Biodiversity wanes in New York

Throttling invasive species by TJ Sinnott

Bulwark for the Great Lakes and Hudson River by P Gerrity

Stopping ballast water "stowaways" by D Pughiuc

Biological pollutants in the Great Lakes by EL Mills, KT Holeck

Water quality signatures and the zebra mussel invasion by DA Matthews, SW Effler

Zebra mussel population dynamics: Implications for water quality modeling by CL Lange, DR Opdyke, JC Powers

Bad seeds: an introduction to invasive plants by AD Halpern, CA Boesse, AE Altor

You can help stop the plant invasion

President's message by D Ellis

Executive director's message by P Cerro-Reehil

People and places

NYWEA calendar

Sponsors at 73d Annual Meeting

Spring 2001 — Vol. 31, No. 1

President's message

 
The past 100 years have seen enormous changes occur. Even more remarkable, the rate at which these changes are occurring is clearly increasing. In fact, it has been speculated that we will see changes in the next 20 to 30 years equivalent to all the changes that have taken place over the past century.

What does this mean to our Association? I think we had better find out. When the 20th century began, environmental programs were almost nonexistent. The next hundred years were a period of "catch up." Our industry began in response to conditions in the environment. Initially, we focused on public health and halting the spread of disease. In the '20s we recognized that our water resources were limited and needed protection. More recently, federal and state environmental legislation—and the Association—have focused on treating wastewater point sources with properly designed and operated treatment plants.

The nation's water pollution control program is our success story of the 20th century, but now we are challenged by other issues: diffuse nonpoint sources of pollution, chemicals and toxins in the water environment, and how to maintain water quality and the physical integrity of natural water bodies.

The hard part begins here. Controlling diffuse pollution sources will require the cooperation of all of society and life-style changes that will create new challenges for our organization if we are to continue to fulfill our mission. We must maintain our infrastructure so as not to lose the progress already made and continue our educational focus. Up to now our educational efforts have targeted primarily our membership and industry, but in the future we will need to focus more on the public. The Information Revolution will be a driving force in the 21st century, and we need to use information technology effectively to meet the challenges ahead.

A great achievement in recent decades was the improvement of our ability to measure—not only an enormous range of compounds, but also ever-decreasing concentrations. Now we must decide: Are these compounds a health risk to humans or a threat to the environment? If they are, what threshold concentration must we reduce them to, and how? Or should we try to keep them from entering the environment?

Responding

None of these challenges is new. To help address them, the Association has developed many important programs over the past few years—public education, legislative and regulation tracking and outreach, scholarships, and partnering—and I plan on continuing them.

But this is a time when we should look inward at our organization and ask:

• "Are we structured to meet the challenges of the 21st century?
• What will life be like in the next 20 to 30 years?
• How will the water environment be affected?
• What role should the Association play?"

To answer these questions—to envision the future, and to help predict and understand what it may bring—I propose to form a task force to examine these issues. This task force will be charged not only with finding answers, but also with getting young engineers and scientists involved in our organization, perhaps as a "young professionals" component of the Association.

Future generations' needs

Sustainability is a concept that's getting a lot of attention these days, but not everyone understands what it is. Basically, sustainability is an approach that seeks to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. How can our organization, which seeks to protect the water environment, not embrace this concept?

In fact, we can promote sustainability in many ways:

Because so much of what we do involves construction, we could focus on the built environment. Sustainable design is a holistic approach that looks at energy efficiency, material efficiency, human health, and environmental protection.

I plan to appoint a task force to look into sustainability and the role the Association should play. One of the themes for the 2001 Spring meeting will be sustainability, and the Fall issue of CLEARWATERS will focus on the same topic.

This time of great change both challenges us and provides opportunities. NYWEA is a volunteer-driven organization; so finding support and energizing new volunteers continues to be a challenge. To encourage young professionals to join and participate in our organization, membership recruitment and retention must remain one of our core activities.

Remember, as an organization of people we must work together to meet the challenges of the future. I urge all of you to participate in the Association, to encourage others to join, and to give of your time, energies and resources for the betterment of our profession and the environment.

Remember this is our world.
It's up to us to protect it.