RACINE, Wisconsin – As World Water Day 2010 was observed today across the globe, The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread announced a new initiative to focus long-overdue attention on the emerging freshwater crisis within the United States.

Intensified by climate change, this “quiet crisis” threatens access to safe drinking water, the reliable supply of surface water and groundwater resources for agricultural, industrial and recreational uses, and the health of natural ecosystems, according to experts convened by The Foundation. They say it also has significant environmental, economic and quality-of-life implications.

The Johnson Foundation’s Freshwater Forum has so far convened 100 freshwater experts representing more than 80 business, government, non-governmental and scientific organizations at a series of conferences to explore the dimensions of the emerging crisis and propose potential solutions. Conference findings are contributing to a new national agenda for action to put the United States on a course toward sustainable, safe water supplies by 2025.

That agenda will be shaped by leaders in business, government and non-governmental organizations invited to The Johnson Foundation Freshwater Summit to be held June 9 at the historic Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin. This call to action will be delivered to the Obama administration, Congress, the business community, NGOs, the media and others.

“Over and over we have heard that U.S. freshwater policy has lurched from crisis to crisis over the last 30 years without a national strategy or set of clear, actionable national goals,” said Roger Dower, Foundation president. “We hope the Wingspread Summit can be a catalyst for fulfilling this vital public need, and do so in a way that brings together diverse interests committing to consensus solutions.”

The Foundation’s decision to focus its resources on freshwater issues at this time is based in part on the view of science and policy experts that earlier progress achieved from the landmark 1970s federal legislation, including the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, may have led to complacency in the face of current environmental and economic realities.

“We no longer see pictures of rivers on fire, most point sources of pollution are treated before being discharged into our lakes and streams, and we have markedly decreased or eliminated many critical waterborne diseases,” said Dower.

“But this success may have fostered a dangerous notion that we have successfully addressed the freshwater issue; that we can now ‘check that box’ and move on. Far from it. Quietly, a crisis has been building that has yet to capture the full attention of leading public and private policymakers or the American public. We ignore this ‘quiet crisis’ at our peril,” Dower said.