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The Next Generation Water Summit
by Doug Pushard
The City of Santa Fe is also going to host the upcoming Next Generation Water Summit. This conference will highlight Santa Fe’s leadership role as well as bring together other water leaders from the West in stormwater management, water reuse, and water efficiency.
Santa Fe has done a remarkable job of conserving water over the last decade and a half. We have dropped from over 150 gallons per day to less than 90 gallons per day. Our population has grown and yet the water production has dropped! The City of Santa Fe has used all types of programs to achieve these remarkable results: implementation of education and outreach programs, rebates, land use code restrictions, and regulations.
Santa Fe has been an early adopter and promoter of numerous water conservation techniques. We were one of the first cities to implement a toilet retrofit program and rebates to incentivize the purchase of water saving appliances and devices. We are also one of the few cities that integrate water conservation into our land use code. The City continues the leadership role with the adoption of the Water Efficiency Water Score (WERS) into the building code.
So as a leader in water conservation it was only natural for The City of Santa Fe, the Green Chamber of Commerce, the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, and the National Green Build Coalition come together to sponsor this first time event. Additionally, the Santa Fe Community College is the official training sponsor and Green Media is the official media partner. This unique event focuses on water efficiency policies for the building community and integrating it with forward looking policies.
The Summit will start on June 4th with the Green Expo Day open to the general public and summit attendees including 12 free educational sessions on topics from water efficient food growth to water efficiency techniques for home owners.
The following two days will start with expert speakers from around the country kicking off jam packed educational sessions including lively collaboration sessions geared towards solving our unique water issues in the southwest. There will also be follow up opportunities to bring to life the ideas and solutions created from these discussions. The goal of the Summit is to educate, but also to bring solutions to the table.
A few of the out of town speakers will include, keynote speaker Mary Ann Dickinson of Alliance for Water Efficiency presenting on Net Blue Ordinance Initiative, Jonah Schein from the Environment Protection Agency on the future of the WaterSense for New Homes program, and Doug Bennet from the Southern Nevada Water Authority on No Water, No Growth.
A few of the local speakers at the event include: keynote speaker Edward Mazria, internationally recognized architect, author, researcher, and educator; Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales; Kim Shanahan, Executive Director of the Santa Fe Area Home Builder Association; and many, many more. More information and registration for the Summit can be found at: www.nextgenerationwatersummit.com
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