THESE VITAL SPEECHES

34
CICERO SPEECHWRITING AWARDS
Seventy-five percent of graduating
meteorologists at that time went to work
for NASA, studying the atmospheres
of other planets. It became clear that
a PhD would be necessary for even the
possibility of finding a job as a meteorologist.
At age nineteen, that did not
excite me.
The Clean Water Act was only two
years old, and as a child of the turbulent
sixties, I thought it could be a way to
make a difference in the world. It was
an easy decision to make the switch to
environmental engineering.
As it turns out, that budget cut was
one of the best things that ever happened
to me. I have had the great
fortune to work for two world-class
organizations—Brown & Caldwell
Engineers, and the East Bay Municipal
Utility District. My career in water,
including the honor of serving as WEF
president, has given me the opportunity
to fulfill my goal of making a meaningful
and positive contribution.
As water professionals, we are all environmental
warriors! The work that we
do is essential, and we should all be extremely
proud. Now, we are pioneers on
the leading edge of a major sea change
in the water sector. We are experiencing
a renaissance in our role as water
stewards, as we work together to create
Water Resource Recovery facilities.
Collectively, we are transforming
our world of treatment into one of
recovering valuable resources. We are
producing useful products for society:
clean renewable energy…recycled
water…natural fertilizer…nutrients…
even renewable transportation fuel.
Treatment plants are becoming manufacturing
facilities.
They are green factories that reduce
costs and increase revenue, while
becoming more sustainable, positive
influencers of our environment. Around
the world, we are rapidly becoming
“Utilities of the Future.”
WEF has helped lead this sea change,
with our Utility of the Future partners,
WERF and NACWA. We have changed
the term “wastewater treatment
facilities” to “water resource recovery
facilities” in all WEF publications. We
have released the Energy Roadmap and
the Nutrient Roadmap. And, we have
provided a platform for water sector
innovation through the WEF/WERF
Partnership—the Leaders Innovation
Forum for Technology.
Historically, WEF has focused
primarily on wastewater and recycled
water. But as with any organization
that’s committed to meeting the needs
of its membership, we are evolving
with the times and the issues. We are
adopting a more holistic, integrated
view of the water cycle that includes all
water—drinking, wastewater, recycled
and stormwater, as we lead this Water
Resource Recovery Revolution.
To reflect this change, I worked
closely over the past year with my fellow
Board members and staff to amend
WEF’s vision, mission, critical objectives
and measurable strategic goals. We have
also instituted a new set of core values
that will lead us into the future. These
values center around “Service” because
providing exceptional service to you,
and to all of our 35,000 members, is
WEF’s highest priority.
This paradigm shift to water
resource recovery is tangible, exciting
and real. I’ve seen it first-hand
in my travels as WEF president over
the past year. Clean natural gas from
biogas and heat recovery from sewers
in Japan. The most advanced water
resource recovery facility in the world
in Strass, Austria. Drinking highly
treated wastewater in Singapore. Our
host city of Chicago will soon feature
the largest phosphorous resource
recovery facility on earth. These are
amazing developments that hold great
promise for the future!
We are now midway through the
second decade of the twenty-first
century and there is no denying that
we are facing a crisis that may be the
greatest environmental challenge of
our generation and those to come—
the growing impact of changes to the
earth’s climate.
Weather events are becoming more
extreme, with one hundred year storms
and typhoons occurring every few years.
At the other extreme, my state, California,
is suffering through our most severe
drought in over 1200 years.
As environmental professionals,
I’m confident that we will rise to this
challenge, and we will become an
important part of the climate solution—recycling
every gallon, producing
renewables, and significantly reducing
greenhouse gas emissions and our
carbon and methane footprints.
We will develop adaptive, resilient infrastructure
as sea levels rise. We will be
the leaders who look beyond the borders
of our profession, our communities, and
our countries to recognize that these
issues impact everyone. The efforts of a
few will grow into a movement of many
that brings about real solutions, real
results, and real change.
Sometimes we need a revolution to
achieve the change we need. I believe
that’s where we are today.
Six months ago, the CO2 in the
earth’s atmosphere reached four
hundred parts per million. We don’t
yet know what this will mean but ice
cores tell us that it has been more than
twenty million years since it was at a
level that high. How much of it is connected
to human activity? We don’t
know for sure but we do know that human
beings evolved just three million
years ago. In the nineteenth century,
the Industrial Revolution marked a
major turning point in earth’s ecology
and forever altered humans’ relationship
with our environment. The
impacts, both good and bad, are still
being fully realized today.
Although the extent of human influence
is still being debated, scientists
now believe that we are currently in the
midst of the earth’s sixth mass extinction
of species. The fifth occurred sixtysix
million years ago and eliminated the
non-avian dinosaurs.
Even if we stop all greenhouse gas
emissions today, the earth’s sea level
will continue to significantly rise for the
next several hundred years as a result of
emissions from the past 150 years.
It’s a dire prediction yet everyone in
this room has the ability to do something
about it. Growing up in the 1960’s
taught me that improvement comes
through change—and sometimes it takes
revolutionary change to turn the tide.
I grew up seven miles from Lex-
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