Symposium To Advance Ohio Basin Strategy

Ohio River Basin stakeholders will have an opportunity to impact a basin-wide strategy document during a symposium October 2–4 at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

During the symposium, the Ohio River Basin Alliance (ORBA) will present a draft strategy for the Ohio River Basin. The draft strategy presents the collaborations and priorities of numerous basin-wide organizations and covers parts of 15 states from the southwestern corner of New York to the northeastern corner of Mississippi. Participants in the symposium will be encouraged to provide input on the strategy during facilitated discussions.

The symposium will be hosted by ORBA and the Ohio River Basin Consortium for Research and Education (ORBCRE). This year’s theme is “Managing our Water in a Changing World: From Social, Environmental, and Policy Perspectives.”

The draft basin-wide strategy is the culmination of 10 years of collaboration at 11 prior summits held in five basin states—Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia—that involved hundreds of stakeholders from state, local and federal agencies, industry, academia, and nonprofit organizations in the Ohio River Basin. The basin-wide strategy is scheduled to be completed by March of 2020.

ORBA collaborated with multiple existing authorities to develop this strategic planning initiative. This formal planning process is supported by a Planning to States initiative organized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission and the state of Kentucky.

For more information or to register, visit www.ohio.edu/engineering/civil/orbcre/.