Nearly 40 years since the passage of the Clean Water Act, many of our nation’s water resources remain imperiled. This April, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is convening Coming Together for Clean Water, a one-day conference of water executives and thought leaders. During the event, participants will discuss the problems of nonpoint-source pollution and wet weather runoff and how we can best use our current resources to address them.
The Discussion Forum
The complex challenges facing our nation’s waters cannot be solved by a small group of people in one day. That’s why we’ve established this discussion forum–to open up the conference’s guiding questions to a wider audience, one with varied and valuable ideas and experiences.
The forum will be open for two weeks. During this time, we encourage anyone interested in the future of America’s water to join in the discussion of these three questions, which will also guide the discussion at the conference:
Question 1: Given current laws and regulations, what can EPA do in the short and long term to achieve healthy watersheds and sustainable communities?
Question 2: Looking more mid- to long-term and beyond existing constraints, what actions are needed to achieve the desired outcomes?
Question 3: What other challenges stand in the way of achieving the outcomes, and what can be done to address them?
As different ideas come up and develop during the two weeks, we may also establish additional threads to help organize the forum community’s comments and ideas.
EPA will use input from the forum to inform and refine conference discussions. After the conference, EPA will incorporate these perspectives into the final report.
We hope this discussion forum will provide a venue for vibrant exchanges and creative thinking about addressing our nation’s water challenges. We look forward to sharing your thoughts with participants in the Coming Together for Clean Water conference.