Warren Liebold – We Will Miss You.
We are saddened to hear the news of Warren Liebold’s passing on August 20th. Warren was a colleague, friend, and mentor to all of us at Ashokan. Nothing happened in the field of water conservation without his involvement. We first met when I was working for HPD and Warren was brought on by then DEP Commissioner Al Appleton to promote a new DEP rebate program. I assumed it would go nowhere. A year later it grew into the largest water conservation program in the United States, and as a result, water consumption plummeted in NYC. He realized that greater reductions could be obtained by holding property owners responsible for their consumption, and rolled NYC’s water meter installation program. He then decided to provide consumers with transparency tools to monitor consumption and created New York’s Automatic Meter reading Program. Due to his perseverance, everything he did was a great success.
In 1997, I discussed opening a water services company with him and he recommended that I name it “Ashokan”.
For twenty years, we discuss food and film, but I was awed by Warren’s encyclopedic knowledge of water conservation. Everyone in the industry knew that if you attended a water conservation seminar, Warren would be speaking and announcing a new program. No building code relating to water took place without Warren. We worked together on NYC’s Adoption of the International Plumbing Code, The Mayor’s Green Code Task Force, Water Reuse guidelines, etc. If you live in NYC and take the water for granted, you owe a debt of gratitude to Warren Liebold. He will be missed.
Water Watch NYC 