We are certainly busy at CWWA - working hard as THE national association for the water and wastewater industry in Canada. As I continue my tour across Canada attending all the provincial/regional association conferences, there is a lot we are promoting from CWWA. So if you don’t get to hear me at your local conference, here are the highlights of what I’ll be talking about:

Public Attitudes 2015 – We’ve been working with Water Canada magazine on this report for well over a year now and are very excited to be releasing the report June 3rd. This report looks at the need to change public attitudes to better understand their water/wastewater systems and support decisions to invest in infrastructure.  

See the related story in this e-Bulletin.

National Projects – CWWA staff are still working on two national projects to serve our members. We have proposed a national survey with Public Safety Canada to better understand the state of security around our municipal water and wastewater systems.  Meanwhile, we are putting the team together to develop tools and resources to support utility leaders on the issues of infrastructure.

National Conference – All the details are coming together for our first "consolidated" national conference in Whistler (October 25-28). We have started billing this as 8 conferences for the price of 1. As we review the abstracts and proposed topics, we are confident we will deliver the same quality of programming we have always provided at CWWA events, but now we bring our drinking water conference together with our wastewater conference and add our energy & water efficiency conference and our workshops on biosolids, climate change and security & emergency management and add a renewed focus on utility leadership issues – all of this in conjunction with our partners at the Canadian Association for Water Quality (CAWQ) and their National Symposium. Go to the conference website for all the details and to get registered!   www.cwwawatergo.ca 

Flushable Wipes – CWWA continues to work with our partners at the Municipal Enforcement Sewer Use Group (MESUG) toward an ISO standard that will give an internationally recognized definition to the term "flushable" and set requirements for the labelling of all items that are likely to be flushed. At the same time, we are participating in discussions with the wipes industry in their efforts to develop a better voluntary program for determining "flushable" products and how to label non-flushable products.

Recruitment – The CWWA Board and staff will be focusing efforts on increasing our association membership. You will likely see a new membership brochure and don’t be surprised if you are contacted by the CWWA to see how we can get you onboard as a member of this national team. We need all of you to strengthen our voice at the national level on behalf of all municipalities and those private sector firms that support us.