Rebecca Flood has effectively partnered at all levels during her 40-year career protecting and improving Minnesota’s water resources, while exhibiting compassion, credibility, critical-thinking, collaboration and generosity. Rebecca served from 2008–2018 as Assistant Commissioner for Water Policy at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. She chaired the Clean Water Fund Interagency Coordination Team and served as state representative on the EPA’s Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force and Association of Clean Water Administrators.
Rebecca is currently a post-retirement manager at Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (MCES), where she also served from 1978–2008, much of that time as Environmental Compliance Manager. She was critical in the complicated process of decommissioning multiple small, noncompliant municipal wastewater treatment plants, and creating MCES’s effective regional wastewater system. She was instrumental in negotiating effluent phosphorus permits for this system, resulting in cost-effectiveness and a phosphorus removal rate above 80%. She also worked collaboratively and respectfully to resolve dewatering permit issues between MCES and the DNR—balancing protection of treatment plant infrastructure with impact to the Seneca Fen. Rebecca has been a most generous mentor. Many water professionals, especially women, currently stepping up to leadership roles in water resources have relied on Rebecca for trusted guidance.