This year's American Water Resources Association's annual conference venue is one of the most exciting places to be involved in water issues.

This year's American Water Resources Association's (AWRA) annual conference venue is one of the most exciting places to be involved in water issues. It takes place Nov. 12-15 in Albuquerque, N.M. The Southwest is a fitting location for AWRA members and guests to meet and discuss their multidisciplinary interests in local, national, and international water resources. Many aspects of water - cultural, ecological, legal, economic, artistic, social, hydrological, climatological and geological - come together in the Southwest as they do in few other places. It is apropos that a regional water plan involving a myriad of stakeholders and issues currently is being developed for the Middle Rio Grande basin, home to Albuquerque and the 2001 AWRA Annual Conference.

There are many water issues and questions in the Southwest. How much of our ground water exceeds EPA's recently-proposed standard for arsenic? Is traditional agriculture threatened with extinction by urbanization? How much ground and surface water contamination has been caused by defense related industries, agriculture, and mining? Is climate change a hydrological sword of Damocles? Will Native American water rights complicate water planning and management? Has prior appropriation, the "first in time, first in right" approach to water allocation outlived its utility? If so, what should replace it? How much water do endangered species need? Will transboundary water problems promote cooperation or confrontation? Who owns the water? Will water marketing bring us utopia or the nightmare that is California's energy market?

On behalf of the American Water Resources Association and the New Mexico State Section, I invite you to be part of this upcoming meeting in Albuquerque. It will be a very rewarding experience both professionally and personally.

For more information, call 540-687-8390 or visit www.awra.org.

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