Public Policy
Our Water Future
"Current state and federal water policies are wholly inadequate," asserts John Cronin, Beacon Institute Fellow and Senior Fellow in Environmental Affairs at Pace University's new Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, "if clean water, functioning ecosystems, and sustainable economic development are society's goals."
According to Cronin, new 21st century policies that embrace, encourage and reward innovation must be at the center of water resource management. And, unlike laws written in the 1970s, a new comprehensive water policy should integrate its goals for ecological, human and economic health.
The Pacific Institute estimates that between 36 million and 70 million people, mostly children in the developing world, will die from water pollution-related diseases by 2020. The New York Times reports that as many as 19.5 million Americans are made ill each year by biological contaminants in drinking water.
In New York's Hudson River, home to Beacon Institute, thousands of tons of municipal and industrial wastes are dumped annually. Sewage overflows are commonplace and people routinely swim near industrial and municipal outfalls. At least seven major fish species are in decline and health advisories about toxins in fish have been in place for 34 years. At least one city has a drinking water intake within two miles of its sewage plant discharge, and another has an intake 35 miles downriver of a PCB Superfund site.
No single discipline can cure the world's environmental ills. And no policies based on outdated technologies can provide the sweeping change necessary to address the enormity of the water crisis our world now faces.
Beacon Institute is bringing together some of the best minds in the not-for-profit, corporate, research, academic and government sectors to create a new era of policy that encourages innovation, protects our waterways and protects our communities. The Institute is launching a science, technology and environmental policy center in collaboration with Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies and its Center for Environmental Legal Studies. The concept for this policy center began in the former Pace Academy for the Environment, founded in 2002, which has counted amongst its achievements the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges & Universities.
In its new incarnation as Pace University's first center of excellence, the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies gathers experts in science, law, politics, ethics, health care, technology and business from the university community and beyond for their combined expertise to generate and contribute innovative and integrated solutions to environmental problems.
Key experts from Pace University—including John Cronin, Pace President Stephen J. Friedman, Pace Academy Director Michelle Land, University Professor Nicholas Robinson and Alexandra Dunn, Esq, Executive Director & General Counsel of the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators among several others—have been involved deeply with Beacon Institute.
