I know that some of you will think I’m crazy, but I think the winter went by far too quickly! Christmas, New Year’s, Olympics, all come and gone. My family cheered for the groundhog’s shadow to scare him back in the hole for a few more weeks. To my kids, that meant more skiing, more snowball fights and more time with dad being home.  But alas, Spring is almost here and that means conference season has begun!

 

Our own Canadian Wastewater Management Conference leads the way in Niagara on the Lake the first week of March, then March ends in Vancouver with the big Globe Trade Show. Then WEAO meets in London in April, OWWA in London in May and BCWWA in Whistler in May. May will also see Canadian member associations meeting at WEFMAX in Charleston and the CWWA Spring Board meeting. June is just as busy with the National Biosolids conference in Vancouver then AWWA’s ACE event in Boston and the Canadian Water Summit in Toronto on June 18. I am on the program committee for the Water Summit and moderator for the municipal panel — I’ll share more details as I know them. Look for me or one of our CWWA team at these events and be sure to say hello.

 

Speaking of conferences, the CWWA is taking a long hard look at our own conferences, how many we have, where and when we have them, etc. The Board has struck an ad hoc committee to look at what we’ve been doing and consider new ways of facilitating national dialogue and information sharing. We will be reaching out to our committees and to you our members and delegates for your input, but if you have any initial ideas, don’t be shy, let me hear them.

A delegation of 18 water professionals visited Canada from the Fujian province of China in February. These delegates were directors, engineers and researchers from the Fujian Water Resources Department and were led by their Deputy Director-General, Ms. Xiao Huimei. Their tour included stops in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa. While in Ottawa, they met with several federal departments and agencies and invited CWWA’s executive director, Robert Haller, to meet with them. Robert spoke to them on the role of CWWA and some of the major issues in Canadian water — namely infrastructure, efficiency and climate change.