WaterWired

Water for the Poor Act: State Department's 2007 Report to Congress

Attached is the State Department's 2007 Report to Congress, as well as a copy of Table A.5, omitted from the report.

Download 2007_state_dept_water_for_the_poor.pdf

Download StateDeptReportToCongress2007-TableA.5.pdf

Here is a link to a 23 April 2007 event at the Woodrow Wilson Center on the implementation of the act. Go to the "Environmental Security and Change Program", click on "Water" then scroll down to "Events".

Enjoy!

"To me, one of the most exciting things in the world is being poor." -- Thomas Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza (at the time he said this, in the early 1990s, his personal fortune was estimated at $500M).

C-H-E! N-E-Y! Dick Cheney, The Science Guy!

Normally I post items about Dick Cheney on my personal blog. This time it's different, as the post relates to water.

The Vice President is now "dabbling" in science, specifically in the Klamath Basin of California-Oregon, the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, and air quality, to name a few.

The Washington Post has been running articles on the VP, who is unquestionably the most powerful VP we have ever had.

In spring 2001, Cheney called Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the 19th-ranking Department of the Interior official. He was interested in having the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (which is in DoI) continue to deliver water to the farmers in Oregon (which the Bush-Cheney team lost by less than 1% in 2000) despite the necessity of keeping water in the Klamath River to benefit two species of endangered fish, the coho salmon and the suckerfish.

Read the report of the National Research Council committee that documents the threats to the coho and the suckerfish.

After the VP's call, the BuRec reversed itself and kept delivering water to save the 2002 growing season, and as a result, over 75,000 salmon perished in the Klamath River. Was this a coincidence?

Read about this and other "Cheney interventions" in the Washington Post (you may have to visit the paper's WWW site and register - it's free).

Democrats want to investigate Cheney's role in the Klamath Basin decision. A number of prominent House members have sent a letter to Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, asking him to investigate the matter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here.

Download CheneyRequestRahall.pdf

Read what the Seattle Times said about this.

Could be a hot summer in DC!

"Go f**k yourself." -- Vice President Dick Cheney, to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), 25 June 2004.

Water for Darfur? A Geologist Meets With Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir

Bev Herzog, a colleague of mine who is the chair of one of my professional societies, the Association of Ground Water Scientists and Engineers (AGWSE) of the National Ground Water Association (NGWA), just informed me of a remarkable meeting between US geologist Dr. Farouk El-Baz and Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Here is Dr. El-Baz's email:

"You will not believe what just happened! A couple of hours ago I met with President Omar al-Bashir to discuss the new find of a dry lake in Northern Darfur, which probably overlies groundwater. So, I told him why discourage anyone from helping to ease the humanitarian crises; why not challenge them to put their money where their mouth is... invite all to come and participate? I offered an initiative: "1000 Wells For Darfur." Any person, organization, foundation or county can take part. Those who provide $10 million or 10 wells will have their name on the wells forever. He agreed enthusiastically. We talked some more and at the end of the meeting I said: I have to give a lecture tonight, shall I announce this initiative or shall I leave it for now? He said 'YES', go ahead and announce it on my behalf. I met later with the UN people and they will plan their work as the first step in the initiative and will help publicize it internationally! God works in mysterious ways indeed."

This is almost too good to be true, but as Bev said, Dr. El-Baz, originally from Egypt, is very well-connected throughout the Middle East. I am somewhat skeptical, but have learned to expect the unexpected.

I will keep you posted. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." -- Horace Mann

What To Do About Global Warming? Watch This Video

While perusing Robert's Watercrunch blog I encountered this fascinating video. It's compelling - take a look. As Robert indicates, the argument used is known as Pascal's Wager or Pascal's Gambit. It's also known as the precautionary principle.

By the way, today is Blaise Pascal's birthday (b. 1623, d. 1662).

Example: Would you want to bet against the existence of God? What are the consequences if you did bet against it, and God exists? What if if you bet for it, and God didn't exist? Which choice has the greater consequences for you? Now, apply that approach to global warming. 

Take a look at the video and see what you think.

"Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Two Very Good Water Movies

There are a number of "water movies" around these days. I'll comment on two recent ones that left strong impressions on me.

Waterbuster, a film by Hidatsa/Mandan filmmaker J. Carlos Peinado and Daphne Ross, tells the story of the disuption of the lives of native peoples by the construction of the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The dam submerged fertile land, destroying a self-sufficient community and displacing Peinado's family and the people of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Waterbuster recounts Peinado's journey to his ancestral North Dakota homeland from his home on a sailboat in California to reconnect with his family. Through interviews he discovers the proud and resilient nature of his tribe, their contributions to American culture and history, and their deep attachment to the harsh North Dakota prairie. It's a moving story of a proud people and Peinado's confrontation with his identity.

Paul VanDevelder, a writer (Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation) who collaborated with Peinado on Waterbuster, remarked to me that after viewing the film, one person asked him "Where did you find all those articulate Indians?"

Waterbuster premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006. By all means see it.

Amy Hart produced Water First: Living Drop by Drop. It tells two stories: the first is about the remarkable Charles Banda, a preacher and retired fireman who founded the Freshwater Project in Malawi; and the second concerns the volatile issue of water privatization in South Africa.

Banda's organization has drilled 800 wells in 10 years, bringing potable water to about one million people. Hart notes he has never received a dime from the World Bank.

What I like about the first part of Hart's film is the correlation she makes between lack of access to potable water and a number of things, especially the school drop-out rate for girls. Girls often drop out because they are too busy helping mother gather water. Girls who go to school average 2-3 children, whereas those who don't go to school have 10-15 children. When latrines are installed and girls have privacy, the drop-out rate goes from 40% to 6%. As Hart so correctly states, in developing countries water is still very much a problem for women. Men will sit around all day bragging about how many goats they have while the women and girls bust their butts collecting water.

The second part of her film deals with the issue of prepaid water meters in South Africa and privatization of water utilities. This is obviously a contentious issue, and broaches issues involving ethics, lifeline rates, and the right to water.

People are supposed to get 6000 liters of free water per month, then rates kick in after that. In Soweto Township, Johannesburg Water is installing prepaid meters, so that you must pay first before you can exceed your 6000 liter allotment. No one is supposed to have service cut off, but in 2003, the film alleges that 1,500,000 people had their water service discontinued.

Hart made some good points in this portion of the film. And lest you think that the interview of Helgard Muller, a white Afrikaner who is the Manager of Water Services for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry regarding the prepaid water meter issue, implies that this is an example of continuing white oppression, let me dispel that. His boss, the Minister of DWAF, is a black African woman, Ms. L.B. Hendricks.

I was at the Third World Water Forum at Kyoto in 2003 and heard some community leaders talk about this problem. As one black African said: "When the whites ran the country, I had free water. Now that my people are in charge, they turn off my water because I cannot pay!"

I do not necessarily oppose privatization of water but there are so many bad examples (Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Atlanta, Georgia, come to mind) that it is sometimes hard to support the concept. But I do not believe that water should be given away absolutely free. If you don't charge something for water or any other resource, people will waste it; unfortunately, that's human nature. That said, we do need to ensure that those who cannot pay with money have access to water and be allowed to pay in other ways.

"Don't insult the crocodile until you've crossed the river." -- Sudanese proverb

Snake-Columbia Water-Energy Summit: Final Program

The Snake-Columbia Water-Energy Summit is almost upon us! Join us in Boise at the Red Lion Downtowner Hotel, June 25-27, 2007. Help devise a roadmap for sustainable energy and water availability in the Snake-Columbia Basin.

You can register at our WWW site where you also will find hotel booking information as well

Here is the final program:

Download water_energy_summit_program.pdf

"Carpe per diem!" -- Anonymous

The Mississippi River: Quo Vadis?

My last post dealt with Louisiana's plan to divert the Mississippi below New Orleans to save coastal wetlands. The picture below shows the river at New Orleans; Algiers Point is on the right and the city proper is on the left, so we're looking downstream.

To provide some perspective on the flow of the Mississippi, its average annual discharge is about 450 million acre-feet (MAF) or 17,700 cubic meters per second (cms). Contrast that to the Columbia (about 200 MAF or 7,900 cms), and the Colorado (14 MAF; 550 cms). Among world rivers, in terms of average annual discharge, it ranks 8th behind the Amazon (4900 MAF; 190,000 cms), Congo (1100; 42,000), Yangtze (890; 35,000), Orinoco (740; 29,000), Brahmaputra (510; 20,000),La Plata (500; 19,500), and Yenesei (460; 17,800). Yeah, it's a big one!

So why is a hydrologist who's done most of his work in the arid western USA blogging about the "Father of Waters"? Why not? My curiosity about the Mississippi River started early in life, but piqued in high school, when I got a copy of a new book, Modern Hydrology, by the late Raphael G. Kazmann, a legendary engineering professor at LSU in Baton Rouge. The book covered far more than just the Mississippi, but I was intrigued by Kazmann's discussion of the river's discharge and flood control.

Later, as a graduate student at the University of Arizona, I heard Kazmann tell a fascinating tale about the river and its "desire" (forgive the anthropomorphism - a trait of water nerds like me) to change its course - "delta switching" - which it had done a number of times over the past many thousands of years.

He described how the river really wanted to flow down the Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi, formed by the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi's main channel at the Louisiana-Mississippi stateline. It's about 170 miles (270 km) long and also serves as a shipping channel.

The Atchafalaya is actually building a delta into the Gulf of Mexico, one of the few places where the Louisiana coast is growing (see below).

If the Mississippi were left to its own devices, it would "prefer" to flow predominantly down the Atchafalaya, a more direct (190 miles or 300 km shorter) route to the Gulf of Mexico, leaving much less water in the main channel. This, of course, would leave the major ports

of Baton Rouge and New Orleans "high and dry", or nearly so. Suffice it to say that's not an option - these are two of the biggest ports in the USA and, along with the associated oil and petrochemical industries, are critical to the USA's economy. So maintaining the status quo is not just important to Louisiana, but to the USA.

The "ideal" (from society's standpoint) flow distribution is to have about 30% of the combined Mississippi River + Red River discharge flow down the Atchafalaya and about 70% down the main channel of the Mississippi. To maintain this distribution, at the behest of Congress the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed an elaborate system, the Old River Control Structure Complex, which was completed in 1963. I have never seen these engineering works in person, but I've heard people, including engineers not impressed by just anything, describe this complex as something amazing.

   

This complex "keeps things right" - maybe not for the natural system, but for humankind's needs. In the above picture of the complex, the Mississippi is to the left, curving to the right in the background. The view is towards the east-southeast.

Kazmann felt strongly (see If the Old River Control Structure Fails? Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute, Bulletin 12, 1980, pages 1-8) that the river would eventually win out, and that most of the flow would wind up in the Atchafalaya's channel. The current mainstem would become an estuary, or perhaps "bayou" might be more appropriate.

John McPhee's book The Control of Nature has an excellent discussion on this issue. Katherine Kemp has a short article on "The Mississippi Levee System and the Old River Control Structure" that's very informative.

"One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver...that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame the lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it 'Go here or go there' and make it obey, cannot save a shore that it has sentenced." -- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Diverting the Mississippi: Louisiana's Plan

Last week NPR had a story on Louisiana's plans to divert the Mississippi River to protect the coastal wetlands from further erosion. These wetlands, in addition to being important wildlife habitat, help protect Louisiana from hurricane damage. The erosion also threatens oil facilities, seafood production, and ports.

I have borrowed freely from that excellent piece in composing this post.

About every 30 minutes or so, a piece of southeast Louisiana the size of a football field vanishes into the Gulf of Mexico. Between 1932 and 2000, Louisiana lost about 1,900 square miles of land - the size of 1.5 Rhode Islands - and could lose another 700 square miles during the next fifty years if nothing is done. About 90% of all USA coastal wetland loss is borne by Louisiana.

The above map, from the U.S. Geological Survey (download below) shows the land loss from 1932-2000 in red with predicted land loss from 2000-2050 shown in yellow. Not a pretty sight.

Download landloss11X17.pdf 

The following is a USGS report describing historical and predicted Louisiana coastal land changes, 1978-2050.

http://www.lacoast.gov/landloss/NewHistoricalland.pdf

So what's the problem? Well, we've engineered the river system to such a degree that virtually all of its sediment load is dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. The river does not replenish its floodplain. Southern Louisiana was built over time as the river changed course, depositing sediment. But now, according to Denise J. Reed, a professor at the University of New Orleans, since we've constrained the Mississippi River within its banks, the only place it can deposit sediment, about 120 million tons per year, is in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, as southern Louisiana erodes, there is nothing to replenish it.

State and Federal officials have tried to keep up with the erosion by dredging sediment and depositing it in critical areas - essentially trying to do what the river should be doing. But it's a losing proposition; for every one square mile created, five more vanish.

The state wants to alter the course of the Mississippi below New Orleans, to the east, west, or both, so that sediment is deposited in shallow water and used to rebuild the coastline. The legislature has approved the master plan; total cost could be $5 billion. Money from offshore oil leases will help pay for the project.

It won't be easy to do this. For one thing, keeping river traffic moving while the work is ongoing will be a daunting task. Oyster fishermen, whose livelihood may be threatened by the project, are none too happy. There is already talk of lawsuits delaying the project for years.

If you're wondering, "Why bother, I don't live in Louisiana?", remember that over half the nation's grain moves through Louisiana ports, and of course, consider all the petrochemicals and other goods that move through New Orleans and Baton Rouge, two of the largest USA ports.

In a forthcoming post I'll recount a prescient lecture I heard 35 years ago, in which I learned where the Mississippi River really wants to go.

And the river she rises

Just like she used to do

She's so full of surprises

She reminds me of you.

-- "Heart of the Night" by Poco (lyrics by Paul Cotton)

NPR and Water: Some Good Stuff

NPR has a lot going on with water this week.

Beginning on 12 June 2007 Morning Edition will feature a four-part series Struggling Over Water. The series will examine Las Vegas' efforts to build a 300-mile pipeline to send ground water pumped from rural eastern Nevada to the metropolitan area (see my 22 April 2007 post "Las Vegas Gets Some More Water"), and profile Patricia Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the controversial but highly effective water manager responsible for providing water to fuel Las Vegas' spectacular growth. This'll be the classic "Craps vs. Crops" situation. The Colorado River, main surface water source for the region will also be featured. On the last day, the focus switches to the eastern USA and Tennessee in particular, in the throes of a terrible drought. 

In the peculiar realm that is Southwest USA water, Las Vegas is known as the "800-pound gorilla" and Mulroy is its keeper. Water managers tremble and clutch their water rights when she walks into a room. But she is good - damn good - at what she does.

For all you bottled water fans, check out For Poland Spring Bottles, There Is An Afterlife, which tells the story of plastic bottles in the bottled water industry and efforts to recycle them.

"We grow too soon old and too late smart." -- Unknown

A Drought For The Ages?

I'm here in Albuquerque preparing for the upcoming (12-15 November 2007) AWRA Annual Conference. It promises to be a blockbuster, what with a record number (over 400) abstracts received (shameless plug!).

But PR is not the purpose of this post. As I grabbed my complimentary USA Today this morning at the Embassy Suites, right beneath the "How Should 'Sopranos' End?" banner (hey, they know what's important) the cover story shouted "A Drought For The Ages".

The article stated that drought now covers one-third of the Lower 48 and is spreading. Some bullets:

1) In Central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state because grazing grass has dried up.

2) The Southeast is really hurting. Lake Okeechobee's level is at a record low, and is so dry that 12,000 acres caught fire last month. And we know about the horrible wildfires in Gerogia and Florida.

3) Catfish ponds in Alabama are drying up, and more than 50% of the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

4) California and Nevada just recorded their driest June to May period since 1924.

A photo gallery shows some graphic indications (you may have to access this from the link to the story). You can also access the U.S. Drought Monitor map and NOAA's seasonal drought outlook.

This post prompted me to add a long-overdue "Drought" category.

"We need 40-50 inches of rainfall to get out of the drought." -- Carol Ann Wehle, South Florida Water Management District

Aquadoc's Incredible Travel Reports: Georgia, Kazakhstan, South Carolina, Vienna, Central America, Japan

For a number of years I have written "semi-fictional" travel reports and sent them to friends. They are all based on actual events, but are "embellished" somewhat; it's a genre I call semi-fiction. They are still online.

Okay, so they are not about water per se but virtually all of them were the result of water-related trips. Even water wonks have a sense of humor (or think they do).

Enjoy (or not)!

"Chemistry is physics without thought; mathematics is physics without purpose." -- Anonymous (but likely a physicist)

Running for Life: The Blue Planet Run

The first page of four-page glossy ad in the 4 June 2007 issue of The New Yorker caught my eye. It was simple, just fifteen words on a black background:

This summer, twenty runners will cross four continents to bring someone a drink of water.

I turned the page to find a map of the world, tracing the path of a round-the-world run designed to raise money and awareness for the plight of the over one billion people who don't have access to potable water. It also highlighted five projects on four continents, including one in Nicaragua by El Porvenir, an organization which my foundation, The Ann Campana Judge Foundation has supported for several years. A Water For People project in Bolivia was there, as well as Rotary International's Kenya work. Drops of water on the map indicated all the projects funded in 2006 by a group called the BPR Foundation.

I turned to the last page and saw Dow Chemical's logo, along with the name of the Blue Planet Run Foundation, which organized the run for the money. Dow is presenting and sponsoring the Blue Planet Run, which will cover 15,200 miles across 16 countries and 4 continents, in 95 days. It started on 1 June 2007 in New York City, where it will end on 4 September 2007. Motorola, Skype, and PayPal are also sponsors.

The BPR Foundation was founded in 2002 by industrialist, environmentalist, and philanthropist (he's got all the right "ists") Jin Zidell, who wanted to bring safe drinking water to 200 million people by 2027 (see a video of Zidell speaking on how philanthropists can effect change through public-private partnerships).

Take a look at BPR Foundation's WWW site, and see what you can do to support this most worthy of causes. 

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." -- Confucius

Griffin's Gigantic Gaffe

Michael Griffin, NASA's chief, gave a remarkable interview on NPR a few days ago.

Griffin, who has a BS in physics from Princeton and six graduate degrees, gave an interview to NPR's Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition. In it, he acknowledged the reality of global warming and humans' role in it.

But after that, he demonstrated that one of his degrees was not in logic. He said that he was not sure it was a problem that humans needed to wrestle with. He went further:

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of the Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have ever had and that we need to take steps to make sure it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate doesn't change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Duhhh? This guy is running NASA?

The point is not whether anyone has decided that this climate is the "best climate for all other human beings." I don't recall ever hearing anyone say that. For some, it probably isn't the best. I heard a scientist from Edmonton, Alberta, say in a meeting 12 years ago that from his perspective, global warming looked "pretty damn good". If the climate changes, there will be "winners" and "losers", but on balance, society will "lose" with global warming. And do we want to gamble that a warmer globe will be a "better" one?

The climate we have may not be the one we want or the one that is best, but it is the one we have (I'm sounding like Ronnie Dumsfeld here) and, like it or not, our society (infrastructure, etc.) is geared towards this particular climate. If things change dramatically, there could be the potential for some great disruptions (think of the one billion or so people who live in coastal areas). See my 5 May 2007 post Climate Change: Some Scary Scenarios for what might happen should a "better" (warmer) climate come rolling in.

The reaction from the scientific community was predictable; you can listen listen by going to the aformentioned WWW site. Even Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), Chair of the House Science Committee (who likes Griffin), was shocked. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton opined that the comment was sad because it indicated that perhaps Griffin hadn't thought much about global warming and climate change.

But the best was yet to come: a NASA spokesman told the Associated Press that it was NPR's fault for asking Griffin a question about climate change.

What's that about "shooting the messenger"?

"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant

Greywater Guerrillas

The above picture and the one below (both courtesy of the New York Times) conjure images of Rube Goldberg Plumbing, Inc. They are actually part of an illegal "grey water" system at a house in the Oakland, CA, area. The house is the Haut House - House of Appropriate Urban Technology - owned by Laura Allen, an elementary school teacher who is a member of the "dirty water underground", the Greywater Guerrillas, a group that promotes the use of greywater systems to recycle and reuse the household water that drains from sinks, washing machine, and showers for flushing toilets or irrigating plants.

The 31 May 2007 issue of the New York Times had a story by Gregory Dicum entitled The Dirty Water Underground about the Greywater Guerrillas and other like-minded people:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/garden/31greywater.html?ex=1181275200&en=adc4472af0166fbf&ei=5070&emc=eta1

They are active mainly (but not exclusively) in the Western USA - arid regions like Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California.

As usual, California led the way in 1994 with the first set of guidelines for greywater systems. Other states have followed suit; Arizona's code is generally considered the best. Critics complain that the California code is so "overbuilt" (it's based on the septic system code) that it discourages homeowners from installing such systems; hence, the illegal systems such as Laura Allen's.

When I lived outside of Albuquerque in the Sandia Mountains I had a greywater system. It came with the house, and I did not realize it was illegal for about a year or so. It was really more like a "pseudo" greywater system, since its main purpose was to bypass the septic system to prevent overloading. Since I did not have a garden, I really didn't use the effluent for irirgation. Greywater systems are now legal in New Mexico.

It's of course easy to screw things up, so there is a need for some guidance. The NYT article cites a good WWW site with loads of information, including common mistakes.

Here is a little selection chart from the site:

Download systemchart.pdf

The site's greywater policy center offers much advice, including Arizona's law, the one to emulate.

The site also has synopses of the various state laws. Check it out.

Pleasant plumbing!

"Flush twice - it's a long way to Reno." -- The unofficial motto of Truckee, CA, upriver from Reno, NV