Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/15/2020
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Categories No Categories
Meeting the Financial Challenges of Improved Water Management in the West: A GWC Webinar Series
Session One: Expanding the Toolbox of Water Financing Options
Tuesday, September 15th
12:00-1:00 p.m. Mountain Time
Zoom Webinar: https://cu.law/GWCWaterWebinars
Gone are the days when funding western water needs was merely a task of gaining Congressional authorization and appropriations for new dams and reservoirs. Today, federal funds are limited, and much of what needs to happen does not involve new infrastructure. A vast toolbox of potential funding strategies are, at least theoretically, available, although many options are unproven. Many such strategies are under consideration in Colorado for implementing the State Water Plan.
Registration (Webinar access will be sent to the email provided)
Speakers:
Lauren Ris
Deputy Director
Colorado Water Conservation Board
As the Deputy Director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Lauren supports the Director and the agency’s staff in carrying out CWCB’s mission. She works on a number of issues and policies including Colorado’s Water Plan implementation, state and federal legislative activities that impact the agency, and water projects and negotiations with statewide significance.
Nancy A. Smith
Director of External Affairs, Colorado River Basin Program
The Nature Conservancy
Nancy Smith has worked for 21 years with The Nature Conservancy, developing, implementing, and managing conservation strategies to protect critical land and water resources. Currently, as External Affairs Director for the Colorado River Basin Program, she is part of team dedicated to developing and testing innovative approaches to increasing water security in the Colorado River Basin in a manner that supports our economy and a thriving natural environment. Previously, with the Conservancy’s California Program, she worked with wine producers in Northern California to keep water in rivers to support endangered salmon populations. She also led the effort to secure protective environmental provisions in California’s 2016 marijuana legalization ballot initiative. She specializes in private/public sector partnerships such as the Shortgrass Prairie Initiative; she managed the team that developed and implemented this national award-winning effort, securing a $5.5 million contract to provide habitat mitigation services to the Colorado Department of Transportation by conserving 27,000 acres of critical shortgrass prairie habitat. She is a second-generation Colorado native with a law degree and MBA from University of Colorado in Boulder.
Moderator:
Doug Kenney
Western Water Policy Program Director
Getches-Wilkinson Center
Doug Kenney is Director of the Western Water Policy Program within the University of Colorado Law School in the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment. He is also founder and current chair of the Colorado River Research Group. He has written extensively on several water-related issues, including law and policy reform, river basin and watershed-level planning, climate change adaptation, and water resource economics. Dr. Kenney has served as a consultant to a variety of local, state, multi-state, and federal agencies, including several Interior Department agencies, EPA, and the US Forest Service; and national governments and NGOs in Asia and Africa. Additionally, he has made presentations in 21 states (and the District of Columbia), 8 nations, and 5 continents. He has a B.A. in biology from the University of Colorado, a M.S. in Natural Resources Policy and Administration from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Renewable Natural Resource Studies from the University of Arizona.
Via Zoom from 12:00-1:00 p.m. Mountain Time
Webinar is free and open to the public.
1 Colorado CLE credit available
Registration (Webinar access will be sent to the email provided)
Join us Tuesday 9/15 12:00-1:00 MDT at: https://cu.law/GWCWaterWebinars
View the full suite of sessions here: GWC Water Webinar Series
All session are free and open to the public.