Secretary Ben Grumbles:
ADVANCING O n e Wa t e r
Management in Maryland
Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Ben Grumbles: I worked on Capitol Hill for a decade and a half on water legislation and policy in the U.S. House of Representatives, then served as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for water, heading up the agency’s national programs, and then served as director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. I learned a lot about western water
6 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
T
he Maryland Department of the Environment protects and restores the environment for the health and wellbeing of all Marylanders, with particular emphasis on the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed. Today, one of the department’s main priorities is implementing integrated water management. Water reuse is a major part of this initiative and has a role in increasing water supply, replenishing the local aquifer, preventing saltwater intrusion, and reducing pollution. In this interview, Ben Grumbles, secretary of the environment for the State of Maryland, speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about his department’s environmental initiatives, the importance of water reuse, and the challenges of implementing ambitious reuse initiatives across the state.
through those experiences. When I moved back east, I served as president of the U.S. Water Alliance. Governor Larry Hogan nominated me, and the Maryland Senate confirmed me as Maryland’s environment secretary in 2015. Marylanders are focused on water. Over 90 percent of the state drains into the Chesapeake Bay, and all Marylanders are concerned with the quality and quantity of the water that goes into our streams, rivers, aquifers, and the bay itself. Westerners understand well that in large drainage basins, there
are debates between upstream and downstream water users. A major portion of what we focus on in Maryland is the quality of the water in the basin, both within our state and above us in the huge six-state Chesapeake Bay drainage area. Governor Hogan is focused on working closely with the state’s number 1 industry, agriculture, and the towns and cities that form the fabric of communities throughout Maryland in order to accomplish this. Kris Polly: Please tell us about your water reuse initiative.
