Distilled | Conversation with Felicia Marcus, water‑policy expert and Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University, Water in the West

The question is, simply, will water become the future hot topic only after more people have died and more has been disrupted, including economies, or will we wake up fast enough to work? And I see some motion in that, but not fast enough.”

In the final episode of this season, host Will Sarni, Practice Lead, Water and Nature at Earth Finance, sits down with a new guest to discuss what it really takes to keep water systems working — especially when the stakes are high, the politics are hard, and the impacts are impossible to ignore.

Felicia Marcus, water‑policy expert and Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University, Water in the West, joined Will to reflect on her accidental career in water, what it means to lead when systems are under strain, and why water sits at the very front line of climate risk.

Watch the full video episode below or keep reading for the write-up.

Felicia on how she got hooked on water 

Felicia describes her career as anything but carefully planned. Water, she says, found her — and kept pulling her back even when she tried to move on.

Trained as a public interest lawyer with a focus on environmental protection and social justice, she first entered the water world through wastewater. Working with a small legal team that would later become Heal the Bay, Felicia helped take on one of Los Angeles’ most entrenched pollution problems: untreated sewage flowing into Santa Monica Bay. 

Sewage was my entry drug into the water world. But water chose me repeatedly. I tried to escape it a couple of times, and I just couldn’t do it. I kept being called back.”

That experience reshaped how she thought about impact. Advocacy mattered, but so did implementation. It wasn’t enough to point out what was broken — someone had to help fix it. Over time, her role evolved from lawyer to manager, mediator, and regulator, eventually leading her into senior public-sector leadership roles at the city, state, and federal levels.

Looking back, Felicia sees her path less as a straight line and more as a series of forks in the road; moments where saying yes to responsibility opened doors she never expected.

Felicia on leading through California’s worst drought in 100 years

Felicia’s time as Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board coincided with the worst drought in a century — a moment that tested every part of the system.

Her leadership during this crisis leaned on understanding political reality, empathizing with competing needs, and finding openings where progress was actually possible.

I think a lot of people have this idea of what the perfect world is and what ought to be done. And they just keep repeating it louder and slower at anyone who will listen. What you really need to do is think about what needs to happen and where the opportunity is.” 

During the drought, the state took unprecedented steps: mandating urban water conservation, stepping in to support small communities running out of water, advancing groundwater management, and setting statewide standards for water recycling. 
Transparency was key to working with communities to make all this happen successfully. They published monthly conservation data publicly, ran robust public processes, and invested in media that turned the idea of water savings into a shared effort rather than a top-down order.
ust. Creating these “safe spaces” requires consistent investment. 

Felicia on public servants as the unsung heroes of water

One of Felicia’s strongest convictions is that the people who keep water systems running are among the most underappreciated professionals.

Engineers, operators, maintenance professionals, and utility managers — the people responsible for drinking water, wastewater, flood protection, and long-term resilience — rarely look for attention. In fact, many take pride in being invisible. If water is taken for granted, it usually means the system is working. But that invisibility comes at a cost.

The engineers were proud of the fact that people took water and wastewater for granted, and they never got any credit for anything. They were just proud that people could live their lives.”

Felicia argues that when the public doesn’t understand what it takes to deliver safe, reliable water, it becomes harder to secure the investment needed to maintain and modernize infrastructure. Pipes age, treatment standards rise, and climate risks increase. And yet the systems people rely on every day are expected to quietly keep up.
She believes the water sector needs to tell its story better — not to create heroes, but to help communities understand the value of water, what they’re paying for, what’s at risk, and why long-term planning matters. 

Felicia on water as the front line of climate change

Looking ahead, Felicia is candid about the challenges facing the American West — especially in the Colorado River Basin. Decades-old agreements, political fatigue, and physical water scarcity are colliding in ways that make easy consensus unlikely and progress slow, even as risks to millions of people and trillions of dollars in economic activity continue to mount.

She believes that solving basin-wide challenges requires intervention on multiple levels: federal leadership that provides political cover, regulatory frameworks that reflect physical reality, and greater visibility for urban water agencies that are already investing heavily in resilience, often without much public recognition.

Water is the bleeding edge of climate change. Water is where people get hurt. Floods, droughts, hurricanes, and increasing wildfire. That’s all water and climate change dependent.”

Despite all this, Felicia has no reservations about what the future of water looks like. Water, she says, is where climate change becomes real. The floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes we’re experiencing aren’t abstract projections, but lived experiences that are tied directly to water systems under strain.

She believes that it’s inevitable that water will move closer to the center of public policy dialogue and economic decision-making. The open question is whether that shift happens proactively, or only after greater loss of life and economic disruption force the issue.

In the face of these huge challenges — and the fact she sees motion happening but not quickly enough — Felicia remains an optimist. Not because the work is easy, but because she’s seen what’s possible when institutions, communities, and individuals step up. For her, her optimism is a practical choice, and one that the water sector can’t afford to let go of.

Interested in more Distilled content?

Hosted by Will Sarni, Distilled is a video podcast series that features water leaders from around the world. Each one-on-one conversation explores the guest’s unique career path, discusses the challenges and opportunities facing the water industry, and considers what’s next for water. 

You can find the full catalog of episodes here.