President’s Corner: 2016 President Ray Willis

Hello NEWEA Members! Hope you are well!

As we turn the calendar to March, we at NEWEA as well as our Affiliated State Associations are in full swing with planning and implementation of our Legislative Events. This year, I have had the opportunity to attend three Legislative Events, which were hosted by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. What I learned from attending these events was that, while the speakers are different from event to event, the stories told are the same. The stories I heard from members of our cities and towns were related to the need to meet Federal regulatory mandates related to wastewater effluent discharges and stormwater mitigation, and how these mandates result in taking funds away from the much needed repair and replacement of our aging water infrastructure. While it is a daunting task to balance the scale between regulatory compliance and fixing the failing infrastructure underneath their feet, you could hear in these water quality professional’s voices that they were up to the challenge. However, we need additional funding for these issues to be a priority of our legislators in Washington and in each of our states.

This is why I believe our Legislative Events are so important. These events provide a forum for open discussion about the issues facing our industry. Our legislators need to be informed that the cost to address these issues is in the billions of dollars, while our funding is only in the millions. Overall, we cannot blame the public and our legislators for not knowing what we do and about present challenges we face. Historically, we the water quality profession has devoted insufficient effort to public outreach and education efforts to showcase the work we do in a positive way and inform the public about the current condition of our infrastructure. Therefore, if you have the ability to attend your state’s legislative event and/or the NEWEA Congressional Briefing, please join us and help us in our outreach and education efforts.

Having attended the NEWEA Planning Session a few weeks ago, I am happy to report that many new ideas were vetted and a new map has been drawn to lead us down a path to improve student and young professional engagement in the water quality industry. I wish to acknowledge and give special thanks to Jim Barsanti, President-Elect; Janine Burke-Wells, Vice President; Anthony Giovannone and Carina Hart for leading the sessions, and the NEWEA staff for such a well-run event. I look forward to the upcoming progress to be made.

Also, I am happy to report that the planning of the Spring Meeting is well underway and looks to be another great NEWEA event. This year’s meeting, which will be a joint meeting with the New York Water Environment Association, will be held in Mystic, Connecticut. In case you missed the announcement recently, NEWEA is proud to announce that this year’s keynote speaker will be Heather Goldstone, Science Correspondent for Boston’s National Public Radio. This year’s meeting theme will be “Environmental Stewardship in the 21st Century”, which will showcase the water quality profession as the original and true stewards of the environment. I have made it the goal of my Presidency to promote this theme throughout the year.

In closing, I want to personally thank you for being a member of NEWEA and for the work that you do each and every day to protect our environment. If there is anything NEWEA or I can do to assist you, please reach out to us. I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.

– Ray Willis

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