September to December 2026 Edition
Opening Keynote: Washington's Water Future Initiative with Washington Department of Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller
By Kensey Daly, P.E. | Jacobs Engineering
Washington Department of Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller giving opening keynote. Photo credit: Tom Ring
The 2026 AWRA‑WA State Conference opened with a keynote rooted in collaboration, shared responsibility, and the collective work required to secure Washington’s water future. Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller, appointed by Governor Bob Ferguson, introduced Washington’s Water Future Initiative as a statewide effort to ensure Washington has enough clean, reliable water to sustain communities, farms, fish, and ecosystems for generations. The initiative launched earlier this year following Washington’s fourth consecutive statewide drought and is built around regional roundtables designed to listen first and craft policy recommendations grounded in lived experience.
Sixkiller described a year of extremes: unprecedented curtailments in the Yakima Basin that left only the most senior water rights holders with access, followed by two atmospheric rivers that caused severe flooding in the same year. These events wiped out already fragile snowpack, and Washington declared another drought this April. He emphasized that the state is seeing more water at the wrong times and less when it is most needed. Stories of farmers adapting to half their usual water supply, repairing canals, improving irrigation efficiency, and exploring groundwater injection illustrated resilience already underway.
More than 1,000 participants have engaged in the Water Future roundtables, including Tribal leaders, utilities, irrigation districts, NGOs, and technical experts. People are ready for solutions that reflect the realities they are living with and the urgency they feel on the ground. Their input is shaping a shared vision centered on conservation, reuse, storage, efficiency, and floodplain restoration, drawing lessons from places such as Yakima, the Dungeness, and Walla Walla. Sixkiller shared a Cherokee concept that he carries with him, gadugi, meaning working together for the common good. He closed by noting that even foundational tools like the Clean Water Act, now 54 years old, must evolve alongside changing conditions. Audience questions focused on supporting communities with limited resources, identifying low‑hanging fruit, and improving access to funding.
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