White House Unveils IAPMO’s Drought Toolkit

WASHINGTON, D.C. –White House officials recently announced the release of IAPMO’s Drought Toolkit as part of the White House Water Summit that celebrated World Water Day.

IAPMO’s Drought Toolkit provides plug-and-play resources to achieving a minimum of 20 percent water savings at no cost to users. It can be found at http://www.iapmo.org/Drought_Toolkit/. IAPMO created it to help local and state jurisdictions find ways to achieve consequential water conservation simply and cost-effectively. The toolkit is part of a larger White House water commitment document for the purpose of helping the Unites States address its water crisis: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/White_House_Water_Summit_commitments_report_032216.pdf.

The White House also issued a Presidential Memorandum, “Building National Capabilities for Long-Term Drought Resilience: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies,” which can be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/21/presidential-memorandum-building-national-capabilities-longterm-drought. This Presidential Memorandum supports the newly unveiled Action Plan: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/drought_resilience_action_plan_2016_final.pdf.

Recent events, including record-breaking drought in the west, severe flooding in the southeast and the water-quality crisis in Flint, Michigan, have elevated a national dialogue on the state of our nation’s water resources and infrastructure, the White House said. In response, the Obama administration took World Water Day, designated as March 22 each year since 1993, as an opportunity to host its first White House Water Summit to shine a spotlight on the importance of cross-cutting, creative solutions to solving the water problems of today, as well as to highlight the innovative strategies that will catalyze change across the ways in which we use, conserve, protect and think about water in the years to come.