As the clean water community moves beyond simple compliance with the Clean Water Act, the Water Resources Utility of the Future (UOTF) initiative continues to highlight how utilities are harnessing the resources and energy in wastewater. At the same time the level of complexity of new regulations, and external challenges such as drought and climate change, are impacting day-to-day operations and threatening to limit the clean water community’s ability to innovate.

NACWA’s 2016 Winter Conference will explore increasing regulatory requirements and the external drivers that present compliance challenges and impact the sector’s ability to move in the direction of the utility of the future. Join us as we discuss some of the most daunting regulatory requirements facing the community including potential standards for viruses, nutrient controls, and peak flow management – coupled with continued pressure from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The approaches employed by EPA and other regulators – including imposing new, or amending existing, requirements through policy statements and guidance documents, instead of formal rulemaking – will also be explored. All of this will be put into the context of the need for broader change. Clearly, 45 years since the passage of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the accretion of regulatory requirements is now leading utilities to chase ever decreasing water quality gains for every dollar invested.