By Sandeep Burman
Greetings! I am very pleased to be writing my first letter as the MGWA President. It is a great honor to serve as the President for 2023 of this important organization. For over forty years MGWA has played a unique and critical role in promoting the scientific and policy aspects of groundwater, providing a unified voice for the community of dedicated groundwater professionals across many disciplines, providing groundwater education to all, and providing an unequalled forum for continued learning and information sharing. I have been a member of MGWA for over thirty years, starting from graduate school, and have always relied on the association as a great technical resource and for the professional community it provides. I therefore consider it a privilege to serve on the MGWA Board and I hope to give back some small measure of everything that I have gained from the association over the years. When then Past-President Tony Runkel approached me to consider running for President, this thought of doing my part to help MGWA stay strong and effective helped get me over the initial hesitation in taking this role. I am humbled to follow in the footsteps of the many distinguished groundwater professionals who have made the time in their busy personal and professional lives to serve on the MGWA Board and keep the association strong and vibrant. It is this strong spirit of volunteerism that has helped MGWA flourish for so many years and undoubtedly will for years to come.
I am greatly indebted to Tony Runkel and Jeré Mohr, the former and current past-presidents, who helped with my onboarding to the MGWA Board, and mentored me over the past year when I served as the President-Elect. During their tenures as MGWA presidents in 2021 and 2022, they also very ably guided MGWA through both the pandemic and then the transition out of it. I anticipate leaning heavily on Past-President Jeré Mohr for his support and guidance throughout my time as President. I would also like to thank Vanessa Barratta for her excellent and diligent service as the Treasurer during 2022. For 2023, it is a great pleasure to welcome to the Board Rebecca Higgins as the President-Elect and Eric Bunge as the Treasurer. Having worked before with Rebecca, I know she will bring her usual creativity and energy to the Board, and we have already seen Eric transition very seamlessly and efficiently into the Treasurer role. We are also very fortunate to have Sharon Kroening continuing her term as the Newsletter Editor and Michael Ginsbach return for another term as the Secretary. Their steady continued leadership in these positions is a great asset and greatly appreciated. Finally, a big shout out to the MGWA Management team of Jennie Leete and Sean Hunt for flawlessly executing all of the many vital administrative functions that keeps the association going year after year. They are the one constant in an ever-changing world and without them MGWA would not function as well as it has done for so many years.
Speaking of change, adaptability and flexibility have long been hallmarks of MGWA over its forty-year history. I was reminded of how valuable those qualities are recently. Last month I was in Kolkata, India, visiting my mother. It was a busy two weeks, taking care of numerous issues for my mother, and it was nice to move around the bustling city of banyan trees, autorickshaws, and tropical fruits (see pictures) in the eighty-degree weather in short sleeves. The two weeks went by quickly though and I arrived back in Minnesota just in time to pull on the heavy winter gear and tackle clearing the 20” snowfall of late February! It was quite the transition and exercise in adaptability indeed! MGWA and the members have also had to adapt to two years of very successful virtual conferences before transitioning to the long-awaited return to an in-person conference in November 2022. The 2022 Fall Conference was universally well received but embedded in all the positive feedback was a noticeable thread of members missing some of the ease of attendance and peace of mind in terms of health and safety that was a feature of the virtual meetings of the past two years. We know that the pandemic has left an indelible impact in terms of establishing virtual meetings and remote work as permanent features. Hybrid meetings have evolved as another common feature of the post-pandemic world as a means of simultaneously accommodating preferences for in-person and virtual meetings. After evaluating available options, the MGWA Board concluded it would be difficult to find a venue for a reasonable cost that could host a high-quality hybrid meeting where both the in person and virtual attendees would have equivalent experiences. The Board therefore decided an acceptable compromise worth exploring would be to have one virtual meeting and one in person meeting in 2023. Options for the future could then be reassessed again based on member feedback. The Spring 2023 Conference will therefore be a virtual event, and the Fall 2023 Conference is being planned to be held in person.
You should all have received the save the date note for the conference, and it is also on the MGWA website. The virtual nature of the Spring Conference lends itself very well to the topic – A Drinking Water Journey: an exploration of unique water supplies across Minnesota. This will allow us to have a variety of speakers from across the state speaking on the public water supply projects in their area. My recent trip to Kolkata highlighted how fortunate we are here in Minnesota, where safe and sufficient drinking water for everyone is a reality and sometimes taken for granted. Kolkata is a mega city spread over 700 square miles and with a population of over 15 million. It is actually fairly well positioned for water resources, given its riverine location, alluvial aquifers, and with abundant rainfall. However, the city is beset with both quality and quantity issues as far as drinking water is concerned. Trust in the municipal water quality is at an all time low, most homes and businesses always boil the water prior to consumption or have installed various kinds of filters. Restaurants and hotels only serve bottled water or water they have filtered on the premises. The use of private wells to supplement an unreliable municipal supply is common, leading to unregulated ground water depletion. Here at home in Minnesota, three out of every four of us rely on ground water for our primary drinking water. A clean and reliable supply of drinking water on demand is something that we all take for granted, but we do not always understand and appreciate the challenges involved in producing and delivering it to our taps. Drinking water is an artifact of both the natural and built environments. The professionals who work hard to ensure that there is indeed safe and sufficient drinking water for everyone, everywhere in Minnesota, must successfully navigate and manage both these realms. The Spring Conference will present the audience with an opportunity to hear from these practitioners as they describe some unique drinking water supplies from across the state, covering not just the hydrogeology but also the operational and logistical details that are equally important and interesting. We will hear from geologists, engineers, planners, water utility managers and others on the scientific and operational basics of some of Minnesota’s most interesting drinking water supplies. I am looking forward to hearing some very interesting presentations and appreciating all the work that goes into allowing me to drink straight from my kitchen sink without any worries!
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