Event

Gustavo Alanís-Ortega

JPAC Chair

Gustavo Alanís Ortega received his law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where since 1994 he has taught the environmental law course as a full professor at the law school. Alanís Ortega also holds a master’s degree in international law from the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, DC. Since August 1993, he has been president of the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Environmental Law Center—CEMDA), a public interest environmental law firm based in Mexico City. He is also active as a columnist for El Universal, one of Mexico’s most widely read and influential newspapers; and columnist for the bimonthly journal Derecho ambiental y ecología published by the Centro de Estudios Jurídicos y Ambientales (CEJA). He is a member of the seventh cohort of the Leadership on Environment and Development Program (LEAD) of El Colegio de México.

Alanís Ortega serves on the boards of directors of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) and the World Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) of the IUCN Environmental Law Programme. He is also a member of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), the Climate Change Advisory Committee in Mexico, and the Environmental Law Advisory Group at the Department of Sustainable Development of the Organization of American States (OAS). Between April 2008 and January 2015, appointed by the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, he served on the Citizen Board of the Office of the Environmental and Zoning Prosecutor (Procuraduría Ambiental y del Ordenamiento Territorial—PAOT) and, from 2009 to 2016, he was part of the Public Participation Group of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which contributed to make the company more socially responsible.

In December 2012, Alanís-Ortega was named to the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) for the third time, having previously served from 2001 to 2004 and 2008 to 2011.

Frederick A. Laskey

Executive Director, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA)

Since 2001, Frederick A. Laskey has served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), which provides drinking water and wastewater services for 2.5 million people in Massachusetts.

He manages the 1,200 employees who operate this important infrastructure and has overseen $2 billion of projects to complete the much heralded clean-up of Boston Harbor, including the Charles River, and to upgrade the drinking water system to meet the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under his leadership, the MWRA has been recognized nationally for its sustainability and renewable energy initiatives.

Mr. Laskey graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Boston and lives in Medford with his wife, Donna, and four children.

Felicia Marcus

Moderator
JPAC Member

Felicia Marcus was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as a board member of the State Water Resources Control Board (Board), and was sworn in on July 2, 2012. Before her appointment to the Water Board, she was the Western Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental leader in bringing science, law, and policy expertise to solving our world’s pressing environmental and conservation challenges. Prior to joining NRDC, Ms. Marcus was the Executive VP/COO of the Trust for Public Land, a national non-profit devoted to conserving land for people.

During the Clinton Administration, she had been administrator of USEPA Region IX, where she was known for her work in bringing unlikely allies together for environmental progress and for making the agency more responsive to the communities it serves, particularly Indian Tribes, communities of color, local government, and business. While at EPA, Ms. Marcus worked extensively on the range of environmental issues under EPA’s jurisdiction, most heavily in air quality, Bay-Delta water, tribal, and US-Mexico border issues. Prior to that, Ms. Marcus headed Los Angeles’ Department of Public Works at a time when the City went from garnering lawsuits to garnering national awards for environmental excellence. Ms. Marcus came to Public Works after extensive experience as a public interest lawyer and community organizer in Los Angeles.

She currently serves on many non-profit boards and advisory councils, including the Public Policy Institute of California, Urban Habitat, Kesten Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, and the Center for Diversity and the Environment. She is also an Obama Administration appointee to the Commission on Environmental Cooperation—Joint Public Advisory Council (US, Mexico, Canada) and was a Schwarzenneger Administration appointee to the Delta Stewardship Council prior to her appointment to that board.

Christopher Hilkene

President, Clean Water Foundation

Christopher Hilkene is a Canadian environmental professional who has worked in the areas public policy and communications for almost 20 years. He is currently the president of the Clean Water Foundation. His recent policy work has focused on management frameworks related to climate change and water security, groundwater sustainability, and nutrient recovery and reuse. He is the co-creator of the successful I Don’t Flush campaign, which has helped to reduce the volume of waste pharmaceuticals entering water systems across Canada.

In 2014, Mr. Hilkene was appointed to the Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission and serves as the Canadian Co-Chair on Emerging Issues. In 2007, he became the youngest person ever appointed to the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) and served as Chair of the NRTEE’s Water Programme.

Mr. Hilkene teaches public policy-related courses on sustainable development, water management, and the Great Lakes at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. He volunteers as the chair of Pollution Probe, serves as governor of Ryerson University, as director of the Ontario Environmental Industry Association, and as an advisory board member of Green Living Enterprises and the George and Helen Vari Foundation. In 2012, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, as part of Watercan’s Kilimanjaro Climb for Life campaign. The campaign raised $300,000 for clean water and sanitation projections in East Africa.

Mr. Hilkene holds an honours bachelor of arts degree from the University of Western Ontario and a master of environmental studies degree from York University.

Georgita J. Ruiz Michael

Executive Director, Tierra de Aves, A.C.

Currently executive director of Tierra de Aves, A.C., Georgita J. Ruiz Michael has had a long career devoted to environmental conservation. For more than two decades, she has paid particular attention to water quality and management issues in rural communities, providing simple and inexpensive artisanal solutions, such as dry sanitation and greywater treatment systems known as SUTRANE systems. In the 1990s, she participated in numerous community workshops to build these systems.

From 2009 to 2014, she took part in the evaluation of the ravine habitat in western Mexico City and its identification as an “area of environmental value,” given the environmental services the ravines provide, including water table recharge. She has also participated in the definition of erosion prevention and control strategies using de vetiver grass and gabion dams on the Oaxacan coast, which for 20 years has been affected by meteorological phenomena such as increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes. She is currently studying bird migration patterns in Minatitlán, Veracruz, as indicators of global climate change.

Wing Tam

Assistant Division Manager, Watershed Protection Division, City of Los Angeles

Wing K. Tam, P.E.
Green Infrastructure Program
LA Sanitation—City of Los Angeles

Wing Tam is a program manager with LA Sanitation-City of Los Angeles. He is responsible for stormwater management and watershed protection programs, facilities, and advance planning to meet water quality standards.

Mr. Tam has been a leader in the development of green infrastructure, urban runoff and stormwater management for over 25 years that led to the first integrated, multipurpose green solutions designed to improve water quality, habitat, water supply, and open space—creating healthier and sustainable communities. He directs the Green Infrastructure Program, including Rainwater Harvesting, Green Streets, and Clean Water Bond to implement sustainable, environmentally responsible, multi-benefit and integrated water solutions to enhance the natural and built environment. This has led to the US Environmental Protection Agency to select the City of Los Angeles as a Model Green Infrastructure Partner City for its demonstrated leadership in use of green infrastructures.

He has served in various leadership roles of many professional organizations, committees, task forces, and commissions at the local, regional, state and national levels including the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), Water Environment Federation (WEF), California Water Environment Association (CWEA), California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA), and a Governing Board Member of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission (SMBRC).

Mr. Tam is a Registered Professional Civil Engineer in the State of California. He holds bachelor’s and master’s of science degrees in civil engineering—water resources and environment.

Gustavo Carvajal

JPAC member

Mr. Gustavo Carvajal Isunza is a partner in the Solcargo law firm, practicing environmental law. He is also a professor of administrative law and environmental law at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and has participated in citizen councils at governmental institutions and boards of directors for nongovernmental organizations. He holds a law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University.

Roberto Romero Ramírez

Director, Water Program, Fundación Gonzalo Río Arronte

A Mexican biologist out of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and candidate for a master’s degree in comprehensive basin management from Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Roberto Romero Ramírez is a professor at the UNAM Faculty of Science and a collaborator with the school’s Herpetarium. He has worked with various civil society organizations on wildlife and natural resource conservation and management projects. As a collaborator at the Center for Private-Sector Sustainable Development Studies of the Business Coordinating Council (CESPEDES-CCE), he has also participated in several projects, forums and meetings regarding programs, policies and strategies to facilitate the business sector’s access to sustainable development schemes.

He currently works for the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, as Director of the Water Program, where he is responsible for the oversight and technical assessment of project execution, in addition to participating in various national and international forums on water issues and their possible solutions, at the global, national and local level.

Isabelle Thomas

Associate Professor, Institut d'urbanisme, Université de Montréal

Isabelle Thomas is an associate professor of urban planning at the University of Montréal. She obtained her doctorate at the Sorbonne (Paris) with a dissertation on urban sprawl and the restructuring of industrial wastelands in Ohio cities. She has also published a work on that subject entitled, “Urban Sprawl and Industrial Wastelands, the Reverse of the American Ideal,” for which she was awarded the Eugène Gallois Prize by the Geographic Society of Paris.

Prior to her engagement at the University of Montréal, Ms. Thomas was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Louisville (KY) from 2001–2003 and held professorships in Houston and New Orleans. She was also a guest professor at Virginia Tech.

Ms. Thomas specializes in sustainable urban development, analyses of urban vulnerability, resilient urban reconstruction after catastrophes, and adaptation to climatic changes. At present she is working on international comparative research projects aimed at learning more about the problems of adaptation and urban resilience.

Carlton Ray

Long-term Control Plan, Clean Rivers, District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water)

Carlton Ray is the director for DC Water’s Combined Sewer Overflow Long-term Control Plan, called the DC Clean Rivers Project. Mr. Ray is responsible for implementing DC Water’s 20-year, $2.6-billion federally mandated consent decree to control Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). The Clean Rivers Project includes the development and construction of water quality improvements, including a system of large tunnels along the Anacostia River, Rock Creek and Potomac River, which capture and convey combined sewage overflow for proper treatment at the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility and large-scale green infrastructure in the District (designed to manage nearly 500 acres of impervious surface). The 80+ person DC Clean Rivers technical staff consists of engineers with expertise in tunnels, large underground structures, hydraulics, environmental, water quality, QA/QC, geotechnical, and green infrastructure or low impact development, and tunnel safety expertise.

Previously, Mr. Ray worked as chief engineer, deputy director and CSO program lead at the Department of Public Works in Indianapolis, Indiana. He led the engineering team that successfully developed and negotiated a $1.8 billion consent decree between the City of Indianapolis, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to address CSOs as well as sanitary and MS4 NPDES permits.

Mr. Ray holds a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Auburn University.

Paolo Solano Tovar

Legal Officer

Gustavo Alanís-Ortega

JPAC Chair

Austin Blackmon

Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space, City of Boston

Austin Blackmon is Boston’s newly appointed Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space. Most recently, Blackmon served as Interim Head of Project Finance at Terraverde Renewable Partners, a clean energy consulting firm. His experience also includes positions at C12 Energy, Wells Fargo Securities’ Energy Group, and Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization consulting practice. He also advised US Renewables Group by evaluating potential investments in waste recovery solutions. Blackmon is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Business School.

Minister Leona Aglukkaq

Closing Remarks

Leona Aglukkaq was first elected to the House of Commons in 2008 and re-elected in 2011.

In July 2013, Ms. Aglukkaq was appointed Minister of the Environment, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister for the Arctic Council.

Administrator Gina McCarthy

Concluding Remarks and Passing the Torch

The CEC Council member from the United States is Gina McCarthy, appointed as EPA Administrator by President Obama in July 2013. She had previously served as Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation since 2009 and has been a leading advocate for common-sense strategies to protect public health and the environment.

Secretary Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo

New Council Chair and Announcement of 2016 Council Session