ASDWA’s 27th Annual Conference in Little Rock

ASDWA held its 27th Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas the week of October 15th, which was attended by approximately 210 individuals, including representatives of 43 state drinking water programs and one from the Territory of Guam. The conference also included representatives of EPA Headquarters, EPA Regions, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the U.S. Geological Survey, technical assistance provider organizations, water utility organizations, water utilities, academia, and equipment manufacturers.

The meeting began with a State-EPA Roundtable that allowed for an informal exchange between state drinking water administrators and their EPA-HQ and Regional counterparts on a wide array of current issues of mutual interest. The formal portion of the meeting kicked off the following day with a plenary session which included perspectives from Dr. Joe Bates of the Arkansas Department of Health; Nancy Stoner, EPA’s Acting Assistant Administrator for Water; and Pam Barr, EPA’s Acting Director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. The meeting then broke into a series of 44 concurrent sessions on an array of drinking water topics of keen interest to states: source water protection, treatment technologies, drinking water rule implementation and water system optimization, drinking water security, water system capacity development, water supply, and data management. The conference concluded with a plenary panel discussion of the challenge of dealing with waterborne disease outbreaks.

A post-conference web site will shortly be available with all of the Powerpoint presentations and recordings of the opening and closing plenary sessions.