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Mar 19, 2021 / Volume 9, Issue 11
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IN THIS ISSUE:
Water Solutions Series, Brown Bag Recap, Smartscape, APW, Amber Hughes
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Panel Discussion on Regional
Water Sustainability
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On Wednesday, March 17, the Arizona Institutes for Resilience, in partnership with the WRRC and the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, hosted the first episode of the Water Solutions for Our Warmer World webinar series. This first session, “Perspectives on Regional Water Sustainability,” brought together an engaging panel from diverse backgrounds to discuss questions such as “How should we define water sustainability,” “What does sustainability look like in the Colorado River Basin,” and “What are the paths forward for more inclusive solutions?” The session moderator, Kathy Jacobs, Director of the UArizona Center for Climate Adaptation Science & Solutions, began the session by highlighting the importance of context in water management, not only in terms of geographic, economic, and policy conditions but also the diversity of lenses through which we all view water sustainability. Then, each panelist provided their personal definition of “sustainability” to frame the discussion.
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Special World Water Day Event
Managing Aquifer Recharge: A Showcase for Resilience and Sustainability
Date: Monday, Mar 22, 2021
Time: 3:30-5:00 pm MST
Celebrate World Water Day on Monday afternoon, March 22, when the Water Resources Research Center hosts an informative panel discussion on the forthcoming UNESCO volume, “Managing Aquifer Recharge: A Showcase for Resilience and Sustainability.” This UNESCO publication provides valuable resources for stakeholders and water managers considering managed aquifer recharge (MAR) as a mechanism to bolster climate resilience in the context of environmental, social, and economic project goals. The panel features two book editors along with authors of the volume’s five North American case studies.
For additional World Water Day events, see the announcements listed below.
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Upcoming WRRC Webinars
Peter Colohan, Executive Director, Internet of Water Project, Duke University
Chuck Cullom, Colorado River Programs Manager, Central Arizona Project
Lela Perkins, PE, Senior Water Resources Engineer, Jacobs Engineering Group
John Kmiec, Interim Director, Tucson Water
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Promoting Clean Water Utilities of the Future
On Thursday, March 11, Andrew Kricun, Managing Director with Moonshot Missions and former Executive Director and Chief Engineer at the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) in New Jersey, presented “Community Service and Environmental Justice as an Essential Best Practice for Clean Water Utilities of the Future” for a WRRC Brown Bag webinar. The Utility of the Future Today Recognition Program honors water entities that implement environmental projects to benefit the community. In Arizona, five municipalities and water utilities were recognized: Tucson Water, the City of Phoenix, Scottsdale Water, Pima County Regional Wastewater Reclamation Department, and Flagstaff Water Services. After providing an overview of what it means to be a Clean Water Utility of the Future, Kricun described the case of Camden, New Jersey as an example of a collaborative environmental justice and conservation-focused initiative that saw meaningful successes. Under his management, Kricun pushed for much-needed odor control measures and for the transformation of an abandoned gas station and other contaminated sites into rain gardens. The CCMUA also joined a coalition of institutions to finance a riverfront restoration project that established a park for residents to enjoy. Kricun ended his presentation with the striking statistic that Camden was able to engage in a wide range of conservation activities including restoration projects and transition the wastewater treatment facility to run on green energy, all while reducing their utility rates by 40% when factoring for inflation over a 24-year period.
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Advanced Smartscape Irrigation Training
Get your spring garden off to a good start with the latest industry trends, research, and best practices. The Smartscape Program at Maricopa County Cooperative Extension, UArizona, is offering “Advanced Smartscape: Irrigation,” an in-depth training on "the design, installation, maintenance, and management of drip and sprinkler irrigation systems." This program is sponsored by the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association and the Arizona Department of Water Resources to promote water-use efficiency in the landscapes of the Sonoran Desert. The course will be held on three consecutive Thursday afternoons, April 8, 15, and 22. Completion of the Smartscape course and some irrigation experience is a prerequisite for this course.
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Water Drops to Water Towers
APW is celebrating Fix a Leak Week (March 15-19) all semester! In partnership with the Town of Gilbert, we’re using a Project WET lesson called Every Drop Counts to virtually bring meaningful learning to fourth-grade students. In this lesson, students measure a hypothetical leak and extrapolate that very small leak to observe how drops can quickly lead to gallons. If we measure an average individual leak of 2.4 teaspoons per minute, students can use math to figure out how much water that would yield in an hour (144 tsp), a day (3,456 tsp), and a year (1,261,440 tsp). Converting that huge number to something meaningful allows students to see that their little leak equates to 1,642.5 gallons per year. To fully understand the significance of leaky faucets, we then calculate how much water would be wasted if each of the 80,000 households had a similar leak - that would amount to over 131.4 million gallons wasted in the Town of Gilbert! To make sense of that huge number, we use a downtown landmark that is familiar to Gilbert students: the Gilbert Water Tower. That water tower holds approximately 50,000 gallons of water, which means in one year, 2,628 water towers would be wasted. We better fix those leaks!
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Meet New APW Team Member,
Amber Hughes!
Amber is APW’s new Outreach Instructional Specialist. She comes to us with an extensive teaching background and holds degrees in Biology, Education, Plant Biology and Environmental Resources, and Administration/Leadership.
Amber’s love for science and nature goes back to when she was a young child visiting her grandmother’s house, which backed up to a national forest in Glencoe Illinois, just down Lake Michigan from Chicago. She used to study plants and little critters in her grandmother’s backyard and enjoyed helping her tend the garden. She had a playhouse in the back, where she and her best friend would observe animals. She also kept an ant journal and would not allow her grandmother to kill any bugs – instead, she would take them outside and place them in a safe spot. She recalls that there was a seven-year cicada that she and her best friend would gather up and parade around with it stuck to their shirts. She refers to herself as a tomboy who enjoyed playing with snakes and frogs and running in the creek and woods every chance she had. Her love for nature explains her desire to become a scientist. Amber says, “My love for nature and my drive to protect it has driven many decisions in my life, including the one to join AZ Project WET! It is nice to be here and nice to meet everyone.”
Welcome, Amber!
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Please visit WRRC's website for a complete listing of water jobs & opportunities.
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Kennedy, J.R., Pool, D.R., and Carruth, R.L., 2021, Procedures for Field Data Collection, Processing, Quality Assurance and Quality Control, and Archiving of Relative- and Absolute-Gravity Surveys: U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods, book 2, chap. D4, 50 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/tm2D4.
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