On March 22, the White House announced the release of IAPMO’s Drought Toolkit as part of the White House Water Summit to celebrate World Water Day. IAPMO CEO Russ Chaney was at the White House to represent The IAPMO Group during this significant action by the Obama administration.

IAPMO’s Drought Toolkit provides plug-and-play resources to achieving a minimum of 20 percent water savings at no cost to users. IAPMO created it to help local and state jurisdictions find ways to achieve consequential water conservation simply and cost-effectively. The toolkit is part of a larger White House water commitment document for the purpose of helping the Unites States address its water crisis.

The White House also issued a Presidential Memorandum, “Building National Capabilities for Long-Term Drought Resilience: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies,” which can be found here. This Presidential Memorandum supports the newly unveiled Action Plan.

“It is more than simply an honor to have the expertise and hard work of IAPMO’s membership included within the comprehensive White House Commitment Report," Chaney said. “We appreciate the platform the White House has provided to put meaningful, effective solutions into the hands of anybody who understands how vitally important it is to protect our most important natural resource. The IAPMO Drought Toolkit and other strategies announced today by the White House represent a decisive response to a crisis of immense consequence.”

Recent events, including record-breaking drought in the west, severe flooding in the southeast, and the water-quality crisis in Flint, Mich., have elevated a national dialogue on the state of our nation’s water resources and infrastructure, the White House said. In response, the Obama administration took World Water Day, designated as March 22 each year since 1993, as an opportunity to host its first White House Water Summit to shine a spotlight on the importance of cross-cutting, creative solutions to solving the water problems of today, as well as to highlight the innovative strategies that will catalyze change across the ways in which we use, conserve, protect, and think about water in the years to come.

During the event, Chaney joined other water experts, practitioners, and stakeholders representing industry-leading organizations from across the country in discussions with senior administration officials on how they can all work together to build America’s sustainable water future.

Chaney and other IAPMO representatives later attended the Global Water Security Summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., which featured a distinguished group of water-sector leaders including The Honorable Danilo Turk, former President of the Republic of Slovenia and Chairman of the U.N. Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace, and The Honorable Gayle E. Smith, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Following the summit, IAPMO representatives attended a World Water Day reception, sponsored by Coca-Cola, at the U.S. Institute of Peace.