Cecil's Corner

Cecil Lue-Hing, D.Sc., P.E., F. ASCE – EWRI 2002-2003 President

As promised, I am bringing you up to date on the meeting between the new ASCE leadership and the leadership of the Institutes. As you know, ASCE has a new President, President-Elect, and Executive Director, and since both ASCE and the Council of Institutes Leadership were meeting at the same time, we seized the opportunity of the venue and the graciousness of the ASCE leadership to meet. The ASCE leadership was represented by President Tom Jackson, President-Elect Patricia Galloway, Executive Director Patrick Natale, and Deputy Executive Director Larry Roth, and the Institutes leadership included myself and Tom Rachford (EWRI), Kenna Chapin (AEI), Brian Kaub and John Donohoe (CI), Tony Dalrymple (COPRI), Al McNab and Arlan Rippe (GI), and Bob Costigan and Kumares Sinha (T&DI). We had some very frank and productive discussions on issues such as governance, service to membership, financing, shared responsibilities, and operational efficiencies. The Institutes are all under four years old, and are still making mid-course adjustments. The discussions which ensued helped both sides to appreciate the challenges of young and growing professional organizations, and to identify some opportunities for providing enhanced service to our membership. The issues noted, are critically important to both ASCE and the Institutes, and are currently being studied by two ASCE Presidential Task Forces, one on Institute Operational Procedures, and the other on ASCE Governance Restructuring. While the products of the Task Forces will not be officially available before this summer, the vibrations thus far are positive and encouraging.

In furtherance of our goal to leverage resources to better serve our membership, we continue to seek collaboration with and support organizations, which espouse converging professional interests. Thus, during a recent Governing Board (GB) meeting, members of the Board took time out to attend the 2003 Excellence in Environmental Engineering (Academy Awards) of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE). Here we celebrated with Rear Admiral Robert C. Williams, Chief Engineer, U.S. Public Health Service (US PHS), EWRI Board member and Members Services ExCom Chair, his acceptance of the Research Award on behalf of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US PHS. EWRI’s linkage with AAEE is already strong, since about 30 percent of AAEE Diplomates are also EWRI members; ASCE immediate Past President H. G. "Gerry" Schwartz Jr. is an AAEE Board Member, and active EWRI member Jeanette Semon Brown will be next year’s AAEE President. And as is customary, EWRI will host an AAEE breakfast at its World Water & Environmental Resources Congress 2003, in Philadelphia, PA, June 23-26.

EWRI continues to collaborate with the U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (USCID) by co-sponsoring conferences. We expect that many EWRI Irrigation and Drainage Council members will be in attendance at the Second International Conference on Irrigation and Drainage; Water for a Sustainable World – Limited Supplies and Expanding Demand, Phoenix, AZ, May 12-15, 2003. While this collaboration has been ongoing for a couple of years, we have recently empowered a committee to explore a more formal affiliation between USCID and EWRI. Members of this committee include EWRI Irrigation and Drainage Council members Darrell Zimbelman, Terry Howell, Bert Clemmens, Dan Thomas and Robert Evans. Also participating on the committee are Phil Burgi, Technical Activities ExCom Chair, and staff members Larry Stevens of USCID and Brian Parsons of EWRI. The committee expects to complete its work and submit a report and recommendations sometime this summer.

Another strategic alliance currently being pursued is a collaborative effort between EWRI of ASCE, the American Water Works Association (AWWA), and the Water Environment Federation (WEF). All three organizations have jointly committed through the Water Infrastructure Security Enhancements Standards Committee (WISE SC), to contribute to the reduction of risk due to malevolent events and natural disasters by developing new guidelines that cover the design, construction, rehabilitation, installation, and/or operation and maintenance of water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure projects. To accomplish this goal, EWRI of ASCE, AWWA, and WEF are proposing to develop guidance materials in these topic areas and then disseminate the information through technical sessions, workshops, and/or conferences to educate designers, owners, and operators of water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure. Throughout the program, close coordination between the water and wastewater sectors will be maintained, and lessons learned from each will be transferred between the sectors as appropriate. More will be said of this project in subsequent columns as it materializes, and appropriate funding is secured.

In my last column, we indicated to you that we would like to make this column a conversation medium and invited you to write to us to make it happen. Well, thanks to the many of you who wrote in, this column is rapidly becoming a conversation Corner, and judging by your responses, we feel gratified that your inquiries are being appropriately addressed. So keep writing CLHAI@aol.com or EWRI@ASCE.org until we see you next time around the CORNER.