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Imagine a world where water is viewed, managed and valued as one resource. A world where the silo thinking that has kept clean water, drinking water, stormwater and water reuse interests segregated erodes away – and a movement toward meeting future challenges on a watershed basis, with a focus on sustainability and green cities emerges [...]
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U.S. Water Prize
The United States Water Prize honors individuals, institutions, and organizations that have made an outstanding achievement in the advancement of sustainable solutions to our nation’s water challenges. Created, sponsored and administered by the Clean Water America Alliance, the United States Water Prize is the first of its kind to recognize successful efforts in protecting and [...]
Blog: Ben Grumbles' Pipeline
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The Public Rust Doctrine
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A Call to Farms
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Soft and Salty
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Gargoyles and Gorillas
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Blue Waves of Cooperation
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Muddy Waters of the United States
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Drill, Maybe, Drill!
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Green Chips and Blue Jeans
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Whirled Water Day
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The Public Rust Doctrine
In celebration of a new year, here’s a new phrase for a long-standing (and I hope eventually crumbling) water policy syndrome: “the Public Rust Doctrine”. What It Is and Isn’t I define the PRD as “principles and teachings that water and wastewater infrastructure systems should only be owned, operated and maintained by public entities supplied [...]
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A Call to Farms
As we celebrate the bounty of the season, pitchforks and storm clouds are gathering throughout the country and the nation’s capital over agriculture and water policy and the potential collisions between the two. On the water quantity side, some of the fresh wrangling is over subsidies that distort the real cost of water, ground water [...]
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Soft and Salty
The topic is water softeners, not baked pretzels, although both share some similarities. Hard water isn’t a new challenge. It’s as old as dirt and rocks. Some areas of the country, particularly the arid Southwest, have been confronting the problem for many years given the realities of the land and climate. Hard water, loaded with [...]
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Gargoyles and Gorillas
Not to mix religion and politics, but the fantastic fixtures on cathedrals and other buildings are speaking a lot to me these days (so far only figuratively), as green infrastructure cheerleaders and EPA critics gear up for a politically-bruising battle over stormwater regulations. We should all look up from time to time in our search for progress and common ground–from the curb and the fence line to the gutters and rooftops, to the forest canopies and landscapes beyond the big box.
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Blue Waves of Cooperation
What’s the proper balance of power between federal and state water agencies? It seems to ebb and flow over time. The Clean Water America Alliance hasn’t taken a position on recent House-passed legislation amending the federal Clean Water Act (CWA), but here’s my personal take on the controversy, as well as suggestions for meaningful progress [...]
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Muddy Waters of the United States
Seekers of regulatory certainty are still singing the blues after the Supreme Court muddied the waters of jurisdiction under the federal Clean Water Act in 2001 and 2006 but don’t blame the Supremes and don’t expect a harmonious solution any time soon. Sometimes we forget but wetlands are at the heart of our country’s natural [...]
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Drill, Maybe, Drill!
The friction over “fracking” (specifically hydraulic fracturing for natural gas) underscores the growing need for energy security and environmental sustainability to be in balance rather than in battle and to keep water in mind through it all. Most agree natural gas has a bright future as a “bridge” fuel to cleaner, renewable energy. It makes [...]
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Green Chips and Blue Jeans
Water is embedded in just about every product and practice on the blue planet. Professor John Anthony Allan, winner of the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize, and pioneer in “virtual water,” boosted global efforts to see, or at least appreciate, the invisible water running through every day goods and services–from hamburgers to power lines. Two of [...]
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Whirled Water Day
March 22 marks another World Water Day, the special day designated by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992 as a time to underscore the value and vulnerability of clean and safe water locally and globally. The heart-wrenching disaster in Japan is a painful reminder of the power of water to flatten neighborhoods. The collapse [...]
