Central States Water Environment Association

CSWEA WEF Delegates Report

WEF DELEGATES REPORT – WORKING TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE

by Anna Munson
Updated 7/15/25

If you were one of the 573 attendees at the 98th CSWEA Annual Meeting at the end of May, then you were part of the largest group we have ever gathered for our Annual Meeting. Thank you for making this year’s Annual Meeting a huge success! We’ll be meeting in St. Paul, MN next year, and our local arrangements committee has already started planning the events.

CSWEA members have been busy with activities that extend beyond our member association. Members from each state gathered in Washington DC for the DC Water Fly-in. The DC Water Fly-in was part of Water Week 2025, organized by 15 water associations and foundations including WEF, ASCE, and AWWA. WEF and the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA) co-led the National Stormwater Policy Forum early in the week. The forum provided a venue for utility leaders, industry experts, and policy makers to discuss solutions to stormwater challenges. On Tuesday, Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona (Senate Environment and Public Works Committee) provided commentary during an EPA water priority and goal panel discussion. Wednesday featured the DC Water Fly-in, with over 700 water professionals meeting with federal agencies and congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.

The main issues discussed with policy makers were:

  1. PFAS regulation and compliance
    – Rising costs and complexity for utilities, concerns regarding availability of laboratories to provide the requested testing, and the need for federal support and clear guidance.
  2.  Infrastructure investment
    – Ongoing funds are needed beyond just the IIJA to address problems with aging systems nationally, supply chain challenges, and labor shortages.
  3. Climate resilience and cybersecurity
    – Investments are required to safeguard water and wastewater systems from both climate and cyber threats, enhance adaptation and protection of water systems.
  4. Water affordability and equity
    – Federal support is required for utilities to provide safe, affordable water for all communities in the US; there is a need to balance costs with compliance.
  5. Workforce development
    – Need to address the labor shortages and aging workforce.

This issue of CS Water includes an article co-authored by the DC Water Fly-in representatives that provides more detail about the briefings and discussions that occurred during Water Week 2025. CSWEA provides a stipend for up to two professionals from each state to participate in the DC Water Fly-in, and WEF provides scholarships and special programming for young professionals to attend. The 2026 event will be held on April 14-15. The CSWEA Government Affairs Committee, Section Chairs, or Delegates can connect anyone interested in learning more about the DC Water Fly-in with members who have previously attended.

Each year, WEF hosts three WEFMAX events to provide opportunities for members to meet others from member associations across the US and Canada and to learn new ways to lead their associations. Anna Munson attended WEFMAX in Oklahoma City in early April. The theme of this WEFMAX was membership engagement.

Highlights of the presentations and discussions include:

  1. Ideas for engaging members with more operations and maintenance focus
    • Host events that do not require the members to be 21+ years old.
    • Consider breakfast or lunch events for those who work shifts instead of business hours.
    • Offer ops/maintenance skills training gatherings.
  2.  The business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion
    • Focusing on affordability, aging infrastructure, response to extreme weather events, and service to our communities must continue regardless of the words we use to describe the initiatives.
    • Who have we unintentionally left behind or underserved? Are we serving all people with respect? Does our workforce reflect the communities we serve?
    • Can we remove some barriers in our industry roles to open the door to qualified candidates who might not know about the water industry? This does not require lowering any standards, just an openness to think carefully about the skills we need.
  3.  Member engagement ideas
    • Have goals for each member association (MA) committee to work toward and assign someone to be responsible for checking on progress toward the goals.
    • Trim out committees that are no longer relevant to the MAs goals.
    • Micro-volunteering is a good hook for members who don’t want to commit to a larger role.
    • Define responsibilities; volunteers like to know what is expected of them and want meaningful tasks.
    • Event ideas
    • Competitions – BBQ cookoff, Trivia night, cornhole tournaments, mini-golf, pickleball, ax throwing, kickball.
    • Bike tour, walking tours, motorcycle rides.
    • Facility tours.
    • Service projects (youth-focused, environment-focused, other).
    • Taste testing events (beer, wine, salsa, chili, etc.)
    • Professional or minor league sports.

Finally, CSWEA members are encouraged to check out the newest WEF community, the Emerging Contaminants Community. The group of nearly 200 WEF members are working to establish WEF as a recognized leader and trusted resource of information on emerging contaminants for water professionals, the public, and decision makers developing policy and regulations. CSWEA members can apply to be part of this community and any of the other communities through the WEF website by navigating to the Membership & Community page.

As WEF Delegates, we are here to support you and represent the interests of the CSWEA to the House of Delegates and WEF. If something is on your mind, please feel free to call or email Anna at amunson@hazenandsawyer.com or Liz at e.heise@trotter-inc.com We are here to serve you/CSWEA and be a liaison to WEF leadership.