International Cooperation Council Inaugurates Task Committee on Transboundary Environmental Management in Canada, Mexico and USA after NAFTA

by Mark W. Kilgore

Flags of USA, Mexico and Canada

The Task Committee on Transboundary Environmental Management in Canada, Mexico and USA after NAFTA (NAFTA Task Committee), formed under the auspices of the International Cooperation Council, begun operations on October 1, 2002.

The committee will ultimately write and publish a new document that provides revised and contemporary information for engineers, scientists and policy makers interested in implications of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for water resources planning, management, and engineering. The publication would identify issues of concern, organizations which are active on those issues, indicate contact agencies and persons and facilitate liaison activities with our sister professional societies in Canada and Mexico in cooperation with the External Organizations Coordination Committee. EWRI, the LBJ School, and possibly the Canadian Embassy will jointly fund Work on this publication.

The committee is conducting a series of interviews with various policy makers and government officials involved in transboundary water and environmental management. The first such interview was held in July at the recent Conference on Integrated Trans-Boundary Water Resources in Traverse City, Michigan. Committee members met with officials of both the U.S. and Mexican Section of the International Boundary Waters Commission.

The committee is chaired by David Eaton, Professor at the LBJ Policy School of the University of Texas at Austin. Mark Killgore of the Louis Berger Group serves as vice-chair. For information on joining the task committee, please contact Mark at 425-881-9083 or mkillgore@louisberger.com. Eaton and Killgore previously published the NAFTA Handbook for Water Resources Managers and Engineers, an ASCE-LBJ School joint publication.