A national water conference is taking place at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh from July 8 to 11.
The One Water Summit is an annual conference organized by the US Water Alliance and hosted this year by Pittsburgh Water. Attendees from across the country, including water utilities, engineering firms, tech companies and nonprofits, will discuss sustainable and inclusive water practices, as well as emerging issues.
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Since 2016, the summit has taken place in different cities across the United States. Scott Berry, senior advisor on policy and external affairs at the US Water Alliance, said each city brings a different “look and feel.” The previous conference in Tucson, Arizona focused on drought mitigation and collaboration with Indigenous tribes.
“This year we have a very different climate, a really different place,” Berry said. “Instead of dealing with water supply issues here, you’re dealing with a lot more legacy pollution and watershed management. Rather than trying to figure out how are we going to get enough water for the city to survive and to grow, you’re talking about how do we manage three different watersheds that all come together at the confluence of the city.”
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The Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio watersheds all meet in Pittsburgh. Since watersheds can stretch across regions comprising multiple communities, Berry said managing them requires coordination across different local governments and the ability to work on a broader scale.
“Water doesn’t care about political boundaries. It doesn’t care where the city line is, but it does care how all of the things upstream work … and all of the downstream impacts to what happens upstream,” Berry said. “To make sure that you’re creating this balance between upstream and downstream, you have to manage [the watershed] collectively as if it’s a single unit.”
During the conference, attendees will visit sites across the Pittsburgh area, like the Frick Environmental Center, which achieved the most rigorous green building certification. Other session topics include Pittsburgh’s history with water management, funding for water infrastructure and AI.
“The rise of AI – and the data centers that power it and the water that is needed to power those data centers – is one of those things that’s going to be huge, and it’s one of the topics that I think is going to be one of the most popular,” Berry said.
Additionally, Berry said it’s unclear how policy and funding changes under the Trump administration will impact the water sector, but the topic will also be driving conversations at this year’s summit, particularly when it comes to the bigger picture of implementing nationwide solutions.
“Thinking about climate change, affordability, funding, governance and policy, all of those challenges are going to be harder because the solutions to those are going to have to face that uphill battle of how do we scale our approach differently across all these different actors,” Berry said.
