» Advocacy Alerts Archive

This week, NACWA and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) released the Water Resilience Summit Summary and Next Steps  white paper. NACWA and AMWA co-hosted the Water Resilience Summit in April as part of Water Week 2014, bringing more than 50 wastewater utility, drinking water utility, private sector, and federal officials together for a day-and-a-half facilitated dialogue on climate and resilience issues. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geological Survey and the White House Council on Environmental Quality actively participated in the event, and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy delivered the keynote address.

As the summary makes clear, there are no simple solutions to climate change resilience. NACWA and AMWA, however, have identified several collaborative actions in the report to advance water sector resilience. These action will need further cooperation with and among key federal agencies to succeed but recent developments offer some evidence that despite the enormity of the challenge progress can be made. In the few months since the Summit, the federal government has already taken several positive actions on resilience that could benefit municipalities and are mentioned in the white paper. Just this week, for example, EPA released the Flood Resilience Checklist, a new resilience tool to help communities prepare for and recover from floods. Although the checklist is part of a new report focused on Vermont, the policy options and checklist in the report can be applied to any community seeking to become more flood resilient.

NACWA looks forward to continuing to work with its members as the water sector advances the resilience initiative. If you have any questions regarding the white paper or any further input on potential next steps, please contact Brenna Mannion ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) at NACWA.