June to September 2025 Edition
President's Message By Greg McLaughlin, AWRA-WA Section President
Greetings fellow AWRA-WA’ers and welcome to Fall of 2025! You all have been busy since our last newsletter in May. AWRA-WA student chapters at Central Washington University and the University of Washington are as busy as ever. We are lucky in Washington state to have two active student chapters, both of which are vibrant and have excellent leadership. AWRA-WA also awarded 3 student fellowships in 2025, totaling $7,500. So congratulations to Kaylyn Stewart from the University of Washington, Abdisa Kebebew from Washington State University, and Maggie Egan of Central Washington University. Many of these students will be at the 2025 state conference as volunteers or presenters during a special student section, so be sure to introduce yourselves and congratulate them on their excellent work. 145 of you attended virtual meetings on the 2025 drought and the Washington state legislative update, a summer social, and a field tour of the Cle Elum Fish Passage Facility. Special thanks to the Events Committee, Caroline Mellor at Ecology, AWRA-WA Board member Noah Wentzel, Vorterra Water, and the AWRA-CWU student chapter for organizing those events. As usual, the 2025 state conference committee has put in tireless work, with exceptional leadership from conference co-chairs Anurag Mishra and Robin Nimmer, and the rest of the committee. The conference, titled "Rethinking the Water Year: Aligning Supply and Demand in a Changing Water Resource Landscape," will be Tuesday, October 14 at the Mountaineers Seattle Program Center, and you can read more about it on the conference website. Registration is open and early bird rates are still active, so complete your registration now so you don't miss out! The conference is diving deeper into questions of drought and climate change, with a specific focus on hydrographs and how past, current and future management decisions are evolving to respond to increased need for resiliency in our water resources. And if you want to learn more about the 2025 drought, check out Tom Ring's article in this newsletter. And not to bury the lede in the hyporheic zone of this newsletter, but AWRA-WA is a big award winner! Thanks to the great work of AWRA-WA over the last few years, not the least of which included hosting the AWRA 2022 Annual Water Resources Conference, you all have been selected to receive the award for the nation's most outstanding state section for 2025. I will attend the national conference in Denver, CO in November to receive this award on behalf of you all, with special thanks to the excellent work of the student chapters, AWRA-WA committee chairs, and tireless leadership of past-presidents Kathryn Taiclet, Jessica Kuchan, and Jenna Mandell-Rice and AWRA National Board President Rabia Ahmed. This is an exciting time to be a part of AWRA-WA, so tell your friends, raise a glass to celebrate the achievements this year, and see you all at the conference in October! See you all around the AWRA-WA water cooler! Greg McLaughlin |
