ACWA Highlights California Water Infrastructure Needs
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) is a coalition of water agencies from throughout the state, making up the largest of its kind in the country. ACWA’s mission is to promote “the development, management, and reasonable beneficial use of good quality water at the lowest practical cost in an environmentally balanced manner,” a sentiment that resonates with Aspen’s own mission, and one which Aspen strives to help achieve by expanding our work in the water industry. Towards this purpose, Jon Davidson and Aubrey Mescher attended ACWA’s fall 2012 conference in San Diego as representatives of Aspen, in an effort to learn more about the changing water industry and to form valuable partnerships in moving forward.
The conference was attended largely by local water agencies, but there was also notable representation by water infrastructure providers, insurance and financing companies, legal firms, environmental consultants, and engineering firms. This wide mix of interested parties is telling of the current condition of California’s water infrastructure. In addition to a pressing need to upgrade aging conveyance infrastructure, primarily State Water Project facilities, we are also facing the effects of global climate change. We expect to receive more precipitation as rain instead of snowpack, which means that we need to capture and store more water than ever before. In order to meet the state’s three primary water demands, those being environmental, agricultural, and urban uses, state-wide retrofit and re-build of both conveyance and storage facilities is essential, as well as the construction of new facilities such as the long-proposed Sites Reservoir in western Colusa County.
More so than ever before, it seems that water agencies, agricultural operators, and environmental groups are all willing to work together to meet California’s water demands. An unavoidable limiting factor to this coordination is a complex and often convoluted set of regulatory requirements. This situation presents a unique and valuable opportunity for Aspen, as a highly reputable environmental consulting firm, to provide scientifically accurate and timely environmental analyses while also providing guidance and support through the regulatory processes. This is an exciting era for the water industry as well as environmental consulting. Aspen is very much looking forward to expanding relationships with ACWA member agencies, and continuing work on California water infrastructure projects.