Conferences & Events

NACWA hosts several conferences, workshops, regional meetings and webinars annually. We strive to offer the most current information about legislative, regulatory and legal developments and provide many opportunities for you to network with your colleagues and industry leaders from across the country. Speakers at NACWA conferences are drawn from Congress and the EPA, as well as the public and private sectors. All come ready to give in-depth presentations, willingly engage in discourse with the audience, and meet with NACWA’s committees.

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Strategic Communications: H2O Virtual Event

June 1 - 2, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic forced water communicators to confront unthinkable challenges, as well as providing unexpected opportunities to engage with ratepayers. Join us for Day 1 as we host a panel of experts to examine the crisis communications strategies deployed at the onset of the pandemic and the social media strategies used to engage with ratepayers in creative and novel ways. On Day 2, we’ll be reviewing the internal communications plans that have allowed workforces to operate remotely, then we’ll look to the future and discuss what a post-coronavirus future looks like for our communications departments.

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Resilience Webinar Series

Dealing with Disruption: Operationalizing Resilience in the Water Sector

Part 4: Managing Challenges Through Resilience Thinking

June 3, 2020

As water stress increases on every continent, water professionals need to become proficient in “resilience thinking,” evaluating how interacting systems and assets can best be managed in the face of disturbances and uncertainty. Resiliency thinking also allows water professionals to continually build on their existing knowledge and consider novel solutions to address the ever-changing shocks and stressors to water systems. This webinar will examine how water utilities can take a broad view of water-related vulnerabilities and use collaboration, creativity, and resilience thinking to overcome these challenges.

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Hot Topics Webinar Series

Hot Topics in Clean Water Law

Part 2: To Be (a Point source) or Not To Be (a point Source): Implications of the County of Maui Supreme Court Decision for Clean Water Utilities

June 10, 2020

NACWA and The WateReuse Association are partnering to gather a panel of experts for the June Legal Hot Topics Webinar to discuss the recent US Supreme Court decision in the case of County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund. The panel will analyze the new “functional equivalence” test for determining whether a discharge is subject to Clean Water Act permitting and address what the decision means for public clean water utilities, the scope of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, and water reuse projects.

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Winter Conference

February 5-8, 2019
Albuquerque, NM

In passing the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Congress had two different goals and objectives in sight. The CWA was a means to mitigate point source pollution and achieve the goal of “fishable and swimmable” surface waters in the United States. The SDWA aimed to protect public health and provide safe, high quality drinking water from source to tap. Over the last 50 years, programs under each Act have matured differently, but perhaps now more than ever, wastewater and drinking water issues are overlapping in the real world. NACWA’s 2019 Winter Conference takes a deep look into the progress of the CWA, its nexus with the SDWA, and asks whether the palpable intersection between these monumental environmental statutes breeds conflict or collaboration for the water sector.

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