Solving today’s water management challenges together.
Today’s water managers face increasingly complex and difficult challenges. Since ICWP was established in 1959, significant investments have been made in water supply and flood protection, pollution reduction, and environmental conservation. But to sustain these investments, it is crucial that water management agencies at all levels stay informed of current water management issues and work together to address them effectively.
The public’s demand that we harmonize water supply, power generation, navigation and flood protection with ecological and recreational needs is growing, and will only continue to do so. At the same time, it is increasingly difficult to build or improve water management. Non-point sources of pollution are proving to be much harder to control than the municipal and industrial point sources that were the focus of the Clean Water Act. And previous development and fiscal limitations further complicate the challenges faced by our agencies and organizations.
Successfully solving water management challenges requires us to have a greater awareness and more sophisticated understanding of the issues at stake. Given how quickly policy issues and legislation can develop or change, ICWP members find it especially important right now to have a presence in Washington. As the national voice for regional, state, and local water resources agencies, ICWP has served exactly this function—but the issues facing us today require us to do more.
Our members make it possible for us to do the work that we do. Coming together for annual meetings, conferences, and roundtable discussions, creates many opportunities—for learning, collaboration, and discussion, and for ensuring that our members’ voices are heard at the federal and congressional levels. The stronger our membership participation, the greater the strides we will make on the issues faced by water management agencies and organizations at every level of American society.
