A Clear Commitment to America’s Waters
15
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aren Pallansch was elected NACWA President for 2014-
2015 by the Association’s Board of Directors on July 15.
Pallansch is the Chief Executive Officer of Alexandria
Renew Enterprises in Virginia and has had a distin-
guished career within the water sector. Also elected were the fol-
lowing NACWA officers: Vice President, Adel Hagekhalil, Assistant
Director, Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, Calif.; Treasurer, Ray
Marshall, Executive Director, Narragansett Bay Commission, RI;
and, Secretary, Cathy Gerali, District Manager, Metro Wastewater
Reclamation District, Denver, Colo. The Association expresses its
sincere appreciation to outgoing President, Julius Ciaccia, Executive
Director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, for his dedi-
cated leadership over the past year.
NACWA Welcomes New Board Members
During the
Annual Association Business Meeting
, NACWA’s mem-
bership elected six individuals as new members of its Board of
Directors. Emily Lloyd, Commissioner, New York City Department
of Environmental Protection, N.Y. was elected to represent Region
2. Region 4’s representation on the Board will now include Dave
Rager, Executive Director, Sanitary District No. 1, Ky., and Jo Ann
Macrina, Commissioner, City of Atlanta Department of Watershed
Management, Ga. Raj Bhattarai, Division Manager, City of Austin,
Texas was elected to join the representatives from Region 6; and,
Region 9 welcomes Ben Horenstein, Director of Wastewater, East Bay
Municipal Utility District, Calif. Diane Taniguchi-Dennis, Deputy
General Manager, Clean Water Services, OR will represent Region 10
as a new member of NACWA’s Board.
The following board members were re-elected or appointed to new
terms: Scott Jellison, Chief Operating Officer, The Metropolitan
Council, Conn., (Region 1); Ted Henifin, General Manager, Hampton
Roads Sanitation District, Va. (Region 3); Julius Ciaccia, Executive
Director, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Ohio (Region
5); John O’Neil, General Manager, Johnson County Wastewater,
Kansas (Region 7); Susan Tanner Holmes, Chairwoman, Central
Davis Sewer District, Utah (Region 8); Daniel Thompson, Division
Manager, Business Operations, City of Tacoma, Wash. (Region 10);
and, Tim Houghton, Deputy Director, City & County of Honolulu
Department of Environmental Services, Hawaii (At-Large).
NACWA congratulates its new and re-elected Board Members and
extends its thanks and appreciation to its outgoing Board mem-
bers. Those leaving the NACWA Board in recent months are Carter
Strickland, former Commissioner, New York City Department of
Environmental Protection, N.Y.; George Hawkins, General Manager,
DC Water; Tim Haag, Director, Communications & Government
Affairs, Emerald Coast Utilities Authority, Fla.; Charles Logue, for-
mer Director of Technical Services Renewable Water Resources
Greenville, S.C.; Larry Patterson, Deputy Executive Director, Upper
Trinity Regional Water District, Texas; David Williams, Board
President, Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, Calif; and Mark
Yeager, Utility Services Manager, City of Albany, Ore.
Board Actions Include FY 2015 Budgets,
TAF Projects, and MOU
In other action NACWA’s Board of Directors voted to approve the
FY 2015
Association Business Plan
which sets out the goals, objectives,
strategies and actions for the upcoming fiscal year starting October
1, 2014. The Board also approved the FY 2015 General Fund budget,
as well as the Targeted Action Fund (TAF) budget, ensuring both a
solid financial and programmatic path forward for the Association.
In July the Board approved two nutrient-related TAF projects, in-
cluding funding for NACWA’s development of a peer-reviewed jour-
nal publication outlining the major issues with regard to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) use of statistics to set
toxicity and nutrient permit limits. A second approved TAF request
will support a survey, workshop and analysis of innovative nutrient
regulatory/permitting approaches. The project will seek to influence
EPA permitting approaches to nutrients using innovative methods
from outside the US. This collaborative project includes involve-
ment from the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the Water
Environment Research Foundation (WERF) and will dovetail with
existing NACWA advocacy efforts related to nutrient permitting,
including the recently completed technical review of EPA’s use of the
Technical Support Document in the nutrient context (also funded
through the TAF).
The Board also endorsed a NACWA-National Milk Producers
Federation (NMPF)
Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) that ad-
vances collaborative efforts between the organizations to identify
better ways to manage the nutrient-rich waste from the production
of milk. NMPF has identified anaerobic digestion (AD), coupled
with nutrient separation technologies and energy generation equip-
ment, as a potential way to both harness nutrient and energy poten-
tial and generate water quality offsets or credits. This collabora-
tion would offer enormous benefits to both organizations’ mem-
bership and a signing ceremony is expected to take place in DC in
September.
Karen Pallansch Elected NACWA President
NACWA’s Officers for 2014-2015 were elected during the 2014 Summer
Conference & 44th Annual Meeting. Pictured left to right, NACWA Treasurer, Ray
Marshall, Executive Director, Narragansett Bay Commission, R.I.; President, Karen
Pallansch, Chief Executive Officer, Alexandria Renew Enterprises, Va.; and Secretary,
Cathy Gerali, District Manager, Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, Denver,
Colo. (Not pictured Vice President, Adel Hagekhalil, Assistant Director, City of Los
Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, Los Angeles, Calif.)
