Holman Elected Chair Of State Water Infrastructure Commission

DURHAM, N.C. – Bill Holman, director of state policy at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, has been elected chair of the North Carolina State Water Infrastructure Commission.

Holman will serve a one-year term as chair, effective immediately.

The State Water Infrastructure Commission was created in 2005 to identify the state's water infrastructure needs, develop a plan to meet those needs, and monitor the implementation of the plan.

One of the commission’s key objectives for 2008, Holman says, is to coordinate a set of eight common criteria funding agencies can use to evaluate the merits of applications for state grants and loans that they receive from local governments to help finance the costs of drinking water, waste water and storm water projects.

“We’re trying to get all the funders on the same page when it comes to assessing things like what ‘efficient use of water’ and ‘financially sound’ mean,” Holman says. “We also want to encourage regional approaches to addressing drinking water, waste water and storm water problems.”

Commission membership consists of 13 state and local leaders, including the Secretary of Commerce; the Secretary or Environment and Natural Resources; the president of the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center; the executive director of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund; the executive director of the League of Municipalities; the executive director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners; and the director of the Local Government Commission, or their representatives. Six other commissioners are appointed from the scientific, engineering, business, non-profit and public sectors.