Episodes

This episode is part of a series, Funding To Fight Lead. There are perhaps 10 million lead service lines in the ground in the U.S. and it may cost $50 billion to remove them. The series explores financing lead service line replacement, technical assistance for under-resourced communities, and examples of successful approaches. This episode is about how Denver did it. When Denver Water decided to replace 64,000 to 84,000 lead service lines over 15 years, the question arose of how to pay for the w...

High levels of PFAS in the Cape Fear River meant local advocates had to learn about the complex chemicals and at the same time provide information to concerned community members and take steps to address the pollution.

For 50 years, American Rivers has worked to protect and restore waterways across the country. Going forward, the goal is to protect one million miles of rivers and remove 30,000 dams by the year 2050

Science has always been foundational to water management. That tradition continues in 2023, with a staggering breadth and depth of research underway.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed drinking water regulations for several types of PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals that are pervasive in society and the environment and pose a risk to human health.

State and local policies play a central role in financing of lead service line replacement. The ability of utilities to use public funds for work on private property is often the key challenge.

Analysis has shown a significant lack of diversity in the sources cited in media coverage. The Color of Water platform was created to counter this trend.

Nearly two decades after Hurricane Katrina, there are continued efforts to make New Orleans more resilient to storms and climate change. A recent innovation is the green mortgage, a program that helps lower-income people buy a home and provides a budget for retrofits for water, wind, and energy projects. The green mortgage concept is discussed in this episode with Damon Burns, President and CEO of Finance New Orleans. He explains how green mortgages can also be used to bolster resilience of mult...

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington, N.C. found itself in a difficult situation when high levels of PFAS were discovered in its water. How should the utility manage the forever chemicals, particularly in the absence of drinking water standards, information about health impacts, and a method of removal?

A conservationist is profiled each day during Black History Month by Sierra Taliaferro, founder of the Green Obsidian page on Facebook. In this episode, she talks about five years of writing the profiles and shares examples of people she is highlighting this year.

The ways to fund lead service line replacement and some of the key financial aspects are discussed in this episode with Cynthia Koehler of the WaterNow Alliance and Tim Male of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center.

Dr. Detlef Knappe of North Carolina State University is one of the leading scientists who found PFAS in the Cape Fear River and has conducted continued research on its presence.

How can the affordability of water bills be properly addressed without consistent and comprehensive data? New Jersey decided to get a clearer look at the situation. A state law now requires all water utilities to report on a monthly and zip-code basis affordability metrics including rates, customer bills, water usage, arrears, shutoffs, and tax liens sold on homes for non-payment. The law is discussed in this episode with Larry Levine, Director of Urban Water Infrastructure and a Senior Attorney...

Nonprofit media outlet waterloop is expanding its coverage of solutions to today’s critical water challenges, including features on lessons learned from PFAS pollution in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River, options for funding the removal of lead service lines to protect drinking water, and visits with people leading change in disadvantaged communities. In this episode, waterloop founder Travis Loop discusses the expansion and also shares his professional and personal journeys that led to waterloo...

How does someone develop the mentality of a mentor and create opportunities for others? For Tim Alston it started in high school, when the people selected for a leadership program didn’t reflect the diversity of the student population.

During the last century, large engineering projects were used to control water resources. But in many ways, that man-made infrastructure is failing to meet challenges in the 21st century such as drought, flooding, pollution, and population growth. How can a pivot back to nature provide more sustainable solutions for water management? The nature-based approach is discussed in this episode with Sandra Postel, the author of Replenish and the Director of the Global Water Policy Project. Sandra discu...

In an increasingly thirsty world, there is much potential in desalination, the process of removing salt from seawater. But desalination has historically posed challenges - it consumes massive amounts of expensive energy, produces a waste called brine, and raises concerns about impacts on aquatic life. So how is desalination becoming more of an option for the creation of freshwater? That question is answered in this episode with Peter Fiske, Executive Director of the National Alliance for Water I...

In a recent poll, U.S. voters overwhelmingly agreed that water is a human right, clean waterways are important, and infrastructure investments are critical. While those results are encouraging, the real value of polls are in how they can be used to test language, create messages, and influence policy. That work is discussed in this episode with Nicole Lampe of Water Hub, Yasmin Zaerpoor of PolicyLink, and Jenifer Collins of the National Wildlife Federation. They talk about opportunities to us...

P3 involves a public agency partnering with a private entity on a project. A twist on the traditional public-private partnership puts the community first and focuses on its challenges and opportunities. This approach works particularly well with green infrastructure, as discussed in this episode with Dominique Lueckenhoff, a former water official for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a Senior Fellow at the US Water Alliance. Dominique talks about the creation of community based P3s to...

2022 is the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, which fundamentally changed regulation and management of water resources in the U.S. The Clean Water Act Owner’s Manual was created to help people understand and use the law to reduce pollution. The tool is discussed in this episode with Katherine Baer, Vice President of River Programs at the River Network, and Matt Rota, Senior Policy Director at Healthy Gulf. Katherine and Matt talk about how citizens own the Clean Water Act, using the owner...

Algae blooms that pollute waterways, produce toxins, and cause dead zones are one of the most widespread and challenging environmental problems in the U.S. Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural land is the leading fuel for the algae blooms, but efforts to reduce the nutrient pollution from farms have largely been unsuccessful. In this episode, Dr. Donald Boesch, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, says it’s time to change the approach and cre...

Algae blooms that pollute waterways, produce toxins, and cause dead zones are one of the most widespread and challenging environmental problems in the U.S. Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural land is the leading fuel for the algae blooms, but efforts to reduce the nutrient pollution from farms have largely been unsuccessful. In this episode, Dr. Donald Boesch, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, says it’s time to change the approach and creat...

Algae blooms that pollute waterways, produce toxins, and cause dead zones are one of the most widespread and challenging environmental problems in the U.S. Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural land is the leading fuel for the algae blooms, but efforts to reduce the nutrient pollution from farms have largely been unsuccessful. In this episode, Dr. Donald Boesch, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, says it’s time to change the approach and creat...

Problems of environmental justice and water equity haven’t historically received proper coverage by traditional media. And if they did get in the news, chances are the reporter didn’t look like the impacted population.