July 18 SAVE THE DATE – National Roundtable on New Tools for Water Quality: Trading and Beyond

It’s been a decade since EPA’s Water Quality Trading Policy was established.  Financial, regulatory and demographic challenges and opportunities underscore the need for innovative tools and market-based strategies.  The U.S. Water Alliance’s Business Advisory Council will convene key policy makers, industry leaders, agriculture, environmental groups, and others to discuss practices and policies for advancing market-based [...]

One Water Management Network to Develop Action Plan

Now 18 members strong, the One Water Management (OWM) network will gather a much larger, extended group to engage in the development of next steps that can help spread Integrated Water Management.  The meeting is being convened by the U.S. Water Alliance on June 20, in Washington D.C.  Invited guests will include stakeholders from an [...]

2013 U.S. Water Prize Winners Celebrated

In an Earth Day ceremony at National Geographic Headquarters, in Washington D.C., the U.S. Water Alliance presented its U.S. Water Prize to three winners: MillerCoors, The Freshwater Trust, and Onondaga County (NY). The Honorable William K. Reilly (U.S. EPA Administrator 1989-93) addressed the audience of 300 environmental leaders gathered to honor the awardees, recounting environmental [...]

Public Water Infrastructure Budgets: Increasingly Growing Blue

On May 8, 2013, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report, “Growth in Local Government Spending on Public Water and Wastewater—But How Much Progress Can American Households Afford?”  The report documents the increasing amount of spending on water infrastructure but the growing challenge of affordability for low income and disadvantaged communities and households. According [...]

America’s Top 10 Endangered Rivers Announced for 2013

On April 17th, American Rivers announced its annual list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers. This year, American Rivers named the Colorado River the Most Endangered River in the country. “This year’s America’s Most Endangered Rivers report underscores the problems that arise for communities and the environment when we drain too much water out of rivers,” [...]

Microscopic Plastics Poses Concerns in Great Lake’s ‘Garbage Patch’

Many people are familiar with a “garbage patch” being a large area of floating debris in the Pacific Ocean, discovered in 1988. A garbage patch was discovered in the Great Lakes last year by a group of university researchers. The kind of garbage scientists are most concerned about are newly discovered “micro-plastics” floating near the [...]

New Solar-Powered Protein Filters Harmful Substances from Water

Recent findings by University of Cincinnati researchers reveal that a newly developed solar-power nano filter is able to remove harmful antibiotics and carcinogens from rivers and lakes at a significantly higher rate than the activated carbon filtering technology that is currently being used. The filter is made of two bacterial proteins able to absorb 64 [...]

Rivers Serve as Horizontal Cooling Towers for Power Plant’s Byproducts

Scientists from the University of New Hampshire have detailed for the first time how thermoelectric power plants interact with aquatic ecosystems, climate and hydrology throughout the northeastern U.S. and show how rivers serve as “horizontal cooling towers” that provides a service to the regional electricity sector, at a cost to the environment. Robert Stewart of [...]

Restoration of the Colorado River Delta through Water Rights and Green Jobs

Mexicali Valley farm families are voluntarily selling water rights to the Delta Water Trust, established in Mexico in 2008 through a partnership of Pronatural Noroeste and the US-based Sonoran Institute and Environmental Defense Fund.  The water trust pays fair market value for the water rights and then uses the water to restore riparian forests and [...]

Openly Materialistic

When it comes to water sustainability, materials matter and so does the process of selecting the best, brightest, and greenest of products and services. Take pipes, for instance. Different shapes, sizes, and materials with different strengths and weaknesses are available in the marketplace. My own view is that a “pipes of all types” approach makes [...]