common goals and to apply physical and social science strategies to deliver a responsive information system that meets stakeholder needs. Since the Building Strong Collaborative Relationships initiative, the Corps has worked to enhance the partnership with NOAA and the USGS and move the development of the Support Toolbox forward. The three agencies are about to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to solidify the Federal Support Toolbox development partnership.

Success in building the Federal Toolbox will require participation of key stakeholders inside and outside government, effective management, sufficient funding, and an implementation plan and schedule. The potential to have an accessible hub that connects the right and left hands of the Federal government’s water resources information databases; that reduces information overload but provides reliable, organized, comprehensive, and accessible information about the nation’s water and land resources in an integrated way; and that turns such information into powerful knowledge and support capabilities for the benefit of the Federal government, regional/state/local entities, universities, and the general public is becoming real. The Federal Support Toolbox promises to be a new business model for collaborative public water resources information and knowledge management in the 21st Century.

Brendan McGinnis
Authored by: Brendan McGinnis, Managing Partner, THG

March 10, 2011

In the fall of 2005, shortly after completing my Masters in Business Administration, I joined a small environmental non-profit in Arlington, VA, the Global Environment & Technology Foundation. Eager to apply my academic training to build the business case for sustainable practices, I spent the next two years focusing on a suite of international and domestic water and energy initiatives. During this time and the ensuing three years, I was fortunate to be closely involved in a number of collaborative efforts to ensure a more sustainable water future.

One experience that tested my basic understanding of water, energy, and the nexus between the two, was my involvement in the creation of a guidebook providing assistance to off-grid, rural health clinics in sub-Saharan Africa on how best to assess their electrification demands and determine feasible renewable energy alternatives. The effort, led by the Energy Team of the U.S. Agency for International Development and entitled, Powering Health: Electrification Options for Rural Health Centers, continues to be a timely and relevant resource. Upon reflection, the insight I gained truly helped to simplify the complexities of sustaining community energy and water systems.

My big take-away? That the water and energy conversation is inexorably linked. As water issues move into the mainstream, energy concerns cannot be pushed aside. Collaboration and interdependence when addressing the two is crucial.

Jumping ahead to the close of 2007, our nation will soon brace for the early stages of a recession. Gross deficits and ever-shrinking budgets result in the growing need for sensible, cost-effective solutions to address our most pressing environmental challenges – a combination of factors that led me to leave the non-profit and create a start-up environmental consulting group with a handful of colleagues and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko. In January 2008, The Horinko Group becomes incorporated to service a variety of clients from Fortune 100 Corporations and law firm giants to small riverside communities and aspiring research and education institutions.

Much of my attention early on at the firm centered on assisting clients with better leveraging of resources through more active collaboration and creating a platform to educate and inclusively engage all stakeholders. I would soon become increasingly familiar with a number of our nation’s environmental cleanup and restoration efforts – the Lower Passaic River, Delaware Estuary, Lower Fox River, Kalamazoo River, and Upper Mississippi River Basin.

My bigger take-away? It’s all about water quality and water availability, and addressing each in a manner that is measurable, effective, and holistic.

In this vein, our group committed ourselves to moving the water conversation into the mainstream, launching The Horinko Group’s Water Division in 2009. With a charge to promote water resources sustainability through effective and integrated water resources management, we sought to provide a new context for thinking and problem solving.

Fast forward to April 2010, our group hosted its first Water Summit entitled, Sustaining Our Water Resources Through Collaboration, followed by quarterly roundtable discussions referred to as Water Salons. Each gathering convenes water leadership and senior practitioners from public and private organizations to delve deeper into our nation’s central and pressing water issues.

Reflecting and closely examining the proceedings from each of these past resource forums, it becomes evident to me that our nation is approaching a tipping point where collective resource interests and concerns can gain real traction and common direction. Released in January 2011, our Water Division authored a report entitled, Promoting the Sustainability of Our Nation’s Water Resources, outlining 10 Actionable Objectives for demonstrating near-term, scalable and system-based outcomes. Our belief being the integration of these components could evolve into a system-based, regionally governed and integrated platform of water resources stewardship.

Taking a closer look at a number of complimentary efforts that I feel add real value to the national water dialogue – the Corps of Engineers’ Responding to National Water Resources Challenges Report; EPA’s Healthy Watersheds Initiative; USDA’s Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative; American Water Resources Association’s National Water Vision Position Statement; Clean Water America Alliance’s Water National Policy Framework Discussion Draft; the Johnson Foundation’s Charting New Waters Report; and River Network’s The Way Forward Action Plan – I was greatly encouraged. These plans, when taken collectively, reveal a great deal of overlap and alignment among prominent stakeholders and leading thinkers. Perhaps these complex water problems are not beyond our collective reach to address.

My grand take-away? A sustainable water future for us all rests on an informed and engaged water resources community pulling in one direction with a good measure of common purpose and determination. We have a shared responsibility to move our society from being simple water users to becoming conscientious and well-informed water stewards.

As to what’s next, I have been working with the Water Resources Action Project as a founding member for over a year now. This DC-based non-profit seeks to improve public health and quality of life for under-served communities in the Middle East by bringing shared purpose and hope to address the growing water conflict. Working with partners in the community, I am excited to report that the group has completed its pilot project, a rain collection unit at the Sur Bahr Girls School in East Jerusalem, reducing the school’s municipal water costs. In May 2011, I will make a trip to Israel, Palestine and Jordan to scout additional schools. Stay tuned as I follow-up with a travel log of my journey.

On the home front, I am pleased to announce that The Horinko Group is planning its Second Annual Water Resources Summit entitled, Sustaining Our Nation’s Water Resources: Answering the Call for Stewardship, scheduled for October 25, 2011 at the University of Maryland’s Stamp Student Union.

Looking even further ahead, I am eager for the scientific advancements to be applied, the collaboration we are capable of, the progress to come, and most of all, that I may play a small part along the way.

Patrick McGinnis
Authored by: Patrick McGinnis, Water Resoures Team Leader, THG and Formerly Supervisory Wildlife Biologist, Retired, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

February 18, 2011

I recently attended a public meeting concerning the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study. During the meeting stakeholders were informed the study would take four years. We will not see a final report until 2015.

Invasive species are a contagion, which appropriately concern numerous organizations, elected officials and the general public. We are told that invasives present a real threat to sustaining the natural capital of two nationally significant and iconic freshwater resources, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River systems. This is nothing new. The issue of invasives is a matter of public record. Federal and State biologists have been studying, reporting, and debating this matter for decades.

Now that this concern has taken on a new sense of urgency due to public outcry, politicians are identifying advantages to hydrologic separation between these two systems. Why, then, are we now being told that there is a necessity for four more years of paying salaries, attending meetings, performing studies, and planning before decisions can be made? How is it that after years of monitoring, regulatory coordination, and debated conservation strategies that we aren’t in a better position to mobilize with an incremental adaptive management approach? Isn’t it time for action?

I do not fault the program managers. They are institutionally ingrained to adhere to existing policy and process, and there seems to be too little incentive for innovation or efficiency. Our tax dollars have been carrying public sector program managers, engineers, scientists, and regulators for too many years for us to be in no better position than we find ourselves today. When you closely examine the real social costs of too much of what has happened in the name of economic progress on these two systems you realize that all the study and analyses that got us those developments didn’t account for much. I would argue that all the studies and analyses that have guided too many environmental restoration strategies and projects haven’t effectively informed outputs either. Too many outputs have not proven scalable, replicable, or even qualified as valid system restoration. As taxpayers, we should be better consumers and demand results for our dollars.

So many troubling uncertainties. Why would we think that four more years of head scratching is going to position us to arrive at the right solution? What sea change in thinking has occurred that will reverse the all too common piece-mealed effort that has been the hallmark of past practice? What leads us to believe lessons learned that should have us testing past assumptions and inefficiencies are going to create a course correction that commits us to a new way ahead that expects and realizes results driven success? Are these same practitioners capable of undertaking an effective, incremental adaptive management approach? Do existing policy and practice even promote system thinking?

Let’s commit to measurable results and spending limited financial resources more wisely. This time around, let’s “cap” the percentage of requested funds spent indirectly for salaries, overhead, and studies and thereby forces new practices that more quickly and flexibly produce tangible outputs on the ground. Then, let’s measure the performance of those outputs and adjust accordingly employing a reflective approach based on real responses to incremental outputs where informed management adjustments can be made based on real in situ observation, not based on more speculation and extrapolation. Let’s break the cycle of foot dragging and spit balling.

Looking at past federal environmental restoration programs, I suspect you will find 60% of taxpayers dollars spent on study and analysis, followed by over design. On this effort let’s agree to: 1) cap those expenditures at 35% for starters; and 2) produce a report in 18 months not four years.

We can begin tomorrow acting with purpose to solve this invasive problem. Let’s have the political will to focus on results and only results. Let’s demand greater accountability. Yes, this will put people to work but let’s do better. Let’s not create a jobs program; let’s create a results program.

As presented at the Clean Water America Alliance”s Water Policy Framework Meeting

Patrick McGinnis

Authored by: Patrick McGinnis, Water Resources Team Leader, THG

January 13, 2011

My name is Pat McGinnis; I recently wrapped up a 32-year career working as a Public Lands Manager and Administrator within the Federal Sector. The better part of that time was spent in the Mississippi River Valley focused on riparian public lands management for the US Army Corps of Engineers. I logged many hours working on the ground with our Federal and State counterparts, along side a variety of conservation groups, waterside communities, and NGOs pushing new ideas forward and seeing them realized.

In 2009, after retiring from federal service, I joined The Horinko Group; a small environmental consulting shop located here in DC, led by former EPA Acting Administrator, Marianne Horinko. Marianne and I share a mutual impatient optimism about the great things that good people can accomplish with the right tools and incentives.

My time in the public sector managing partnerships taught me a great deal about the nuances of cooperative undertakings, the need for transparency, accountability, the critical nature of honest, open communication, the need for building social relevance into large public sector initiatives, and the importance of demonstrating tangible results, replicating what works, and being persistent.

These experiences, of getting things done, of recognizing that everyone has a stake in our water future, are guiding The Horinko Group’s efforts today to engage the water conversation.

Before setting course, we asked ourselves – Could a small shop really add value to this national water dialogue?

In 2009, we committed ourselves to the overall effort of moving the water conversation more into the mainstream. Through our work with water sector clients we observed patterns emerging that suggested an integrated approach was more possible, practical and less complicated than many were proclaiming.

The Horinko Group brought together a group of colleagues to share their water stories and relate the barriers and opportunities expressed by water sector clients and subject matter experts. We set a goal for ourselves that we would not engage unless we could demonstrate and add value.

Initially, client interest had us focused on ecological services, the natural capital of aquatic systems, the infrastructure replacement backlog, and the desire to revitalize waterside communities to make them more livable. During our discussions we attempted to deconstruct a variety of water issues and in so doing a few common themes or needs emerged that seemed to cut cross or connect issues. These themes became early assumptions for us –

  • The lack of communication between decision-makers and practitioners could confound solutions to any given water issue;
  • Given the complexity and inter-jurisdictional nature of most water issues the need for collaboration and resource leveraging was imperative;
  • Securing our common water future was not so much a top-down or bottom-up thing, but was more of a horizontal thing…promoting inclusion, transparency, and interdependence.
  • If choices between polluting and stewarding happen locally, then civic engagement and social learning to better inform the water conversation is crucial. Traditional expressions of public involvement would not be enough, much broader and continuous civic engagement was called for to move us from being water users to becoming water stewards.
  • For watershed issues to matter on Main Street not only did the public need to be more aware of the problems but the solutions had to be couched in terms that were socially relevant. Addressing water issues had to be viewed as central to producing a more livable community;
  • Demonstrations that are replicable, scalable, and create expectations of what is possible could play a powerful role; and,
  • We saw an immediate need to stop the bleeding— too much activity is driven by incentives that encourage shortsighted non-sustainable outputs that carry a high social cost and far too little true return. Results-driven goals must be set, and incentives established, that further those results and only those results.

We also found ourselves attempting to address the often-confounding terminology of “water speak.” Terms like adaptive management, integrated water resources management, networked governance, system resilience, risk analysis, and performance measurement were regularly sucking the oxygen out of the room. As many grappled with their meaning and intent it became apparent that the question wasn”t just “what does this term mean,” but rather “what will this mean to me and my organization.” Too many discussions quickly led to posturing over new programs, new institutional arrangements, and the omen of even more layers of bureaucracy.

At The Horinko Group, we are strong believers in adaptive management principles and its incremental approach to addressing big problems. We felt that “demystifying” adaptive management and staying focused on “managing one water,” to borrow your Alliance’s tagline, while finding footholds for action within existing programs provided our best chance at identifying an early path forward with some assurance of early tangible results.

So, late in 2009, we crafted what turned out to be a draft Ten Point Plan that included what we saw as absolutes that demanded attention, what seemed possible, and where early outputs could be achieved.

We also tried to account for a variety of nuanced factors that weren”t getting enough attention – the underlying influencers at the root of many of our water issues. Water quality and water availability kept coming back as central attributes that we felt had to stay in sharp focus.

While others, with good reason, focused on infrastructure and regulatory enforcement, we opted to direct our narrative toward source protection, source control incentives, and overall system stewardship.

Regarding the infrastructure backlog, and I think this is a very important point, during my Federal career I watched time after time as the project delivery culture of the Corps tried to communicate the value of individual projects it was advancing without first communicating the function and values of the aquatic ecosystems it was applying these projects to. Here’s the lesson – How on earth can we expect citizens to really assess the value of the part and judge the value of its contribution without first understanding something about the whole?

It was this reality that partly shaped our commitment to underscore the importance of social capital and raising system awareness to create a context where communities could begin to fully appreciate the importance of proper valuation of water, the urgency of infrastructure challenges and water conservation, and the dilemma that non-point pollution presents. But again, before you can ever convince someone of the system added value of a single output you have to first explain the value and functionality of the system.

Having seen great examples of collaboration and progress being made at both ends of the spectrum, from small rural communities to Fortune 500 corporations, we were encouraged that these complex problems were not beyond our collective reach to address – perhaps naively, we thought, “this shouldn”t be this hard.” There are good things happening out there and so a part of the effort for us became effectively calling attention to best practices and collaborative models demonstrating outputs that could prove to be replicable, scalable, and reveal principles of adaptive management.

Several agencies and non-for-profits were already actively working to put forth and test their own national water policy or agenda documents. We felt our approach was not the only approach and certainly not the most encompassing, but we were confident that a significant measure of what we had identified could prove doable. We didn”t want our efforts to compete, but rather complement and align with the efforts of others including the work of the Alliance, the American Water Resource Association, and The Johnson Foundation, to call out those we view being among the most thoughtful.

Having crafted our 10-point plan, we agreed to commit our energy, enthusiasm, and a good portion of our 2010 marketing budget, to stir the water conversation and gain feedback on the assumptions we had made in our draft action plan.

To do this we designed a series of events to afford us the opportunity to engage others, not to discuss our plan, but rather discuss the principles it was based on and to listen. We designed and hosted a Summit in April of last year, followed by a series of quarterly water resource focused salons, and a series of water resource themed webinars. On World Water Day in March of last year, we also launched our Water Division Webpage to call attention to our philosophy and vision, our intentions for 2010, and events and activities of others in the water sector. We also wanted a place where we could post our progress and findings, allowing others to track the conversation.

The focus of our April Summit became connecting Water Leaders Across Watersheds. Peter Silva, heading up EPA’s Office of Water, and Terrence (Rock) Salt, serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Works for the Corps, opened the proceedings that included three lively panel discussions, one on the Chesapeake Bay Executive Order, one on the role of collaboration and civic engagement in sustaining the Mississippi River, and one which provided a federal sector perspective on the future of integrated water resources management.

We then followed the summit with a three-part water resources salon series. The function of these salons was to bring together small groups of practitioners, program managers, and thought leaders to address very specific factors affecting our stewardship of water. The salon format allowed the participants to deconstruct issues into problem statements and then brainstorm opportunities for problem solving and next steps.

Our first salon focused on communication between practitioners and decision makers, and was moderated by University of Maryland Professor Dr. Gerry Galloway and Bob Petrowski, Director of the Institute for Water Resources. Our next salon focused on Networks, Coalitions, and the Role of Social Capital in Water Resources Management, and was led by Professor Stephen Gasteyer of Michigan State University, and our third salon addressed engaging the public for river sustainability and livable communities and was led by Todd Ambs, President of the River Network and Anne Lewis founder of Php Aide America’s Waterway.

These roundtable discussions proved to be a collegial and non-threatening forum for convening subject matter experts and program managers to discuss in greater detail significant and nagging barriers to collaboration, civic engagement, and support for new approaches to old challenges.

In 2010, we also hosted a three-part water focused Webinar Series that opened with a session addressing an ongoing collaborative effort that is restoring riparian forests along the upper Mississippi River, where on-the-ground practitioners discussed their work and their vision. Our second webinar dealt with new applications and approaches to civic engagement and its importance and included a great line-up headed by CEQ’s Robyn Colosimo. We finished up the year with a session on, Engaging the Next Generation of Water Leaders that showcased an exciting collaborative effort to reach an urban K-12 population in the greater St. Louis area that includes 500,000 students with a strong water message tied to civic leadership. The webinars were well attended and the feedback we received suggested they were greatly appreciated.

Certainly, an expected and realized benefit of hosting these events were their value in allowing us to test and refine many of the assumptions we made in our original draft action plan.

I should note that the proceedings from the summit and salons, as well as the audio recordings from the webinars are all posted on The Horinko Group’s website.

Over the past two months, we further refined our draft 10-point plan document and sent it out to a number of colleagues for informal peer review. We also conducted a number of interviews about specific objectives in the plan and how they might be advanced in 2011 and have now finalized the document, entitled, Promoting the Sustainability of Our Nation’s Water Resources, which can be downloaded from The Horinko Group’s website.

Our plan is really an aggregate of 10 actionable recommendations. Its focus is on system stewardship, the value of demonstrating new water resource outputs on public and private lands, of encouraging source protection and control through collaboration, better integration of existing programs, creating appropriate incentives, and utilizing social capital to move individual behavior toward a culture of stewardship.

Our goal was to create something actionable in the near-term and to foster a sense of urgency and opportunity for putting measurable results on the ground as a catalyst for broader and larger contributions by local and regional actors.

It was designed to quickly lead to discussions on how parts or all of it could be applied to regional systems.

There are familiar themes that are called out in our plan. To quickly summarize, we are calling for:

  • Integration of federal programs, while calling attention to programs with promise like USDA and EPA’s Healthy Watershed Initiatives and the Department of Interior’s Landscape Conservation Cooperative, as well as the Corps’ Planning Assistance Federal Tool Box.
  • Expanded authority to add water quality to the project authorization of existing Corps water resource projects and recommending that the Corps’ Planning Principles and Guidelines fully account for the social costs of local public works projects.
  • A recommitment to National Flood Insurance Reform so that sanity can be restored to floodplain management.
  • Retooling of the next Farm Bill to incentivize sustainable practices in ways that work for farmers, taxpayers, and our nation’s water resources.
  • New approaches to increasing civic awareness and increasing watershed literacy facilitating a more informed water conversation.
  • Ways to connect water issues to community livability and communicating at the grassroots level so that more of us make an emotional connection to water and see the social relevance of water conservation.
  • Using nature-based tourism as a mechanism for waterside communities to diversify their economies while recognizing the natural capital of the systems they are reconnecting with.
  • And lastly, an important consideration also became calling attention to best practices and replicable scalable models. Practitioners operating on the ground must have a platform to effectively communicate their successes with decision-makers here inside the beltway.

We have not turned our back on pressing infrastructure needs nor have we moved away from the need for regulatory programs that work. But for these water sector needs to become socially appreciated and relevant, their importance needs to be more effectively demonstrated and communicated – this is where we are putting our emphasis and call for early outputs.

During 2011 we intend to:

Continue our outreach activities with an expanded salon and webinar series culminating in a year-end summit tentatively scheduled for November.

Continue to call attention to the good work of others and facilitate the export of their best practices.

Ramp up our efforts to engage others and look for synergy and alignment of purpose to advance the water conversation and most importantly to help those that are attempting to put results on the ground.

And lastly, offer our assistance to agencies and other NGOs that are attempting to advance their own efforts to produce sustainable outcomes and secure our water future.

We hope you will each take a moment to study our approach. We are working at the community level and there is a great deal of energy and untapped capacity out there. We simply need a convergence of effort. We hope to hear from you if we can be of assistance and add our voice to yours.

THANK YOU!

As presented to The Nature Conservancy

Lynn Scarlett
Authored by: Lynn Scarlett, Former Deputy Secretary of the Interior (2005-2009)

November 30, 2010

As I contemplated the current conservation landscape, I thought of a passage in Alice in Wonderland. Alice, coming upon a fork in the road, looks up to see the Cheshire cat eyeing her from a tree above. Seizing the opportunity for help, she asks: “Tell me, please, which way ought I to go from here.” The grinning cat replies: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

Yet perhaps reaching a destination is not as simple as the Cheshire cat advised. Success depends also on the lay of the land. And so it is with the Nation’s conservation journey.

Thinking of the Cheshire cat’s quip, I believe the conservation community knows where it wants to go. The challenge is how to succeed in a context of political, social, and economic change.

I want to explore the lay of the land—the political, social and economic tableau within which conservation goals must now unfold and tease out possible implications for policy strategies. That tableau offers a mix of both clear and cloudy elements. Let me begin with what seems clear, which has, I discern, two key dimensions.

First, national, state, and local levels of government face severe fiscal constraints. At the local level, many cities are facing large deficits. Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, and Los Angeles all have deficits greater than 10 percent of their general funds. At the state level, 46 states struggled to close budget shortfalls this year, including deficits in California and Texas in the double-digit billions. Shortfalls collectively approached $126 billion, or 19 percent of the total budgets in the 46 deficit states. At federal level, deepening concerns about the deficit are driving a clamor for belt-tightening. For agencies like the Interior Department, 2012 cuts could range from 7 to 15 percent.

Second, the economy remains unstable. That instability stretches globally, despite pockets of economic dynamism in China and elsewhere. That instability is affecting private, foundation, and corporate philanthropic spending, which showed a 3.6 percent decline in 2009, with some individual sectors experiencing larger declines.

But let me turn to the blurrier picture. How might we diagnose the recent election? I am neither Freud nor Cassandra nor a Gallup pollster, but I offer a couple of observations on the election. Pundits and media headlines offer three prevailing explanations for the major turnover on the Hill and in State legislatures:

  • It’s the economy
  • It’s big government
  • It’s Washington—and incumbents, generally
  • Probably the explanation resides in some mix of all of the above.

In the headlines, environmental issues are barely a blip on the screen of political and policy dialogues, with one exception—climate change. Even here, however, I perceive some ambivalence.

On the one hand, climate change has become a political symbol that transcends its scientific underpinnings and economic implications. Politically, for some Americans, climate change policy has come to represent Exhibit Two (after Health Care legislation) of Big Government. Cap and trade policy, in particular, has become a symbol for economic manipulation.

On the other hand, beyond the climate change symbolism, the conservation picture is far more complex and holds some basis for a wink of optimism. Californians voted resoundingly to sustain their clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction pathway. Moreover, those polled regarding their support for domestic energy production versus more environmental protection show near parity between the two preferences, with each garnering 46 to 47 percent support.

Consider conservation more broadly. Broad brush concepts—conservation, environment—receive barely a nod in polls or among Tea Party supporters. A google search shows just one local Tea Party chapter even mentioning the environment. But let us peer, instead, at specific issues perceived to directly touch the daily lives of people. Water issues continue to arouse significant concern. Sixty percent in a recent Gallup poll indicated that they worry “a great deal” about drinking water. That figure jumps to 74 percent if one includes those who worry a fair or great amount about drinking water.

Other issues also poll fairly strongly as arousing public concerns. Some 80 percent of those polled by Gallup are concerned a great deal or fair amount about river, lake and reservoir pollution and water supply issues. Seventy-six percent remain concerned a great deal or somewhat about air pollution. Even issues unrelated to human health poll fairly strongly. Plant and animal extinctions generate concerns among 65 percent of Americans.

My purpose is not to dissect these polls but to suggest that November’s voting results cannot be read as a mandate to override environmental investments. But let me paint into the tableau a few more elements. All these elements provide a prelude to talking about policy implications. I want to quickly mention four more brush strokes.

First is the existing regulatory backdrop—the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, even the Federal Land Policy Management Act, and Natural Resource Damages Assessments, among other statutes. All of these laws require mitigation or recompense for various environmental impacts—whether to species, wetlands, or public lands, waters, and resources.

Those requirements imply the need for and sources of non-federal environmental investments. These dollars are significant. Natural Resource Damages settlements net an average payout of $100 million per year. Occasionally, individual settlements exceed $100 million. Such funds often combine with other sources to achieve significant environmental benefits.  For example, $3 million in NRD funds resulting from a settlement regarding harbor contamination in Rhode Island were combined with private-sector and nonprofit funds toward purchase of 1.5 million acres of loon nesting habitat in Maine. Elsewhere, $400,000 in NRD funds combined with Coast Guard and other nonprofit funding to protect and monitor common eider nesting habitat. Or consider wetland mitigation banks, which are emerging at a pace of 30 to 50 per year, and credits for many of these banks are “sold out.”

Let us turn now to a second brushstroke—the Nation’s huge water and wastewater infrastructure backlogs.  The American Society of Civil Engineers grades drinking water and wastewater infrastructure as poor. These ratings are reflected in the estimated $390 billion price tag to update or replace wastewater systems alone.

What do these enormous price tags have to do with a conservation mission?  Cities across the Nation are looking for better, cheaper, smarter ways to meet their infrastructure needs. And sometimes—perhaps even often—that means going “natural”—investing in floodplain restoration, open space and permeable surfacing, and watershed protection.  Philadelphia, for example, is proposing to convert 34 percent of its area to permeable surface at a fraction of the $6-$8 billion price tag to build tunnels and new pipes to eliminate sewage overflow. On a smaller scale, Seattle’s use of “green infrastructure” reduces stormwater runoff volumes at a cost 25 percent less than the traditional alternative.

The third brush struck on the landscape is the ongoing conservation investment commitments associated with existing programs. Those gathered know these data better than I do, but 25 states have state-level “purchase of agricultural easement” programs. Many states have passed conservation bonds, designated lottery funds to conservation, added fractions to sales taxes to support land acquisition, used real estate transfer fees to support conservation, and taxed oil, gas, and mineral production to provide environmental benefits. Indeed, over many years, the conservation community nationwide has been a big booster of these efforts.  At the Federal level, Migratory Bird monies from Duck Stamps, Farm Bill conservation programs, other mandatory monies, and Department of Defense compatible use conservation funds all continue to support protection, restoration, and enhancement of lands, water, and wildlife. All these funding sources provide at least some buffer to the ebbs and flows and vulnerability of annual federal appropriations for conservation.

The final element of the conservation tableau pertains to natural hazards. Over the past century, the number of natural disasters has increased more than 40-fold, rising from less than 10 in the first decades of the last century to over 400 in the last decades of the 20th century. Costs to address these disasters climbed from $1 billion in 1900 to more than $200 billion in 2005.

Many of these disasters were amplified as consequence of ecosystem transformations and degradation.  Ecosystem protection and restoration offer significant, often cost-effective strategies for reducing the impacts of these natural hazards. Investments in the protection or restoration of floodplains, coastal dunes, and sea marshes can enhance resilience to severe storms.  For example, evaluation of dune protection in North Carolina showed marked reductions in threatened and destroyed buildings compared to areas without dune protection.

Let me recap the policy landscape, then turn to implications for policy strategies. On the negative side of the ledger are fiscal constraints, economic instability, and, among many new members in the Congress, a disinterest in environmental matters. Among the mixed signals are public attitudes—lukewarm, even skeptical, d abstract environmental matters but more supportive of environmental progress on specific issues. On the positive side, we see existing regulatory drivers for action, some continuing (and significant) funding flows, and BIG NEEDS that may be harnessed toward galvanizing environmental investments.

What are implications of this tableau for conservation? Beyond the imperative starting point of setting clear goals, I offer a quick spectrum of thoughts on five key strategy questions.

  • What’s the message?
  • What are the tools?
  • Where’s the money?
  • Who’s the audience?
  • Who are the players?

Consider, first, the message. With strong public concern about tangible environmental issues, linking conservation action to those tangible issues offers a message and focus that transcend parties and ideology. “Watershed protection protects drinking water supplies;” “coastal restoration reduces storm vulnerability;” “floodplain restoration protects communities;” “enhancing forest health protects water supplies.”  Where relevant, messages that highlight “better, cheaper, smarter” have broad, bipartisan appeal. Or, for the business community, messages that highlight a favorable return on investment are compelling.

Examples that affirm such messaging abound. In August, for example, Denver Water teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service to treat 38,000 acres of critical watersheds to reduce the risks of catastrophic fires that can result in extensive erosion and damage to streams and reservoirs. The $33 million “Forest to Faucet” partnership was launched, in part, as Denver Water eyed 3 million acres of lodgepole pine forests devastated by pine beetles and recalled the enormous damage to its water supplies from the Hayman fire. Costs to address that damage have included over $10.5 million at one reservoir, with another $30 million or more in costs still looming to complete that restoration.

Linking conservation to tangible (and cost-effective) community benefits is especially relevant in the context of climate change adaptation strategies. Increases in high-intensity storms or frequency of catastrophic fires are occurring now—not hypothetically in the future.

Changes in snow melt timing and precipitation patterns are occurring now. Sea level rise is occurring now—witness the November 25 New York Times article on Norfolk, Virginia regarding the 14.5-inch rise in sea level just since 1930. High-intensity storms, sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, and other climate change effects amplify the importance of protecting coastal sea marshes as storm buffers, or restoring flood plains, or conserving source water.

These are also opportunities to teach—locally—about climate change and its effects. They offer a way of building grassroots support for climate adaptation strategies, and, potentially, for mitigation actions, as well.

What about conservation tools in the current political climate, and who are some relevant players?  Yes, of course, legislative opportunities exist with the upcoming Farm Bill to underscore the importance of conservation funding for ecology, economy, and community well being. But less obvious opportunities also exist. Sen. Inhofe has opined that he wants major water and wastewater infrastructure investments. Why not begin to sow the seeds of the need to include ecosystem alternatives in the mix?

So, too, are there many small, noncontroversial measures that could support cooperation, collaboration, and working landscapes. These include measures to: 1) support Service First co-locations of federal agency offices to enhance efficiency and strengthen landscape-scale, cross-agency coordination; 2) affirm agency authorities to enter into cooperative agreements with conservation partners; and 3) develop cross-cut budgeting for large landscape, collaborative conservation initiatives. These measures have good government, fiscally conservative dimensions and also provide major underpinnings for landscape-scale conservation. They may also resonant on the local-action message of Tea Party newcomers and old-fashioned conservatives, as they strengthen local action and local partnerships, while also finding favor with many Democrats.

But federal legislation may not be the ripest context for action. State and local action present opportunities to galvanize conservation policies and investments. With current economic instabilities, this is not a time for new conservation sales taxes, but it could be a time for state-level support of eco-infrastructure. Many cities are already developing climate change action plans that span mitigation and adaptation measures. These planning processes present an opportunity to add into the mix watershed-scale thinking for source water protection, stormwater management, and pollution abatement.

Consider Milwaukee’s 28-city coordinated efforts on flood management and stormwater. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Stormwater District, with flood management authority across six regional watersheds, is working with 28 municipalities to coordinate water management across a 411 square-mile area. A central focus is on infrastructure “greening” and outreach to the agricultural community, as well.

But I want to add another potential locus of action. Think agencies, not just legislation.

Agencies have enormous latitude and capacity to reshape the conservation context. The current national administration is sympathetic to landscape-scale conservation, providing some leadership for agencies to strengthen their collaborative, cross-jurisdictional conservation efforts. What are some of these opportunities?  I offer this list not as an agenda for action but as examples to illustrate just how big a role agencies play in really enhancing the conservation context.

  • Natural Resource Damages Funding: Trustee agencies could further encourage the prospects of offsite restoration and collaborative projects. For example, federal agencies have combined NRD funds with Coast Guard and nonprofit funds for eider nesting site protection.  In the Northeast, using $3 million in NRD funds resulting from a settlement regarding harbor contamination in Rhode Island, agencies partnered with private-sector and nonprofit organizations to fund the purchase of 1.5 million acres of loon nesting habitat in Maine
  • Principals and Guidelines:Fuller accounting for the environmental benefits of water resource projects provides an opportunity to focus the analytic framework at a watershed/landscape-scale.
  • National Environmental Policy Act Implementation: Encourage new guidance on cumulative effects and offsite mitigation, perhaps tailored after BLM’s offsite mitigation guidance. Guidance updating could include definitions and methods for evaluating ecosystem services that could strengthen both ecosystem services evaluation and use of landscape-scale analytic framework. Key issue: how to extend boundaries of evaluation beyond the individual public land unit? Is there a role for cooperating agency status as platform for such analysis? What about use of DOI’s regulation on consensus-based collaborative management options that allows such options to be identified as preferred alternative?
  • FERC relicensing guidance:Mitigation provisions under the licensing process offer a potential source of funding for ecosystem services investments and a potential source of market demand. They also provide an opportunity for agencies to steer mitigation toward landscape-scale, high-priority, and multi-benefits conservation. These opportunities could be strengthened by updating the Hydropower Interagency Memorandum of Understanding to reference ecosystem services evaluation within the context of requirements to evaluate environmental impacts of projects and by setting mitigation funding prioritiesthrough mitigation guidance that emphasizes enhancing ecosystem services outcomes.
  • Farm Bill: Options for improvement of the conservation provisions include consolidating programs that share common purposes and/or consolidating different payment types into a single, multipurpose payment system; targeting programs to high-priority conservation areas; developing better performance indicators; and improving returns on investment through use of landscape-scale approaches, competitive bidding to lower the cost of conservation contracts, and linking payments directly to performance.
  • ESA Conservation Banking: Update guidance to on multi-species banking.
  • BLM Multi-unit Environmental Impact Statements: Build upon BLM’s recent eco-regional assessments as a foundation for undertaking multi-unit environmental evaluations that would facilitate large, landscape-scale planning, conservation corridors, non-surface disturbance in high-conservation value areas.

I conclude this policy overview with the ever-important question of money. As no big surprise, I expect federal dollars for conservation grants and land acquisition to shrink in the near term. From an agency land manager’s perspective, these grant dollars are discretionary, and cuts in grants do not generally involve “reductions in force.” Agencies will strive, understandably, to hang on to their workforces during these constrained funding periods. For annual spending, a big question is the fate of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. If the efforts to move LWCF off-budget are unsuccessful, it is very difficult to envision full funding occurring under the current fiscal climate. The Administration pledged full funding, but, at $900 million, that’s a tough pledge to fulfill when trying to find 7 percent or greater spending cuts to programs. It seems unlikely that the Congress will support full funding under its new composition.

At the federal level, for conservation funding, that leaves mandatory monies (Duck Stamp monies), NRD funds, Farm Bill conservation funding, and various other programs with ongoing funding. But these programs involve pretty big bucks—and they are further supplemented by continued State funding from bonds and other programs.

The issue, though, is never just the money. It’s the message and packaging. New members—federal and state—may be fiscally conservative. Some may want “no spending.”

But many will want “smart spending.” And many will want spending for the basic infrastructure of their communities, community safety, and basic services like water. These needs present a big opportunity, mentioned earlier, to look at nontraditional funding bills to press for shifting from gray to green project funding—not just in cities but in the countryside, as well.

The same concept applies to Safe Drinking Water Revolving Loans and Clean Drinking Water Revolving Loan funds: can more of these funds be directed to source water protection, for example? Currently, these loan programs allow usage for source water protection—but just a fraction is actually used for those purposes. Can that change?

At least two states have promoted use of these funds for land protection.  Ohio’s Water Restoration Sponsorship Program provides significant loan rate reductions for wastewater treatment projects if the recipient uses a portion of the savings to invest in watershed protection and restoration. Through its Green Acres Program, New Jersey adjusted its criteria to allocate CWA loan funds to give 3 times the weight to projects with a water supply protection benefit through land protections.

There is so much more to explore regarding conservation in a time of scarcity. But I want to end with a simple observation of optimism. Whatever the headlines in Washington and whatever the swaggers of some pundits and politicians, the American people—when environmental issues link to matters in their backyard, want environmental protection. They want restoration and conservation.

Gary Liberson

By: Gary Liberson, Co-Founder, Water Resources Action Project
October 2010

Corporations need to grow to survive. If they just tread water, they either drown or are eaten by bigger fish. While the data on sustainability performance (i.e., social responsibility) vs. economic performance is at present a bit mixed, it is true that one is hard pressed to identify a large cap international company selling consumer products that does not have a sustainability program. So why do so many successful companies have sustainability programs and why does conventional wisdom associate successful programs as an indicator of a successful company?

From my perspective the answer is simple: profits and process. A great social profile equates to more profits. A poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press found that in the US as income increased so did the opinion that climate change was man-made. For households with income over $150,000, the percentage that attributed climate change to man was over 81%.

In the EU the attitudes are even more pronounced. A Eurobarometer special survey in late 2009 found that close to 70% of the population identified poverty, food, and drinking water as the largest problems facing the world with 47% picking climate change as number two. The global downturn ranked third at less than 40%.

Corporations are at their best when they make a profit. A corollary to this is that sustainability programs work only when they increase profits. If they do not, then the program is equivalent to giving charity: Why pick giving to the environment over the opera or cancer? Sustainability programs can increase market size, cut costs, ensure future raw materials for growth, and facilitate site licensing or myriad other activities that improve the bottom line now or in the future. Sustainability programs are the embodiment of a corporate philosophy that ensures a corporation’s “license to produce.”

A sustainability program indicates a “best in class” mentality. Regulatory compliance cannot happen without adherence to detail and process. So ultimately, a successful sustainability program indicates a company that can execute and is striving for “best in class.”

Sustainability programs have three legs – efficiency, largesse, and compliance. Efficiency covers reduced carbon footprint, less energy usage, less water (i.e., general cost savings and smaller footprint). Largesse includes donations to a wide range of NGOs and non-profits that advance the corporate image with their markets or with government agencies that control licensing (e.g., some say BP had an easy time acquiring Amoco because of BP’s pro climate change position in 1998). Compliance includes adherence and implementation of all government regulations and permits, as well as, sensitivity to the social, political and cultural characteristics of the local market. None of this works, of course, without a corporate dashboard that measures and reports performance to the company and is ultimately used as a public relations tool.

All of this is well known to almost any large international corporation with sales and manufacturing aspirations in Asia and the EU. However, for companies who are predominantly managed from a US perspective, this may seem a bit much. For these companies, compliance as the “cost of doing business” may be the dominant corporate perspective. The US has proven to be resistant to the market strength that NGOs possess in the EU or to strong government intervention as a barrier to entry that can be found in Asia.

Yet, US regulatory agencies are more and more taking actions that affect a company’s ability to manufacture and sell their product. Toyota, eggs, Massey mining, BP offshore drilling, and J&J pharmaceutical inspections have all happened this year. Each had a strong effect on its respective industry in sales and shareholder value.

Regulatory agencies have long memories. The actual specific failure that made the news is often out of the hands of the company. The historical compliance record is absolutely within the control of the company. The root causes of poor compliance are usually attributable to a small set of factors: rapid growth and cost.

  • Rapid Growth – Toyota wanted to be the largest auto manufacturer ahead of all other concerns. BP is perhaps the most aggressive oil leasing company in the world.
  • Cost – Two egg companies only cared about cost because they could reinvent themselves (as they had before) if they were closed down. Massey coal has a long reputation for its single focus on the bottom line. Unlike unionized mines, they have no independent safety net to raise real concerns. I attribute J&J’s problems to cost cutting (only time will identify the true culprit).

All of this may seem a little far afield of environmental compliance: It is not. There is no company that says let’s comply with OSHA and not EPA. BP was damned for their historical OSHA and EPA compliance as was Massey and the Iowa egg companies. When the big accident (event) occurs, a company is judged as much by its total corporate record as for the specific incident, regardless of the specific facts.

The next time you are developing your strategic plan and do the “vision thing,” remember that sustainability preserves a corporations “license to produce” and is not just the “cost of doing business.”

Gary Liberson is a management consultant and PhD statistician. He is a former Member of the Management Committee of PA Consulting, an international consulting firm headquartered in London, and past Head of the Environmental Practice. He writes a regular blog for Huffington Post. To learn more contact Gary at gliberson@gmail.com.

As presented at International Water Association”s World Water Congress and Exhibition in Montreal, Canada

Tracy Mehan
Authored by: G. Tracy Mehan, III. Principal, The Cadmus Group

September 20, 2010

It is a pleasure to be here in Montreal to discuss new models for financing, in a sustainable way, our urban water systems to meet the triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social concerns.

My remarks today will address a broad array of issues which encompass entire watersheds as well as hard infrastructure itself. I hope to give you a North American perspective on these issues, both mine and others’, and conclude with some remarks on the recent report by the Aspen Institute which Patrick Cairo has also discussed this morning.

Today, there is increasing concern for protecting aquatic ecosystems as well as human health and the economy, greater attention to nonstructural as well as structural solutions, more emphasis on demand- side as well as supply-side management techniques. There is also a sharper focus on the entire watershed, catchment or basin-not just on discharges from the end of the pipe.

Currently, in the United States, our water and wastewater systems are not adequately supported by municipal politicians who, facing election every four years, are often disinclined to raise water rates to a level necessary to maintain their utilities’ infrastructure for its entire life cycle including replacement costs. Many water systems’ revenues are used to support more visible, labor-intensive activities such as fire and police services. By almost every measure available, the United States has the lowest water and wastewater rates of any developed, democratic nation in the world. No wonder there is so much angst about an infrastructure investment “gap” in our water sector, that is, the gap between required financing over time and the present rate of investment.

Recall that our colleagues from Amsterdam mentioned that the average household in their service area pays about 2 percent of its annual income for water and wastewater services. American households, on the other hand, are paying only 0.5-0.6 percent of income, on average, for water and sewer bills as calculated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

While serving at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2003, my colleagues and I proposed the Four Pillars of Sustainable Infrastructure which were: better management (including environmental management systems and asset management as pioneered in Australia and elsewhere), full-cost pricing, water efficiency and the watershed approach. This last pillar included source water protection, watershed-based permitting and water quality trading to meeting water quality standards, say, for nutrients.

If we were doing this exercise today, we would definitely include energy management as a fifth pillar.

The Four Pillars were important because they all contributed to a solid foundation of sustainable infrastructure and watershed management and encouraged least-cost approaches which generated multiple environmental benefits by focusing on more than just supply-side or traditional structural solutions.

Indeed, there was, and still is, a growing realization that traditional engineered approaches, alone, no longer meet our environmental, economic and social needs and wants. Indeed, the best and brightest of the engineering profession recognize the crucial role of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach which aims to protect the watershed as well as maintain hard infrastructure; adopts “green” practices which mimic nature; engages in robust civic education to communicate the importance of full-value, full-cost and conservation pricing; and begs, cajoles and often compels customers to use water-efficient fixtures and drought-resistant plantings.

“Water management has typically been approached as an engineering problem, rather than an economic one,” say Robert N. Stavins, a Kennedy School (Harvard) environmental economics professor, and Sheila M. Olmstead of Yale and Resources for the Future.

In their White Paper for the Massachusetts-based Pioneer Institute, Managing Water Demand: Price vs. Non-Price Conservation Programs (July 2007), they argue that water supply managers are “often reluctant to use price increases as water conservation tools, instead relying on non-price demand management techniques.” These would include actions such as requiring low-flow fixtures and restricting particular uses, which, while good things in and of themselves, are not as cost-effective as “using prices to manage water demand.”

Olmstead and Stavins review the literature on water pricing and the mysteries of price elasticity. Their conclusion? “On average, in the United States, a ten percent increase in the marginal price of water can be expected to diminish demand in the urban residential sector by about 3 to 4 percent,” say the authors of the White Paper. “Price elasticity of residential water demand is similar to that of residential electricity and gasoline demand in the United States.”

Olmstead and Stavins highlight a key limitation or drawback of non-price approaches. Water savings are usually smaller than expected due to “behavioral responses,” i.e., customers taking longer showers with low-flow shower heads, flush twice with low-flow toilets, or water lawns longer under day-of-the week or time-of-day restrictions. They cite a recent study of 12 American and Canadian cities which suggested that replacing two-day-per week outdoor watering restrictions with drought pricing could achieve the same level of aggregate water savings, “along with welfare gains of approximately $81 per household per summer drought.” Low-income customers can be helped through rebate programs “inversely related to household income, or some other measure.”

Water utilities are starting to consider increasing-block prices (IBPs) as part of their overall water conservation program. If nothing else, “it is better to have high prices on some consumption, than low prices on all consumption.” Stavins and Olmstead cite the case where a water supplier is concerned with reducing summer demand due to residential lawn-watering and sets the quantity threshold at which the price “jumps” at the “quantity of consumption generally achieved by households water lawns in the summer in that community.”

The movement away from an exclusive reliance on supply-side solutions and toward demand-side management techniques, such as pricing, non-pricing or hybrid programs (public education, too), is very desirable. Of course, they are not mutually exclusive and can work well in tandem. However, Canadian proponents of the “water soft path” (WSP) believe an even more radical approach is required, one that places ecosystem integrity at the heart of water management and governance.

In a stimulating and provocative volume, David B. Brooks3, Oliver M. Brandes and Stephen Gurman, editors of Making the Most of the Water We Have: The Soft Path Approach to Water Management (2009), tip their hats to American thought leaders, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Peter H. Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute, and a contributor to this volume, both of whom inspired the WSP. They assembled an interdisciplinary team to press their case that “the era of ‘endless’ freshwater is coming to an end” and “a 21st century approach to water management must move from a focus on large centralized reservoirs, higher capacity pumps and longer pipelines towards an emphasis on decentralized, smaller scale built infrastructure, alternative sources, such as rainwater collection, greater reliance on reuse and recycling, pricing and economic incentives and highly improved efficiency in water use, as the starting point.”

Brooks, et al. believe that cost-effective water savings of 20 to 40 percent are readily available, and several chapters explore a number of Canadian and other studies around the globe which they view as extremely promising.

The WSP is not simply a technocratic or value-neutral fix to a purely technical problem. A consistent theme in Making the Most of the Water We Have is that changing behavior or “social engineering” (an ominous phrase which actually appears in the text) requires a “value-laden” or “profoundly normative” political commitment to an ecosystem perspective over an anthropocentric view. In fact, “ecological sustainability is one of the WSP’s four controlling principles along with treating water as a service, not just a commodity (a view typical of most theories of sustainability); matching the quality of water to the appropriate use (not everything we want to do requires potable water); and planning from the future back to the present, so-called “backcasting,” an iterative process eschewing traditional planning which normally “starts from the present and projects forward to the future.”

In a rousing, even controversial call to arms, the editors of this volume assert, explicitly, that “Conventional cost-benefit analysis is not sufficient to ensure basic ecological resilience and ecosystem health.” Rather, “environmental constraints are built in from the start to limit the amount of water withdrawn from natural sources and to establish conditions on the quality of water returned to nature.”

Ergo: “Major inter-basin transfers of water are not considered acceptable; they contradict the objective of living with the water you have. Similarly, if there are water resources that are valued for their beauty or for their cultural or religious significance, they must be placed off limits for development.”

I think we can safely say that this is one of the provocative parts. Such an attitude on inter-basin transfers or diversions is probably popular on both sides of the border in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin; but it would be very unpopular, say, in California and other points west.

Professors Olmstead and Stavins, whose work I cited earlier, would be pleased with the emphasis on metering and “realistic water pricing” which these proponents of the WSP support wholeheartedly. Susan Holtz of the Canadian Institute of Environmental Law and Policy, and a contributor to Making the Most of the Water We Have, even utters the politically incorrect and self-evidently true statement that “the rhetoric of activist campaigns for water as a human right, and against privatizing water treatment, may encourage an attitude of entitlement toward water use and hostility to putting any price on it- making matters worse.”

As Patrick Cairo mentioned, I, too, had the privilege of participating in a process organized by the Aspen Institute to investigate a new model for sustainable water infrastructure management. Along with Pat and I, Michael Deane, president of the National Association of Water Companies (in attendance today), and incoming International Water Association president, Glen Diagger, also joined in this extended conversation in the beautiful surroundings of the Colorado Rockies.

The report of the Aspen Institute’s Dialogue on Sustainable Water Infrastructure in the US, Sustainable Water Systems: Step One-Reducing The Nation’s Infrastructure Challenge (2009), is very much concerned with discerning a “Sustainable Path” for the management of existing and future “hard” infrastructure, and setting out three principles, ten recommendations and twenty steps. It advocates “that the traditional definition of water infrastructure must evolve to embrace a broader, more holistic definition of sustainable water infrastructure that includes both traditional man-made water and wastewater infrastructure and natural watershed systems.” Besides tending to the concerns of physical structures, “a sustainable water infrastructure integrates these traditional components with the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems, conservation and efficiency, reuse and reclamation, and the active incorporation of new decentralized technologies, green infrastructure and low-impact development to ensure the reliability and resilience of our water resources.”

The Aspen Institute Report argues for an inclusive definition of infrastructure which encompasses “rivers, lakes, streams, groundwater aquifers, floodplains, floodways, wetlands, and the watersheds that serve or are affected by water and wastewater systems.”

I should mention that the Aspen committee tried to strike a realistic note, neither too optimistic nor too much “gloom and doom.” The following statement from the report typifies the prevailing attitude amongst the committee members:

“We submit that a crisis-driven approach, based on the ‘investment-gap’ analysis, will be insufficient to meet the growing challenges facing the nation’s water infrastructure. Rather than looking ahead with apprehension, a new framework that looks ahead with intention, by reframing the issue from one focused solely on an ‘infrastructure gap’ towards a more sustainable model or approach to funding water and wastewater infrastructure, is needed.”

Aspen’s redefinition is a movement toward a much more holistic view of the water delivery system in the U.S.

As water utilities and government entities around the country look at improving, upgrading, and replacing hard structures and built infrastructure, the report urges them to recognize the protection and restoration of the natural watershed as a critical way to improve water delivery in this nation. It encourages them to utilize emerging small-scale water technologies and management solutions that conserve water and energy on both the treatment side and the consumer side.

It also asks national leaders to consider the natural water cycle when considering water infrastructure costs and improvements. Thinking about the way water moves through plants and soil and air, as opposed to gutters and drains and concrete, and, in turn, adopting green and low-impact development techniques such as urban reforestation programs and green-roof and rain-garden projects, can ensure reliability and resilience of our water resources.

Utility and system managers, governing boards, and regulators must also ensure that the price of water services fairly reflects their full value to human health and the environment and recovers the cost of maintaining, operating and replacing this invaluable infrastructure. And they must address the needs of low-income customers through equitable rate design and, where necessary, direct subsidies.

Small systems present a unique challenge for federal and state agencies. Of the approximately 52,000 community water suppliers in America, 8 percent serve 82 percent of our population. Smaller entities should consider low-cost loans, consolidation, regionalization, and centralized financial and management systems.

The Aspen panel also views the federal government’s role as making strategic investments in new green and low-impact development approaches; water and energy efficiency; climate change adaptation; assistance to low-income or distressed customers; and research, development, and demonstration projects for integrated watershed management.

The message, at least from many circles in North American and elsewhere is that new tools and interdisciplinary approaches, on the demand-side as much as the supply-side, as well as recourse to non-structural as well as structural techniques, are all necessary to achieve a new model of managing water resources and its supporting infrastructure. Moreover, it is necessary to encompass the entire watershed and “nature’s services” and those techniques which mimic natural functions to achieve optimal results. Finally, we must recognize the full value of water as well as water and wastewater services in the prices we pay while supporting those whom financial hardship makes it difficult to bear those costs.

Thank you for allowing me to share these thoughts with you today.

G. Tracy Mehan, III is Principal at The Cadmus Group, Inc. (www.cadmusgroup.com) and former Assistant Administrator for Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2001-2003. Mehan may be e-mailed by clicking here.

Chris Cheatham
Authored by: Chris Cheatham, Managing Partner, Cheatham Consulting, LLC

July 12, 2010

The long, painful death of cap-and-trade legislation in 2010 finally came to an end in July when Senator Harry Reid announced that the Senate would not be pursuing a comprehensive energy bill. But the Obama Administration has quietly been implementing other policies that will phase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting requirements, drastically reshape the federal procurement system, and ultimately create a market for emissions reductions. Contractors and vendors that are prepared to report GHG emissions could benefit tremendously from the shift in procurement.

In October 2009, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13514, which included a number of stringent sustainability requirements for the federal government. Among the various requirements, Section 13 asked the GSA to make recommendations regarding “requiring contractors . . . to develop and make available its greenhouse gas inventory and description of efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.” The GSA responded with its report “Executive Order 13514 Section 13: Recommendations for Vendor and Contractor Emissions,” which is currently being reviewed by the Administration. Importantly, the GSA report concludes that it is feasible to implement a “phased approach, for the Federal Government to track and reduce its … supply chain emissions through coordination with suppliers and other stakeholders.” The report goes on to propose the implementation of a voluntary GHG emissions reporting mechanism for contractors and vendors over the next two years starting in 2011.

The proposed implementation of greenhouse gas emissions reporting requirements mirrors the GSA’s previous implementation of green building requirements that began nearly ten years ago. A few years after the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) launched the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, the GSA and other federal agencies adopted this third-party rating system to demonstrate the construction of green buildings. Similarly, the GSA report recognizes the need to rely on a third-party GHG emissions reporting system.

The contractors and vendors that were early adopters of green building design and construction techniques and the LEED rating system benefited from project experiences and were able to demonstrate specific experience in order to win federal green building contracts. The same will be true of early adopters of greenhouse gas emission reporting. While GHG emissions accounting will be burdensome, particularly for construction contractors that are dependent on hundreds of suppliers and subcontractors, early adoption may be the key to differentiating bids and winning contracts in an industry that has experienced increased competition and narrower profit margins. As the country’s largest buyer of goods and services – $425 billion spent last year – the federal government can quickly force companies to incorporate greenhouse gas emissions accounting in every sector of the economy.

For federal contractors – and eventually state and local contractors – tracking, reporting, and reducing emissions will become an important strategy for winning government contracts. Is your business accounting for its greenhouse gas emissions?

Chris Cheatham is the managing partner of Cheatham Consulting, LLC. Chris works with the construction industry to identify new market trends and opportunities – like green building and greenhouse gas emissions reporting – and create business opportunities. Please visit his blog, Green Building Law Update, to learn more about these and other topics or contact Chris at chris@cheathamconsulting.com.