Fowler, Caccese to present at Mid-Atlantic Water Resources Conference

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Lara Fowler, senior lecturer at Penn State Law and assistant director at Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment, and Bob Caccese, staff attorney and research associate for the Penn State Law Center for Agricultural and Shale Law, will present at the 2017 Mid-Atlantic Water Resources Conference, held Oct. 12-13 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Their presentation, “Flood, Droughts, and Interstate Conflicts: Why Eastern States Need to Worry About Water Quantity and Water Law,” fits into the conference’s overall theme of “Water Research: Building Knowledge and Innovative Solutions.”

Fowler and Caccese’s presentation will bring to light water quantity concerns as the rapidly emerging issue that it is has become in the eastern United States, due in large part to extreme weather events, increased demand among sectors, new uses, and the need to keep water in streams and rivers for fish and other animals that rely on the presence of water. As the U.S. legal system struggles to manage water in times of shortage, conflicts and competition for water have amplified in recent years, including litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court. This is not just a western U.S. issue: two out of six current U.S. Supreme Court cases about water allocation between states are in the eastern United States. 

Fowler and Caccese will discuss the need to engage scientists, lawmakers, government agencies, and other relevant parties to educate the public and appropriately manage eastern water resources moving forward. Drawing from the lessons of water management in the western U.S., as well as international examples, they will talk about the necessary tools to create sustainable water management laws for the East that successfully balance human development goals, sound environmental principles, and the unique challenges of this part of the country.

The Mid-Atlantic Water Resources Conference is a collaborative effort between Delaware Water Resources Center at the University of Delaware, the Pennsylvania Water Resources Research Center at Penn State, the Virginia Water Resources Research Center at Virginia Tech University, the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University, and the West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia University.

For more information, contact Lara B. Fowler at lbf10@psu.edu or 814-865-4806.