RECOGNITION

their waterfront resources through a variety of educational and advisory services.

“Yuma is such an example,” Breen said, having seen the “before” riverfront while here some 20 years ago to lead a planning workshop on the community’s vision for the neglected waterfront and was delighted with the work that’s been done since.

“It’s a wonderful job … amazing.” And, she believes, the riverfront redevelopment has had a transformative and vitalizing effect on the community.

There are lessons others said their own communities can learn from. “What’s done in Yuma is simple and lovely,” observed Virginia McLean, president of Friends for Our Riverfront, a volunteer group working to protect and revitalize the Memphis, Tenn., waterfront as green space for public enjoyment while preserving its historic flavor.

“It has respect for the land and respect for the water,” McLean said of the Yuma project. “It seems to have been done out of pride and love rather than for money. It was people-based. The community was so motivated, it was nice it could be brought to fruition. We have a lot to learn from it.”

On this, her first visit to Yuma, McLean was “enthralled.” She found the history interesting, the people gracious and the sunsets — “Oh my goodness.”

She was fascinated by the canal system to water the crops here. The Memphis area also has an agriculture base, “but we don’t have canals,” she said, explaining that the Lower Mississippi River that flows through the area isn’t damned.

And it has a lot more water, she said. “It can rise and fall by 45 feet each year.”

That observation mirrors the theme of the Waterfront Conference, “Challenges for Waterfronts in the 21st Century: Too Much or Too Little,” that was reflected in two tracks of speakers.

One track focused on the Colorado River, a vital source of water for the desert Southwest, but overallocated and shrinking from a lingering drought. The other track examined how communities across the nation are coping with sea level rise, hurricanes and flooding. Both tracks explored challenges and opportunities to conserve water, restore waterfronts and provide for more ecologically sound solutions while better serving the public.

Fran Hegeler, director of marketing and communications for SWA, a landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm, went to sessions in both tracks.

As a San Francisco Bayarea resident, the Colorado River “has been in the background,” she said. “I was thrilled to learn so much about it. What a story.”

Meanwhile, her colleague from SWA’s Houston studio, Matt Baumgarten, was a presenter on the recovery of that city from Hurricane Harvey as well as the story of its award-winning Buffalo Bayou Park project that was designed to flood and did absorb a lot of water from the hurricane, saving property.

Hegeler said she especially enjoyed the presentation by Charles Flynn, executive director of the Yuma Crossing Heritage Area who has spearheaded the riverfront restoration efforts here for 20 years, and hearing about the partnership he forged with the Quechan Tribe in that effort. She also enjoyed hearing Brian Golding Sr., economic development director for the Quechan Tribe, describe how farmers lent their equipment, time and expertise to help clear the land along the river for the restoration effort.

“I loved how through this deep connection to the land they were able to work together,” Hegeler said. “Maybe there’s a lesson for all us. The mixture of different perspectives and the ability to find something in common.”

But she also enjoyed learning what other areas are doing, she said. “One thing I loved about the conference was the diversity of engineers, architects, government representatives, community activists and academicians talking about common concerns. Water issues are a concern around the world … all these groups of people are talking about it. That’s what makes it so powerful. I believe that makes it more likely we’ll come up with solutions.”

On another note, she said she enjoyed the tour of the area. “I had no idea all the winter vegetables I eat grow in Yuma. And the date palms. It was extraordinary to see.”

Anne Castle, who served from 2009 to 2014 as the assistant secretary for water and science in the U.S. Department of the Interior, was at the conference as the keynote speaker who spoke on “The Years of Living Dangerously: Ebbs and Flows of the Colorado River.”

“I find that the more I can talk to people about the river’s hydrology and about the efforts being made to live within its means, the better they understand the problems and the choices available,” she said. “When we need the public’s support for funding or conservation measures, we’ll be better off if we educate people to the kinds of challenges we’re facing and the various measures being taken or considered to meet those challenges.”

She also took the opportunity to attend other sessions on the river to learn more about efforts to restore such places as the Colorado River Delta as well as the impact of the river’s management on riparian vegetation and endangered species.

“I also learned about things people are doing in other places,” said Castle, currently a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment — part of the University of Colorado Boulder law school. “The whole body of knowledge about water, even if you don’t have an immediate direct use for it, something in the back of your mind may help if you run across a problem in the future.”

On a side note, she said she loved the Mexican fiesta dinner held one evening at the Colorado River State Historic Park that featured young folkloric dancers.

Other dinners were held at the Yuma Territorial Prison and at St. Paul’s Cultural Center. And as a finale, conference attendees were able to partake of the Medjool Date Festival held that same weekend on Main Street.

Flynn said one goal of the conference was to showcase that what Yuma has accomplished is worthy of national recognition. Another goal was to showcase that Yuma could put on a world-class event, and it did thanks to the hard work of his staff. A third goal was to inform local people “what a jewel we have here and understand how critical it is for the community to speak up” in support of it.

Of the total of 110 who attended the conference, Flynn estimated that onefourth were local people. One of them was Doug Pancrazi of A.T. Pancrazi Insurance, who sat in on the sessions about the efforts by New York City and Houston to recover from the devastation of Hurricanes Sandy and Harvey. As an insurance agent, he was interested in what federal and state governments were allowing to occur after such disasters.

In addition, he said, “there were some interesting conversations with people from Portland and the Midwest and their perspectives on what they’re doing in their areas to reclaim waterfronts.”

Pancrazi said he attended the conference because the river is such a big piece of the community. “It was kind of surprising that people from the East Coast had no clue what is here. It’s good to get them out here.”

Hegeler concluded: “It was extraordinary. The spirit of the place was so heartwarming. You have a welcoming and lovely community. When you have something like this, it goes beyond the immediate economic impact. It changes people.”