Snider named to governor’s panel on water sustainability

Citing a need to identify and overcome obstacles to increased water sustainability, Governor Jan Brewer has named David Snider to the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Water Sustainability. 

Snider is chairman and District 3 representative on the Pinal County Board of Supervisors.
 
Chairing the panel are three top Arizona officials:  Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources; Kris Mayes, chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission and Benjamin Grumbles, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. 
 
“I applaud Governor Brewer’s choices to lead this panel, and I am eager to get to work,” Snider said. “Water is Arizona’s most limited and precious natural resource. We must develop strategies and policies that respect the finite nature of our water supply.”
 
The agenda for last week’s first meeting of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Water Sustainability included an overview of the purpose of the panel and discussion of its goals, process and desired results. The Department of Water Resources presented an overview of the Arizona Water Atlas and Water Use Data.
 
“The panel will have a number of tools at hand, involving technology, innovation and collaboration to reduce water waste and inefficiency, recycle water and restore watersheds,” according to a news release from the three co-chairs. 
 
“We’re fast approaching the time to apply the latest research and technologies to conserve and sustain our water supply,” Snider said.  “Arizona will experience growth pressures again in the future, I am convinced of that. The time to seize opportunities to change our thinking about water is now and in the near future so we can responsibly protect our water supplies.”
 
Snider has been involved in water and conservation-related strategies in a number of venues since the mid-1980s, including the Groundwater Users Advisory Council for the Pinal Active Management Area, the Governor’s Water Management Commission, the Pinal County Water Augmentation Authority, the National Association of Counties’ Steering Committee for Energy, Environment & Land Use and the Statewide Water Advisory Group to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

File photo