WaterWired

Copenhagen, Climategate, Collins, Colleagues and...Groundwater?

So let's look at what's happening vis-a-vis Copenhagen.

Patrik Jonsson reports in the Christian Science Monitor that  'Climategate' dogs global warming debate.

Jonsson writes:

The “Climategate” documents spurred Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, a vocal skeptic, and other congressional Republicans to begin a probe into the findings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and whether contradictory data was suppressed in the research. Reports from the UN agency are the primary basis for US policy direction on climate change, including new Environmental Protection Agency rules and proposed legislation to curb carbon dioxide emissions in the US.

“The furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or whether climatologists are nice people,” writes the business-friendly Wall Street Journal. “The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left … is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, stood by his panel’s 2007 findings last week. That study is the foundation for a global climate response, including carbon emission targets proposed this week by both the US and China.

So far, climate scientists say nothing in the leaked emails takes away from the fact that the climate change evidence is solid. In fact, a new study in the journal Science shows the polar ice cap melting is happening at a faster rate than predicted just a few years ago.

In a teleconference call with reporters this week, one of the scientists whose emails were leaked, Pennsylvania State University paleoclimatologist Michael Mann, said that “regardless of how cherry-picked” the emails are, there is “absolutely nothing in any of the emails that calls into the question the deep level of consensus of climate change.”

If you think 'Climategate' is about climate, read what Daniel Collins says:

“Climategate” is not about climate. The scandal is about divisive politics, how partisans will stoop to illegal and intimidatory means to propagate their value system, and how other partisans implicitly or explicitly support the theft and invasion of privacy.

And here is Nicholas Stern in The Guardian:

The two defining challenges of our century are managing climate change and overcoming poverty. And if we fail on one we will fail on the other. So the world faces a stark choice at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Do we collaborate and act to reach a strong political agreement that both decisively cuts the devastating risks posed by climate change, and rapidly opens up the opportunities offered by low-carbon economic growth? Do we in that way set ourselves to overcome poverty and promote prosperity? Or, do we give way to narrow, short-term interests, quarrelling, lack of ambition and delay, thus allowing the risks to the climate to grow to dangerous levels which will derail development in both rich and poor countries?

And George Monbiot in the same paper:

"To be truly radical," Raymond Williams wrote, "is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing".

Believe me I'm trying, but at the moment hope is hard to come by.

A legally binding deal cannot now be struck at Copenhagen. The best that can happen is an outline agreement, which is firmed up next year. Even this would depend on the compliance of the US Senate. So far it has been hostile towards anything resembling an effective deal. As I write, Barack Obama still hasn't proposed a number for US emissions cuts. He can't make any firm commitment until the Senate sings, and the Senate won't approve a climate change bill until the spring, if at all. I concentrate on the role of the US not because it is the only obstacle to a strong climate agreement (you should see what Canada has been up to) but because it has so far done more than any other nation to prevent global action from taking place. The Kyoto negotiations in 1997 were comprehensively trashed by a US delegation led by Al Gore.

Read on!

Lest I leave you on a pessimistic note, a European colleague of mine sent me this note regarding water and Copenhagen:

(1) ...water was back in the text again (have not seen a press release about that) and (2) policy makers attending the same meeting did not really worry about water being in the negotiation text, as what is mentioned about adaptation in the text leaves a lot of space for actions in the water area.

Neither my colleague nor I has seen any official notification of this inclusion.

Regarding water and Copenhagen, read James G. Workman's excellent  Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times.

Okay!

And God bless the Dutch (forget what I said the other day):

Download Groundwater_@_COP-15

Bye for now.

"All diplomacy is local." -- a U.S. State Department official

Desal: No Magic Bullet for New Mexico?

John Fleck alerted me to this article featuring my former University of New Mexico colleague Bruce Thomson about the wisdom of basing future growth in New Mexico on unsustainable water supplies, specifically desalinated groundwater.

Regarding Sandoval County's experimental desalination plant, nearing the end of its pilot operation, Thomson opines: 

Thomson calls the desalination pilot “a very useful project; I congratulate Sandoval County planners for having the foresight to undertake this thing.” He says it’ll help Sandoval and its surrounding counties—Bernalillo, McKinley and Santa Fe—better understand how much brackish water lies in the ancient aquifer beneath them, how much it’ll cost to access that water, and what kinds of treatment methods will be necessary to make it potable.

“It’s one of the cutting-edge projects of this type in the Southwest,” Thomson says. But, he adds, “I don’t think we should allow residential growth that depends on a non-sustainable water supply.”

The plant is pumping deep, brackish groundwater and treating it.

Here are two earlier posts of mine on this topic (17 August 2008 and 13 November 2008) and one reporting on a Thomson Op-Ed.

“When we plan for new residential growth, we need to talk in terms of sustainability, and that sustainability needs to be in perpetuity. It doesn’t need to be 30 or 40 or 100 years; it needs to be forever.” -- Bruce Thomson

Brief Trip to Costa Rica - For Work, No Less!

Yes, duty calls - I'm off to San José, Costa Rica, for a meeting. I know it sounds like a junket - going to Costa Rica in late November but I will be spending most of my three days there in the Radisson's meeting rooms.

The meeting is the Americas Follow-up Meeting of the Fifth World Water Forum. I will be representing the American Water Resources Association along with Executive Vice President Ken Reid.

The meeting has three objectives:

1) strenghten the mobilization process initiated on the occasion of the Fifth World Water Forum and work towards the Sixth World Water Forum (March 2012 in Marseille, France);

2) continue to build momentum and promote the water agenda at the policy level; and

3) support regional initiatives that promote the global water policy recommendations.

The meeting conveners are Roberto Olivares (Mexico), Maureen Ballesteros Vargas (Costa Rica), and Bendito (Ben) Braga of Brazil.

The meeting will also launch the Water Forum of the Americas, designed to get the region on track for the Sixth World Water Forum.

I am also looking forward to seeing our three SUSIE participants from Costa Rica: Marilyn Manrow Villalobos, Gloriana Araya, and Esteban Lobo Perez.

"En boca cerrada no entra mosca." -- Latin American proverb [English: A closed mouth gathers no flies.]

Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters: Second Newsletter

The Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters (UPTW), a consortium of universities on all six inhabited continents, recently published its second newsletter.

Download UPTWNewsletterNov2009

[Shill alert: I was one of the founding members back in 2002.]

In case you missed the first newsletter, access it here.

Enjoy!

"We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose." -- Bishop Desmond Tutu

Ted Hullar's 1996 White Paper - Water and NASULGC: Challenge and Opportunity, Take Hold or Not?

NASULGC? Is that a new nasal spray? Nope - read on!

While rummaging through some electronic files I ran across a white paper written by Dr. Theodore L. "Ted" Hullar in 1996. It was presented to an organization then  known as the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), now known as the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).

Hullar was a distinguished academic researcher (biochemist) and administrator - chancellor of UC-Riverside and UC-Davis - who is now a consultant.

In his paper, he implored NASULGC to give more support to water issues in the USA and around the world: Water and NASULGC: Challenge and Opportunity, Take Hold or Not?

When the paper came out I was directing the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico, which is a state university but not a land-grant university. I mention that distinction because at the time, it was common knowledge that the land-grant schools really controlled the agenda at NASULGC. As one of my UNM administrators said, the ag deans ran the show. I doubt if much has changed. 

The paper created quite a buzz among the academic water community. I'm sure much of the buzz was really prompted by the drooling over the prospect of NASULGC helping to secure large Federal earmarks for the public-university water community.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

As UNM's water point man, I was tasked with getting UNM's foot in the door on this issue. NASULGC had charged one of its commissions, the Commission on Food, Environment, and Renewable Resources (CFERR) with pursuing Hullar's vision. I got myself appointed as UNM's official CFERR representative and to the ad hoc 'water vision' committee. I went to a few NASULGC meetings and participated, but by about 1999 or so, the effort petered out. I don't think it went anywhere.

It was actually a good experience. I met some bright people, including Hullar himself, who chaired the committee. A very perceptive fellow.

So why do I bring up a 13-year old water white paper? I reread it, and found it to be quite prescient. Hullar, citing extensively, addressed a number of issues now discussed widely - global warming effects on water resources, coordination of Federal water agencies, ownership of water vs. the public trust doctrine, water and health, ecosystem services, etc.

Here is a copy of it -- a PDF of a scanned copy, but still readable:

Download Ted Hullar water paper NASULGC1996

It's worth your time.

I especially like this quote:

 ...and even more sobering, the future has both context and challenges fundamentally different than the past. If we wish to be relevant to this daunting future in water resources, we must, perforce, respond affirmatively to changed, and changing, water issues, and we must do so differently than in the past." -- Theodore L. Hullar, page 17 of the aforementioned paper.

Atlanta's Water Task Force: Quo Vadis?

Time once again to please my former Latin teacher, Brother Wallace.

Dorian Roffe-Hammond sure knows how to feed my fix for Atlanta (my favorite Southern city) and Southeast water news. He sent this opinion piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman entitled Perdue's water task force closed to the public,

I posted on Gov. Perdue's task force about a month ago.

Here is Bookman's column.

A series of major legal setbacks has finally forced Georgia officials to face reality: Metro Atlanta could actually, really, for sure and no kidding, lose its legal right to draw so much water from Lake Lanier.

The consequences could be dire. If a deal with our neighboring states can’t be cut by July 2012, it won’t be a question of trying to find enough water to support continued growth. Instead, we’ll be scrambling for enough water to supply those of us already here.

With that deadline in mind, Gov. Sonny Perdue has named a Water Contingency Task Force. The group, which held its first meeting last month at the Governor’s Mansion, is tasked with producing recommendations before the Legislature convenes in January.

According to Bert Brantley, Perdue’s spokesman, the task force is searching for options that are “the most readily available and cost-effective available, options that you can bring online as fast as possible.”

“If you had been at the Mansion, you would have heard the governor tell the task force that ‘everything is on the table,’ ” Brantley told me this week. “He told them to look at literally everything.”

Of course, I wasn’t at that meeting to hear the governor say that. You probably weren’t either, because both the press and the public were barred from attending. The task force is being funded with taxpayers’ money; it is producing recommendations that will be critical to the future of the state. But the people of Georgia, the people whose lives, property and jobs are likely to be affected, are forbidden to watch.

It’s also interesting to note the makeup of the task force. In many states, a panel created to do such important work would be thoroughly seeded with experts in the field — hydrologists, people who know water law, environmental experts, scientists. It might also have a broad range of citizens, from businesspeople to community leaders. [Oh, yeah! Emboldening mine]

But this being Georgia, the Perdue task force is dominated by corporate executives. By my count, more than 50 of its 87 members are corporate executives, bankers, developers or utility officials. Sixteen are government officials.

Just four represent environmental groups, and three of those four groups — the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund and the Trust for Public Lands — are land-acquisition organizations with little expertise in water issues.

According to Brantley, the extreme overrepresentation of business interests doesn’t matter.

“You’re assuming that businesspeople can’t be environmentalists, too,” he said, repeating a line also used to excuse the dominance of business interests on the state Board of Natural Resources.

Personally, I think it’s a silly argument. It requires you to believe that personal background and perspective aren’t important in how you assess a situation. A lot of businesspeople are very smart. But I’m not sure what makes them so much more qualified than Georgians of other backgrounds to ponder this issue.

According to Brantley, the task force will look at “every possible idea you’ve seen thrown out, from desalinization to fixing pipes.” It will gauge each according to cost, yield and speed of implementation.

But will corporate executives who are by instinct averse to regulation try to downplay mandated conservation as part of the solution? Will bankers and developers naturally favor the construction of major reservoirs that would also produce thousands of lakeside lots to be sold? Will water-dependent businesses try to push the burden of conservation onto homeowners? Will real estate people oppose the idea of requiring low-flow toilets before a house can be sold?

The makeup of the task force doesn’t exactly ease such concerns. In fact, it seems designed to ensure a certain set of outcomes and preclude others. [Emboldening mine]

Concern about the direction of state policy is heightened by the sudden resignation of Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division. Couch, a scientist with a background in hydrology and biology who had been deeply involved in water issues, quit unexpectedly last month with just a week’s notice and without real explanation. She was quickly replaced by Allen Barnes, a law partner at King and Spalding, which often represents corporate interests in environmental cases.

The task force’s job is very important, and its membership includes a lot of good people. But the closed process and membership betray the same value system that helped to create this mess in the first place.

Last month I suggested that the task force was weighted towards the type of people who helped get Atlanta into its current predicament. Bookman's correct; these shovers and makers are not going to get the job done, especially behind closed doors.

Next time Sonny prays for rain, he might try praying for transparency and buy-in from the rest of the stakeholders.

"We don't give a damn how you done it up North." -- favorite bumper sticker seen throughout the South

Another AWRA Presentation: Statewide Roundtables - Taking Oregon's Water Pulse

This AWRA Annual Conference presentation is an updated version of one I posted last December. It describes the meetings we held in Fall 2008 to assess the 'water pulse' of Oregonians.

Download Campana - AWRA 2009 Session 45 WR Planning

All the Roundtable documents, including the synthesis report, are available here.

Enjoy!

“When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped." -- Marcel Achard (French playwright)

My AWRA Annual Conference Panel Presentations: 1) 5WWF and 2) Transboundary Groundwater and IWRM

At the AWRA Annual Conference I participated in two panel discussions yesterday. Here are PDFs of my presentations.

1) Transboundary Integrated Water Resources Management - Indicators, Institutions, Constraints, and Innovations

Download Campana - AWRA 2009 Session 6 TB IWRM Panel

2) Impressions of the Fifth World Water Forum, Istanbul, March 2009

Download Campana - AWRA 2009 Session 11 5WWF Panel 

Enjoy!

"Chemistry is physics without thought; mathematics is physics without purpose." --Anonymous

ISARM 2010: Transboundary Aquifers Conference in Paris

Just received official notice of this conference and the call for abstracts. It will be held in Paris, 6- 8 December 2010.

I can handle that venue.

Yours truly and colleague Todd Jarvis are on the Scientific Advisory Committee.

The conference's formal title is Transboundary Aquifers: Challenges and New Directions. The conference will mark the end of the first phase of the ISARM Programme and the start of its second phase.

ISARM stands forInternationally Shared Aquifer Resources Management, and is  joint program of UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH).

Here are the announcement and pre-registration forms:

Download FlyerISARM2010

Download Pre-reg_form_ISARM2010

Hope to see you there.

"Everything has been thought of before; the problem is to think of it again." -- Goethe

Ooops! Judge: No SNWA Pumping From Cave, Delamar, and Dry Lake Valleys

A Nevada two-fer today!

Boy, do we ever live in interesting times!

From Henry Brean's story in today's Las Vegas Review-Journal (the map is from the article):

For the moment at least, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has lost the water it hoped to pump to Las Vegas in the first phase of its proposed pipeline across eastern Nevada.

In a strongly worded order issued last week, a district judge overturned a 2008 state ruling that granted the authority permission to tap groundwater from three valleys in central Lincoln County.

Judge Norman Robison ruled that State Engineer Tracy Taylor "abused his discretion" and "acted arbitrarily, capriciously and oppressively" when he cleared the authority to pump more than 6 billion gallons of groundwater a year [about 18,500 AF/year]  from Cave, Delamar and Dry Lake valleys.

The senior judge from Gardnerville wrote that the state's chief water regulator traditionally requires "specific empirical data" before allowing groundwater to be transferred out of a basin. This time, though, the state engineer is "simply hoping for the best while committing to undo his decision if the worst occurs," Robison wrote.

Authority officials are expected to challenge the judge's ruling, which spokesman Scott Huntley described as biased and "flat-out wrong."

"We believe there are numerous grounds for appeal," Huntley said. "There was some evidence the judge may have come into the case with a prejudged opinion."

Note that this decision does not directly affect the plans to pump from Snake Valley on the Nevada-Utah border but there may be repercussions. Read Emily Green's excellent analysis that goes far beyond the R-J article.

Looks like it is back to the drawing board (or hearing room, or courtroom) for the SNWA.

Read the entire story here. The comments are quite interesting.

"I think we're just digesting it right now to be honest with you." -- Susan Joseph-Taylor, chief hearing officer, Nevada Division of Water Resources

Robert Lackey Lecture: The Government Scientist - Charting an Ethical Path

Dr. Robert T. Lackey, award-winning fisheries biologist for the EPA and current courtesy Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, recently gave this lecture, The Government Scientist: Charting an Ethical Path, at OSU.

This is an excellent and timely presentation.

"Discontent is the seed of ethics." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

A Nobel Laureate for Us Common WaterWonks

It is not too often that those of us in the water community can claim some disciplinary kinship with a Nobel Laureate, especially one from the economics realm. But this year we can take pride in seeing Elinor (Lin) Ostrom of Indiana University share the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

She is the first woman to win this particular Nobel, first awarded in 1969. She is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

And she is not an economist - well, maybe a political economist -  but was trained as a political scientist.

Her connection to water comes via her specialty: common-pool resources and their governance. She wrote her PhD dissertation (UCLA) on groundwater management, and that was just the beginning (see quote at bottom).

Here's what the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in recognizing her for her analysis of economic governance, especially in the commons:

“Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized,” the academy said. “Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories.”

She's the first Nobel Laureate whose material I read long before she won her prize. I have read a number of her papers, and her 1990 book, Governing the Commons, also comes to mind. I've also met several of her students.

Her is a link to her IU CV with a number of hot links to her publications.

And, for some additional significance of her award, the Indiana Daily Student said it all in its editorial:

Additionally, because of the nature of Ostrom’s work and her position in the political science department, it is a demonstration of the increasing importance of interdisciplinary focus in research.

Previously, Ostrom herself has stressed the importance of developing an “interdisciplinary language” among researchers. This, she says, is necessary because the problems and issues with which they are dealing cross disciplinary lines and cannot be solved by looking exclusively through one prism.

Finally, the award is an indication of the increasing relevance of testing established theories about numerous economics against actual situations, especially as dozens of developing countries make their way out of poverty and into the globalized economy.

You can find more links at the IU site.

Rob Emanuel has an excellent post on Ostrom and her work. David Zetland has a great post over at Aguanomics about Ostrom and her co-winner , Oliver Williamson.  David is pleased at the awards, and says both are people who deal with the messy realities of how things get done in an imperfect world. 

Dr. Williamson, at UC-Berkeley, can now get a lifetime free parking space in the Noble Laureate Grove. Go, Ollie!

So are you wondering what some other economists thought about Ostrom's award? Zetland has that covered, too.  I doubt you'll be surprised at some of the comments.

"I grew up in Los Angeles ... The ocean is right there. And if you pull the groundwater down, surprise, surprise, the saltwater comes in. And if they had not found a way of reducing the quantity of water they pumped, and doing a variety of other things, they would have had to give up the groundwater basin to saltwater. I was very fortunate, I started that as a seminar paper, and I kept going and going." -- Elinor Ostrom

First Meeting: Oregon Section of the AWRA

The inaugural meeting of the Oregon section of the American Water Resources Association will be held on 16 December 2009, 6-9 PM, at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby, Portland, OR.

Dinner (on your own) starts at 6 PM, and about 6:45 PM we will have two stellar speakers:

1) Phil Ward, Director,OWRD

2) Dick Pedersen, Director, ODEQ

Phil and Dick will discuss Oregon's development of an integrated water resources strategy. The strategy is designed to address Oregon’s water quantity, water quality, and ecosystem needs.  The development process will include state natural resource agencies, local governments, tribes, private business, non-governmental organizations, and a wide range of stakeholder groups. Directors Ward and Pedersen will discuss the need for such a long-term strategy and note the legal, historic, and technical foundation upon which this effort is built. Their presentations will indicate opportunities for you to get involved.

Following the talks, about 8 PM, we will have the section's first business meeting. You do not need to be a member of national AWRA to join-  just someone who works or lives in Oregon. Bring your $25 2010 dues and we'll anoint you!

Thanks to the Portland office of Brown and Caldwell for sponsoring the meeting.

Download a meeting flyer and a copy of our bylaws:

Download 2009-12-16 Flyer

Download AWRA_Oregon_Section_Bylaws_Final_15_July_2009

Hope to see you there!

"I would join this organization if I were alive and lived in Oregon!" -- Steve Reynolds, legendary New Mexico State Engineer

Water Alternatives Issue - Hydraulic Bureaucracies: Flows of Water, Flows of Power

Most of the current (October 2009) issue of the open-access journal Water Alternatives is devoted to Hydraulic Bureaucracies: Flows of Water, Flows of Power. There are some great articles here, including one by Aguanomics czar David Zetland:

The end of abundance: How water bureaucrats created and destroyed the southern California oasis

Download Zetland Art2-3-4

You can download the papers for free, although you may have to register.

Articles

Is water lagging behind on aid effectiveness? Lessons from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda
Katharina Welle, Josephine Tucker, Alan Nicol, Barbara Evans
Water Alternatives 2(3): 297-314  

Institutions that cannot manage change: A Gandhian perspective on the Cauvery dispute in South India
Narendar Pani
Water Alternatives 2(3): 315-327    

Theme Section: Hydraulic Bureaucracies: Flows of Water, Flows of Power

Hydraulic bureaucracies: Flows of water, flows of power
François Molle, Peter P. Mollinga, Philippus Wester
Water Alternatives 2(3): 328-349    

The end of abundance: How water bureaucrats created and destroyed the southern California oasis
David Zetland
Water Alternatives 2(3): 350-369   

"Agua para todos": The new ´regionalist´ hydraulic paradigm in Spain
Elena Lopez-Gunn
Water Alternatives 2(3): 416-439   

The hydraulic mission and the Mexican hydrocracy: Regulating and reforming the flows of water and power
Philippus Wester, Edwin Rap, Sergio Vargas-Velázquez
Water Alternatives 2(3): 395-415    

Hydraulic bureaucracy in a modern hydraulic society - Strategic group formation in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Hans-Dieter Evers and Simon Benedikter
Water Alternatives 2(3): 416-439    

The fluctuating political appeal of water engineering in Australia
Lin R. Crase, Suzanne M. O’Keefe, Brian E. Dollery
Water Alternatives 2(3): 440-447    

Beyond bureaucracy? Assessing institutional change in the governance of water in England
Nigel Watson, Hugh Deeming and Raphael Treffny
Water Alternatives 2(3): 448-460

The Water Resources Board: England and Wales’ venture into national water resource planning 1964-73
Christine McCulloch
Water Alternatives 2(3): 461-475

Viewpoint

The right irrigation? Policy directions for agricultural water management in sub-Saharan Africa
Bruce Lankford
Water Alternatives 2(3): 476-480    

Book Review

Global corruption report 2008: Corruption in the water sector (Zinnbauer, D. and Dobson, R. 2008).
Undala Alam
Water Alternatives 2(3): 481-482   

Enjoy! I will!

"Man is a complex being; he makes the deserts bloom and lakes die." -- Gil Stern

Just Say No to NAWS?

About a week ago Noah Hall's Great Lakes Law blog published an item about the NAWS (Northwest Area Water Supply) project of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The story related how the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center had filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief on the side of Manitoba, Canada, and others who oppose Reclamation's project.

View a map of the project.

I have to admit that what piqued my curiosity was reading about a transbasin surface water diversion project involving the USA and Canada whose acronym begins with "NA", as in "North American"). Yes, I'm thinking of projects like NAWAPA and NARA designed to move water from Canada to the USA, and then within the USA itself.

But NAWS is not one of these big-picture projects. It's a water-supply project for northwestern North Dakota that is 'small potatoes' in the grand scheme of things - a maximum of about 26 million gallons per day (80 AF).  So why the concern among the likes of Noah Hall, the province of Manitoba, and the federal government of Canada?  It represents the first USA project to transfer water from the Missouri River basin to the Red-Souris basin, which is in the Hudson Bay basin. So Manitoba and Canada are concerned about the possible introduction of aquatic invasive species and pathogens, and so is Hall.

From the Great Lakes Law blog:

The NAWS Project is the first United States transbasin water transfer project to breach the barrier between the Missouri River Basin and the Hudson Bay Basin.  The diversion could transfer invasive species and diseases into downstream waters in the United States and Canada, and threatens the quality and quantity of water supplies.  The proponents of the project have not properly examined less damaging alternatives and options, such as water conservation and recycling.  Nor have the project’s proponents undertaken a full review of the environmental impacts of the water diversion.  For additional background on the NAWS project and other related projects, see the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center’s Transbasin Water Diversions webpage

Conservationists have long been concerned with the risks of the NAWS project to water resources.  The NAWS water diversion represents the first ever federal project involving an interbasin water transfer linking the Missouri River Basin to the Hudson Bay Basin.  For better or worse, it could become an important precedent-setting project for other water diversions.  Given the stakes, the Bureau of Reclamation should have adhered strictly to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act with a thorough and comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement.  Instead, the Bureau of Reclamation is trying to rush through a novel and potentially devastating project that creates a danger for all fresh water basins in the United States, particularly the Great Lakes.

In addition to setting a precedent for other water diversions, the NAWS project threatens water quality and aquatic life in the Missouri River Basin and Hudson Bay Basin.  The diversion of water from one separate drainage basin to another will also impact residential, commercial and recreational water use.  The reductions of water levels in combination with the impacts from climate change pose an increased risk of invasion of non-native species and subsequent transfer of invasive species through the pipeline to the Hudson Bay Basin.

Doesn't sound as though NAWS has been thought out completely.

"Human beings were invented by water to transport it uphill." -- Unknown  

Last of the UNEP Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience Reports: Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa

Almost done!

My last two posts dealt with the North America and Asia UNEP reports on hydropolitical vulnerability and resilience along international waters and my group's contributions to them. Now I'll list the URLs for free downloads of the remaining three reports (the Africa report was actually released in 2006); My colleagues and I had no part in any of these.

Download (may take a minute) the reports: North America; Latin America and the Caribbean; Asia; Africa; and Europe.

Enjoy!

"Clean water and health care and school and food and tin roofs and cement floors, all of these things should constitute a set of basics that people must have as birthrights." -- Paul Farmer

Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience Along International Waters: Asia

Here's the next in the UNEP series; this report deals with Asia. Download a free copy.

I won't repeat what's meant by hydropolitical vulnerability and resilience; you can read yesterday's post where I discussed the North American report.

Chapter 3 on 'West Asia' was written by me and my former students: Geoff Klise, Alyssa Neir, Amy Ewing, and Berrin Basak Vener. Each is a graduate of the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program and each is remarkable. Alistair Rieu-Clarke is also an author; he is with the University of Dundee's International Water Law Research Institute.

In addition to West Asia, the report covers China, Southeast Asia, the Indus basin, the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin, and some others.

What I will do is provide the conclusions we reached on the West Asia basins (Jordan, Asi-Orontes, Tigris-Euphrates/Shatt Al Arab, Kura-Araks, An Nahr Al Kabir River basin, Aral Sea).

The transboundary basins in West Asia show signs of both resiliency and vulnerability, but most basins are currently vulnerable.  Beginning with the northern basins, the Kura-Araks Basin is vulnerable due to the water quality problems that are overshadowed by the politics and the long history of low investment in infrastructure and resources to prevent pollution of water resources.  The existing form of cooperation is based mainly on the presence of international organizations that provide resources and attempt to open dialogues between countries.

Politics also play a role in the vulnerability of the Tigris-Euphrates/Shatt al Arab Basin. Due to the conflicting political agendas, short history of technical cooperation between the countries via the Joint Committee, the current infrastructure problems faced by Iraq after 2001, and the major construction of infrastructure by Turkey, the Tigris-Euphrates/Shatt al Arab Basin remains vulnerable.  However, there are outside forces at work in the basin (i.e. the European Union in Turkey and the United States in Iraq) with the potential to influence greater cooperation between the three countries.

The Orontes River is considered vulnerable despite the 1994 bilateral agreement between Syria and Lebanon on water-sharing and the 2001 discussion of cooperating on technical issues between Syria and Turkey. Land conflict between Turkey and Syria remains a barrier to any formal water-sharing agreement. Furthermore, the pullout of Syria from Lebanon may test the resiliency of their 1994 agreement. In addition, Syria’s insistence on bringing the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers into the discussion may make it complicated to reach a multilateral agreement between Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey (the three countries that share the Orontes River), especially since the Tigris and Euphrates do not flow through Lebanon.

The Aral Basin also displays vulnerability due to the political history of the region.  The newly independent former Soviet Union states rely heavily on water resources and want to change the existing agreements. However, they have not found a way to divide the water equitably.  Heavy international presence exists in this basin that has the potential to increase the resources available to the states and entice them to cooperate.  The Amu Darya Basin will become even more vulnerable as Afghanistan begins to withdraw more water from it.

Continued conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank displays the lack of institutional agreements between these two groups and keeps this region vulnerable. This is evidenced by the conflict over the ‘separation wall’ where Israel acts unilaterally in a way that may impact the availability of water to Palestinian people. The Kedumim Quarry Landfill is another example where Israel acts unilaterally to site a landfill on land in the disputed West Bank territory. The anticipated unilateral pullout of Israel from the Gaza Strip will undoubtedly affect how both Israel and the Palestinian Authority handle water resource issues in the West Bank. Inclusion of the Palestinian Authority in decisions that impact those living in the West Bank has the potential to reduce the level of conflict between both groups. Amidst the conflict, the local agreement over improving water quality in the Alexander River is a good example that shows how Israelis and Palestinians at the local level are trying to improve their situation without the consent or help from their representative national governments

The Jordan Basin is the best example of resiliency due to the fact that the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty has held up for over 10 years through times of drought and political changes in the region. The inclusion of the Palestinian Authority for the upcoming study over water availability and quality has the potential to be a positive example of how the three entities (Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority) can work together to solve water resource issues that affect them all. In addition, the recent agreement with Jordan and Syria over the Wahda Dam shows efforts by these countries to work collaboratively to come up with solutions to their water resource problems.

The conflict between Israel and Lebanon is yet to be resolved, especially with the 2002 flare-up over water use of the Wazzani Spring. A report by the European Union describes the situation as unresolved, though tensions have decreased as a result of international attention and intervention in the conflict (EU, 2004). An explicit agreement between both countries would hopefully end the dispute over the use of water in this territory. With the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon, an agreement may be easier to reach between Israel and Lebanon. Around 60 years ago, the Johnston Accord set up a framework to resolve many of these water disputes by providing a model for water-sharing agreements. In order to maintain resiliency in this region, these recent agreements and treaties need to survive continued climatic variation and political change. This can be achieved by learning from past experiences and building on the examples that appear to offer long-lasting solutions in a region that has been plagued by many years of conflict.

Good reading!

"Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing that makes water and nobody knows what that is." -- D.H. Lawrence

Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience Along International Waters: North America

Hydro what? Resilience?

 

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is publishing a series on the hydropolitical vulnerability and resilence of international water resources on all the inhabited continents.

 

The publication series is also a product of the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters (UPTW).

 

The North American (Canada, USA, Mexico) volume has just hit the streets. You can order a copy ($40) or download a pdf for free.

 

Back to the title: so what do these terms mean? In simple terms, a nation is hydropolitically vulnerable if there is the potential for conflict to arise with another nation(s) over a particular international water body. A nation is hydropolitically resilient if it adapts without conflict to hydrological change within a particular shared basin (surface water or groundwater).

 

Here is a more involved discussion of the terms by Aaron Wolf from Chapter 1 of the aforementioned publication. I have deleted the citations; you can find them in the document:

 

In general, concepts of “resilience” and “vulnerability” as related to water resources are often

assessed within the framework of “sustainability," and relate to the ability of biophysical systems to adapt to change. As the sustainability discourse has broadened to include human systems in recent years, so too has work been increasingly geared towards identifying indicators of resilience and vulnerability within this broader context. In parallel, dialogue on “security” has migrated from traditional issues of war and peace toward also beginning to incorporate the human-environment relationship in the relatively new field of “environmental security”.

The term “hydropolitics” came about as the potential for conflict and violence to erupt over international waters began to receive substantial new attention. Hydropolitics relates to the ability of geopolitical institutions to manage shared water resources in a politically sustainable manner, i.e., without tensions or conflict between political entities. “Hydropolitical resilience,” then, is defined as the complex human-environmental system’s ability to adapt to permutations and change within these systems; “hydropolitical vulnerability” is defined by the risk of political dispute over shared water systems. Aaron Wolf and his colleagues suggested the following relationship between change, institutions, and hydropolitical vulnerability: “The likelihood of conflict rises as the rate of change within the basin exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb that change.”

This suggests that there are two sides to the dispute setting: the rate of change in the system and the institutional capacity. In general, most of the parameters regularly identified as indicators of water conflict are actually only weakly linked to dispute. Institutional capacity within a basin, however, whether defined as water management bodies or treaties, or generally positive international relations, is as important, if not more so, than the physical aspects of a system. It turns out, then, that very rapid changes, either on the institutional side or in the physical system, that outpace the institutional capacity to absorb those changes, are at the root of most water conflict. For example, the rapid institutional change in “internationalized” basins, i.e., basins that include the management structures of newly independent States, has resulted in disputes in areas formerly under British administration (e.g., the Nile, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, and Ganges-Brahmaputra), as well as in the former Soviet Union (e.g., the Aral tributaries and the Kura-Araks). On the physical side, rapid change most outpaces institutional capacity in basins that include unilateral development projects and the absence of cooperative regimes, such as treaties, river basin organizations (RBOs), or technical working groups, or when relations are especially tenuous over other issues.

 

I'm not going to review this publication, because five of the six chapters were written by Alyssa Neir, Geoff Klise, and me. Alyssa and Geoff, then Master's students in the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program (WRP), did the bulk of the work and did an incredible job. Alyssa is now with Golder Associates in Redmond, WA, and Geoff is with Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in Albuquerque, NM.

 

Here is what we concluded about North America's hydropolitical vulnerability and resiliency:

 

The examples of conflict, cooperation, and a combination of the two that fall along the U.S.-Canada border suggest that the two countries are abiding by the agreements in place and are using the resources available to them to solve disputes or disagreements that arise.  They are also collaborating to manage transboundary water resources at the watershed level, which can be seen in the creation of the International Watersheds Initiative.  Although not discussed in detail in this report, much of the cooperation of the two countries is centered on the Great Lakes, which can be seen by the numerous agreements in place and the role of the IJC in managing those resources.        

In contrast, examples of conflict and cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico show that despite having the IBWC as an intergovernmental body designated by treaty to deal with water issues, conflicts still arise.  While some of these conflicts are easy to solve, such as those dealing with surface water quality, others are not as easy and deal with the eventual necessity of apportioning transboundary groundwaters.  In many of these cases, the arid climate, growing population, and recent prolonged drought has made water appear even scarcer.

North America’s vulnerability and resilience in the face of transboundary water conflicts is guided by the institutions that have been created to assist with water resources issues along both major borders of this continent.  Each institution has specific functions due to geography and climate – the lack of or abundance of water dictates how the treaties were written and their flexibility in light of the fact that the borders themselves cross many climatic and geographic zones.  The political boundaries divide many transboundary waterways and subterranean water resources. 

Groundwater has been dealt with on a more local level or basin by basin through binational agreements and has been party to cooperative efforts to delineate the physical and chemical properties, as well as understand human impacts to the resource.  The nature of groundwater is such that human impacts have recently been the focus of attention; the problems that have surfaced do not have a quick fix.  Their solutions therefore have been undertaken through local initiatives, which have led to task forces and international exchanges of data to prevent future crises associated with the quantity and quality of the resource.

The vulnerability and resilience of these institutions in their ability to resolve bilateral disputes and promote cooperation between the countries is demonstrated in the examples of conflict and cooperation.  Overall, these examples suggest that conflict is not typically associated with violence but rather by actions that are perceived as threats to another country’s water resources.  Cooperation is demonstrated by the voluntary use of the institutional entities available to each country.  There are current disputes that display properties of both conflict and cooperation and can lean towards one end of the spectrum; however, in terms of the vulnerability of the institutional framework by which transboundary water issues are resolved, there is great resilience in the institutions that have already survived for over a century.  There are no signs of long-term vulnerability of the institutions; therefore, there is no vulnerability of the transboundary basins in North America over a long period of time.  The institutions are still being used to resolve other disputes such as in the Missouri-Mississippi River Basin and the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin.  The resilience of these institutions in North America will be tested by the prolonged presence of drought that increases water scarcity that will require flexibility to maintain resilience.

Good reading, but I'm biased. 

“The likelihood of conflict rises as the rate of change within the basin exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb that change.” -- Aaron Wolf

Cadiz is Now a 'Conservation' Project

In the past five weeks or so I have posted a number of items about the ill-fated Cadiz Groundwater Storage and Dry-Year Supply Program.

Emily Green has done all the heavy lifting on this, so I'll invoke her once more: she now reports that the aforementioned project has morphed into a 'conservation' project.

You can hear all about it on KPCC's AirTalk radio program: Scott Slater (General Counsel of Cadiz, Inc.), Elden Hughes (Sierra Club), Richard Sierra (San Bernardino Union of Carriers, Building & Construction Laborers, Local 783) and Green discuss the project.

I'll let you guess who's for it and who's against it.

Like a bad penny, this thing keeps coming back.  

“You cannot depend upon your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” -- Mark Twain

California Dreamin': Legislature Fails to Pass Water Bills

California's water crisis continues. The legislature failed to pass legislation to 'solve' the state's water crisis.

Read all about it from Emily Green and Aquafornia.

“Don’t send me Mickey Mouse bills. Send me the big stuff.” -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), to the California legislature

Southeast USA Water: Shoulds, Shouldn'ts, and Some Wouldas, Couldas

Susan Percy published this piece in the September 2009 issue of Georgia Trend. It deals with the current state of water affairs vis-a-vis Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. And, of course, that 800-pound gorilla,  the Atlanta metro area.

Thanks to Dorian Roffe-Hammond for sending this my way.

I've posted a number of items about this issue - the last one on 21 August 2009 called for a watermaster (or special master) to resolve issues in the ACF Basin. That last post contains links to my other posts.

Here's Percy's article:

OK, so a federal judge has said that the Army Corps of Engineers shouldn’t have allowed Atlanta to draw water from Lake Lanier for all these years, and that the metro region should have reined in its rampant growth and even that Atlanta’s leaders should have thrown a little money at the Buford Dam project when they had the chance, back in 1948.

That’s a lot of shoulds and shouldn’ts.

I have a few of my own to add: The governors of Georgia, Florida and Alabama should have been more responsible and aggressive in seeking a resolution to the water dispute – they had nearly 20 years to work on it. They shouldn’t have procrastinated and postured, simply because that was easier and less politically risky in the short term. They shouldn’t have left the matter to be resolved in federal court. They should have exhibited, individually and collectively, some leadership.

Politicians in Georgia and adjoining states who need a scapegoat should check their facts before they claim that any and all problems, water-wise or otherwise, are Atlanta’s fault. They should take the time to figure how much of their economic well-being is tied to Atlanta’s.

And the Army Corps of Engineers, hardly the brightest bulb on the circuit even in good times, should have been a lot smarter about clarifying its authority, its information and its procedures and should have picked up the pace in terms of updating its operating manual.

Three years ago I sat in on a hearing in Gainesville during which Georgia’s Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson and Congressman Nathan Deal took the Corps of Engineers to task over several matters, including its egregiously-outdated operating manual and the 22-billion gallon “mistake” the Corps made that dropped the water level in Lake Lanier by almost two feet during the drought. The Corps attributed the error to a faulty gauge.

Chambliss told the Corps’ South Atlantic Division commander, “If that kind of mistake was made on the battlefield, it would have cost American lives.”

This is not a governmental body with an impeccable track record, as residents of New Orleans might attest to.

But here’s the real point: Some 3.5 million American citizens who happen to live in the Metro Atlanta region are dependent on water released from Lake Lanier. Some were born here. Some moved here for work, for school, for family reasons, or simply because they took a liking to the place. I’m guessing very few of them actively entered into a conspiracy to eliminate mollusks in Florida.

(Understand, I don’t take environmental concerns lightly; any resolution of the water wars, whether it comes from the states or Congress, has to address the impact on the whole region’s environment, as well as the needs of the people who live here.)

Those 3 million-plus Metro Atlantans have a right to be here. Appropriately, they didn’t have to apply for permits or ask permission to relocate. They are not squatters. Very few of them entered the state and took up residence illegally. Some of them probably came from Alabama and Florida. But they are Georgians now, and they deserve their fair share of available water.

So let’s get on with finding a solution, even though that task has been made more difficult by the judge’s ruling and the three-year timeline he imposed.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has indicated Georgia will consider several options, including appealing the judge’s decision, working closely with the state’s Congressional leaders and reaching out to other parts of the country that find themselves in a similarly vulnerable position relating to their water supplies.

But perhaps the most encouraging response came in the form of the special task force the governor has appointed. He might have come late to the water-problem party, but he has brought some 130 business and government leaders, headed by Georgia Power CEO Mike Garrett, to help find a solution.

The business community’s involvement brings to the table a group of people who understand the value of planning, evaluating, negotiating, strategizing and acting – not just putting off decisions so someone else gets to deal with it.

They should make a real difference.

I generally liked her viewpoint. My thoughts on Ms. Percy's column:

• She's not a big fan of the Corps of Engineers (Duhhh...). 
• Does Gov. Sonny Perdue's task force contain only business and government leaders? Didn't they help create this mess? How about a variety of stakeholders? Environmentalists. Academics. Laypersons. Small business owners. Outsiders.
• Is the governor reaching out to his Florida and Alabama counterparts? How about a tri-state task force? Maybe it'll work this time. All three states must develop a solution.
• She seems to hold Atlanta almost totally faultless (see fourth paragraph). Perhaps if the Atlanta metro area's leaders had faced the reality that the local water resources could not support such poorly-planned growth today's situation would not be so grave.
• She's right about the importance of metro Atlanta to the region's economy. and there has been some scapegoating.
• Ain't hindsight wonderful! But let's learn from the past.

Still think a watermaster or special master would be a good thing.

"We don't give a damn how you done it up North" -- popular bumper sticker in the southern USA

The 'Green Guide' to California's $12B Gamble

Emily Green has assembled a great guide to the $12B legislative package that the California legislature is considering. The deadline is this Friday.

Enjoy!

“I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix." -- former Vice President Dan Quayle

“California is where you can't run any farther without getting wet." -- Neil Morgan

Cookin' the Books on the San Joaquin: The More Things Change...

Peter Gleick's blog post of a few days ago reminded me of my high-school French: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." That phrase is often translated as "The more things change, the more they remain the same."

In Peter's case, "things" mean "benefit-cost (B/C) ratios" for a water project, in this case a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water project, theTemperance Flat Dam and reservoir on the San Joaquin River.  Call me Paul E. Yanna, but I thought we'd progressed beyond the point where Federal water projects presented bogus B/C numbers. People had caught on to that scam, as occasionally practiced not only by the BuRec but also the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But I was wrong.

The BuRec calculated a B/C of 1.06 for the aforementioned project. Sounds good, right? Benefits > costs, right? But Gleick calls the BuRec out on just a (sarcasm alert) few 'minor' points:

The new reservoir will destroy riverine spawning habitat for American shad and striped bass, it will destroy nearly half of the trout habitat in the study area, and it may completely extirpate the shad population (among other ecological impacts they acknowledge but don't quantify). What value does the BoR assign in their benefit/cost to these ecosystem losses? Zero.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?blogid=104&entry_id=46970#ixzz0QNr4a7Vd

1) Zero value assigned to the destruction of the habitats of several fish species

2) Zero value assigned to the loss of recreational use by rafters and kayakers

3) Zero value assigned to the loss of sacred Native American sites

He's got some other good examples (e.g., inflated benefits) in his post.

Gleick makes the excellent point that, even after inflating benefits and neglecting costs, the best the BuRec could come up with was a B/C of 1.06. Hardly a real winner.

What's next? A "cash register" dam?

"If you dam a river it stagnates. Running water is beautiful water. So be a channel." -- English proverb

Mexico City's Looming Water Disaster

Stephanie Moore sent me this link to a story by Dudley Althaus that recently appeared in the Houston Chronicle. Althaus documents the dire water situation in Mexico City and its outlying areas, home to about 22 million people.

To those of us in hydrogeology, Mexico City has long been known as the 'poster child' (along with parts of the Central Valley of California) for land subsidence. Much of Mexico City is built upon a lake bed; lacustrine (lake) sediments are notoriously fine-grained (small particle size - clay) and susceptible to consolidation when groundwater is pumped. This causes the land surface to subside. Parts of Mexico City have subsided as much as 30 feet (9 meters). 

The photo of the cathedral isn't really a good example of land subsidence due to pumping. For one thing, they have not been pumping large quantities of groundwater for centuries. My guess is that the leaning cathedral is due to differential compaction/consolidation caused by soil properties and/or drainage issues. In other words, it's more a soil mechanics problem than a groundwater pumping one.

Back to Althaus' story.

Taps already are running dry for weeks at a time in large sections of the metroplex, especially in poorer neighborhoods. Officials warn that without extraordinary deluges in the coming weeks, extreme scarcity will stalk the area once the dry season begins in late October.

“We are on a collision course,” said Lorenzo Rosenzweig, director of a Mexico City foundation that finances water studies and other environmental programs. “The whole way we manage this watershed has to be rethought.”

The sierra-encircled basin that holds the Mexican capital was a vast lake bed when the Spaniards took it from the Aztecs nearly 500 years ago. Planners have been draining it ever since to make way for humans, treating the area's water more as a nuisance than a necessity.

That worked pretty well for a very long time. It doesn't any more.

“We've reached the end of a model,” said Arkansas-born Elena Burns, a naturalized Mexican citizen who helped coordinate a recent proposal to re-engineer Mexico City's watershed. “It's not sustainable.”

Decades of explosive population growth and poor planning have badly stressed the aquifers that supply three-quarters of the area's water. Three times as much water is sucked from the basin's aquifers as trickles back into them.

Tunnels today flush most rainfall and sewage runoff to the lowlands northeast of the city and on to the Gulf of Mexico, depriving the groundwater of replenishment. The water flowing daily out of the basin nearly equals the amount pumped into it from aquifers and the distant Cutzamala and Lerma reservoir systems, Burns said.

I did not realize that much of the basin's runoff was exported from the basin. No wonder land subsidence is so prevalent. And sewage runoff, if properly treated, would be a good source of recharge. Burns might want to consult the Orange County Water District. 

In 1995, a National Research Council committee and its Mexican counterparts did a joint study, Mexico City's Water Supply: Improving the Outlook for Sustainability.

A description:

This book addresses the technical, health, regulatory, and social aspects of ground water withdrawals, water use, and water quality in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, and makes recommendations to improve the balance of water supply, water demand, and water conservation. The study came about through a nongovernmental partnership between the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council and the Mexican Academies of Science and Engineering. The book will contain a Spanish-language translation of the complete English text.

Might be worth perusing.

One solution...

“There are just too many of us in this city. The earth can't handle so many of us.” -- diner owner Rafaela Camacho, quoted in the story

Robert Glennon's Webinar Online

There were some technical difficulties with Robert Glennon's Webinar yesterday and it took about 30 minutes to get the glitches worked out. Island Press has been kind enough to provide access to the audio/video (narration, PowerPoint slides, Q&A) at this site.  

Questions for Professor Glennon can be emailed to press@islandpress.org. Answers to selected questions will be posted to the Island Press WWW site. 

Enjoy!

"The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. You must give to the rivers the kindness you would give to any brother." -- Chief Seattle

My Brief, Former Life as an Ersatz Cloud Seeding Hydrologist

What better way to start a new month with a topic that is innocuous: cloud seeding.

Innocuous? Uh-huh!

Here is a recent article from the New York Times. And another one about Wyoming's big $8.8M cloud seeding experiment.

What prompted this post was an article in yesterday's Las Vegas Sun reporting that the Southern Nevada Water Authority(SNWA) may decide to fund the Desert Research Institute's (DRI) cloud seeding program in northern Nevada.

It should be noted that the SNWA funds DRI to seed clouds in the Colorado River Basin, from which it derives about 90% of its water.

DRI maintains 22 ground-based seeding stations. Most of the money to maintain DRI's Nevada program (see map from the LVS article) comes from the State of Nevada, which cut the program this year. DRI estimates that over the past 15 years the program has augmented water supplies by 20,000 to 80,000 acre-feet per year.

I am not an expert in cloud seeding. My limited experience with it occurred during a brief period in the mid-to-late 1980s when I was working at DRI (1976-1989). I was in the water group, whereas the cloud seeding program worked out of the Atmospheric Sciences Center. Funding was provided by the state, and all of it went to the ASC. We hydrologists and engineers got nada, and grumbled about it. Not only did we want some relatively 'hard'  money, but we were also skeptical of how much water was actually produced.

Of course, our skepticism had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we were cut out of the money loop. If you believe that...

I distinctly remember an episode during one of Nevada's biennial legislative sessions. The DRI program was up for review, and the ASC folks were apopleptic. Seems that someone in the state had asked them to demonstrate how much usable water had actually been produced for Nevada by the cloud seeding. Not precipitation,  mind you, but runoff and recharge.  

The ASC folks came to us and asked us to do this for them, in about a week or so. One of my colleagues could not contain his glee. "Told 'em so for years," he said. The chickens (or silver iodide particles)  had finally come home to roost.

To make a long story short, our group helped them out as best we could, and the program was renewed, probably in spite of our efforts. 

Did we get a slice of the pie? Nope.

I wonder if things have changed since then.

I should note that during this time, Utah was making noises about suing Nevada for "stealing" water that normally would have fallen on Utah. Can't recall what happened. Not much, I suspect.

Another Nevada historical note: DRI used to have its own B-25 Mitchell. It was used to fly into storms to make measurements to test the efficacy of the seeding process. It crashed into a mountain in 1980 killing all aboard. 

Here is a two-year old article from the Lahontan Valley News about Nevada's great cloud rustling controversy.

Mighty fine way to end this post.

Oh - if you are wondering why SNWA would want to fund a cloud seeding program in northern Nevada, you'll have to read the story.

“There are no desperate situations, only desperate people.” -- Unknown

Robert Glennon's 'Unquenchable' Webinar, 3 September 2009, 1-2 PM EDT

Just in from Island Press: Robert Glennon, author of Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It,  will hold a Webinar on 3 September 2009, 1-2 PM EDT. You must register for it. Robert will answer questions during this event.

Enjoy!

"Seek not to follow in the footsteps of wise men; seek what they sought."  -- Matsuo Bashō

Cadiz Clamor Continues: 1) EIR Online; 2) New Environmental Review On Tap

I've been preoccupied with other things (online alliteration workshop) and haven't been keeping abreast of what's going on with Cadiz. So here we go.

1) Thanks to Emily Green's hard work and tenacity (hey, she's a real journalist!) and Peter Gleick and Courtney Smith at the Pacific Institute, the Cadiz EIR and related documents are now available online.

2) And, if that's not enough, the Cadiz project will undergo a new environmental review. Emily's got that, too! You can also read more at Aquafornia.

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.” -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Video: World Resources Simulation Center Design Event

Averill Strasser of Water Charity sent me a link to this video on the World Resources Simulation Center design event that took place in San Diego in June 2009. Forty-six experts in GIS mapping and comprehensive thinking were brought together.

The World Resources Simulation Center, proposed by R. Buckminster Fuller, is an immersive visualization facility where policy-makers, business leaders, students and civil society can literally "see" the trends of our multiple, interconnected global issues and simulate options for the future -- so that the most sustainable choices can be made and acted upon more quickly.

This was reminiscent of the Club of Rome's The Limits to Growth experiments of the early 1970s - just incredibly more sophisticated.

When I first started my Twitter I had someone follow me who listed herself as a "comprehensivist". I wonder if she attended this meeting.

"The earth is like a spaceship that didn't come with an operating manual." -- R. Buckminster Fuller

Water Management Decentralization in Rural Honduras

Yoshiko Sano, my first Oregon State University graduate student, just completed her thesis, Water Management Decentralization in Rural Honduras. She has given me permission to post it.

Download Pretext_Water_Management_Decentral_Honduras_Sano_2009_July

Download Water_Management_Decentralization_Honduras_Sano_2009_July

The pretext consists of the abstract, T of C, etc. The second download is the body.

Here is the abstract.

Numerous water supply systems and community based water boards have been created with the aid of international organizations and NGOs in developing countries. These water systems have great potential to improve people’s social life and health in these countries. However, in reality, these water systems are often not effectively managed; often, they do not function well and are abandoned before the designed lifespan. Water boards, the community based organizations established to run the systems, could also stop functioning. At the same time, a highly centralized water and sanitation sector, which many of the developing countries have, results in lack of governmental assistance, especially in rural areas. One of the future directions to overcome this situation is decentralization, which gives more authorities to local governments and water boards.

Honduras is a typical example of this water management issue, yet with high potential to be a future successful model for the decentralization. Since the 1990s, the national government has been trying to decentralize its water and sanitation sectors to give more authority to municipalities and local water boards in rural communities. At the same time, both government and community based organizations have been allocating circuit riders to visit the communities to provide technical and administrative assistance.

Despite these efforts, there are still problems associated with water management and the decentralization processes. This study attempts to fathom the current issue pertaining to water systems and water boards in Honduras, particularly the impact of decentralization and the need for assistance in rural communities. I interviewed six water boards in three different rural areas to identify the current issues. In addition, related articles and the national laws were reviewed to understand the process of decentralization and the institutional structure of the water and sanitation sector.

The study revealed that the rural communities have enough potential to administer their own water systems. However, they have not obtained much benefit or authority from decentralization. None of six communities interviewed is receiving regular support from the government. There are two communities which get regular external assistance and they are having less concern and are confident about maintaining the water systems. On the other hand, communities without any regular external assistance are experiencing difficulties in operating their water systems. In addition, there is less trust among people in these communities to get support from the inside.

The study suggests that the national government should still proceed with  decentralization but provide more financial and educational support to empower local governments and rural communities. In addition, local governments should facilitate cooperation between communities and resolve conflict between them. However, the most important thing is for rural communities to improve the situation by joining an organization which provides regular assistance or creating similar organization by themselves.

"Grief shared is half grief; joy shared is double joy." -- Honduran proverb

Congress Tests The Waters: Sustainable Watershed Planning Act, Part 2

No sooner had I posted my assessment (10 August 2009) of a draft version of the Sustainable Watershed Planning Act than a new, improved version popped up in my inbox. It has taken me a while to get through this second version; a lot of changes have been made. The proposed Office of Sustainable Watershed Management (OSWM) is still in there.

Here's your very own copy:

Download WatershedPlanningBillDRAFT080709

This bill may be considered by the U.S. House of Representative's Water Resources and the Environment Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) is the chair; Rep. John Boozman (R-AR) is the ranking member. Here are the subcommittee members. I say "may be considered" because the bill does not yet have a number and is a work in progress. Hearings have not been scheduled.

General Observations

1. There is no longer an OSWM Advisory Council comprised of federal agency heads , state reps, and other stakeholders.
2. When compared to the first draft the Director of OSWM appears to have acquired more power and approaches the status of a 'water czar'.
3. Instead of selecting regional watershed planning boards based upon boundaries of each USACE Civil Works District the Director would identify and support ten regional watershed planning boards, each of which can be no smaller than a 4-digit HUC (Hydrologic Unit Code) watershed (subregional level). Note that there are 222 such watersheds in the USA, averaging about 16,800 square miles.  Keep in mind that the HUC approach pertains to surface watersheds, not groundwatersheds.
4. Selecting the ten regional watershed planning regions will be challenging, to say the least. Criteria? Politics, anyone?
5. What happens after the ten planning regions finish their tasks? Are they to become self-sustaining?
6. The Director is charged with developing a national water policy. This is a daunting task. No doubt the Director will seek asistance, but I prefer the approach being proposed by Rep. John Linder (R-GA).
7. The Director is also charged with developing a research agenda, another challenging task, but one that was done almost ten years ago by the National Research Council's Water Science and Technology Board.
8. The EPA Administrator has a more prominent role than in the original bill, mainly distributing money on behalf of the Director and OSWM.
9. The bill asks for a lot of money. This is only bad because legislators might be getting "budget burnout". In the grand scheme of things, it is not a lot of money.

Curmudgeon Alert

So called because some might consider these the grumblings of a GOM (Grumpy Old Man).

The name of OSWM should be changed. Sustainable means different things to different people, but since that term is so ingrained these days, it's tolerable. Besides, it makes many people (myself excluded) feel good.

The term watershed is certainly appropriate, but ask most people (including water professionals) what image a watershed conjures and they'll say: "River basin.' That's fine, but I am concerned that groundwatersheds, which can underlie two or more 4-digit HUC surface watersheds, will get short shrift (they will).

The word management may have baggage when it comes to the Federal government and water. Ask Westerners about the Feds and water management and they are likely to look perplexed or worse. But it's better than saying planning; try juxtaposing Federal government and water planning in the same sentence. The OSWM will not be doing water management. So drop it.

I would call it the Water Resources Act, creating the Office of Water Resources. Simple and straightforward.  If it is really critical that sustainable be included, then: Sustainable Water Resources Act and the Office of Sustainable Water Resources.

The document says climactic when it means climatic. It should also say surface water and groundwater, not surface and groundwater.

Transboundary as it pertains to aquifers needs clarification. Are transboundary aquifers only those underlying portions of two or more states or entities that are TAS (treated as states, e.g., Indian reservations), or are international ones included? This is important because the bill will not "affect the water rights of any person or entity using water from a transboundary aquifer."

If you are going to evaluate groundwater recharge and use in a planning region, then you might as well add groundwater flow and discharge.

Okay, now for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Good

• OSWM provides money to states for water planning.
• Supposedly does not tread upon states' water prerogatives.
• Will honor exisiting treaties, compacts, and avoid (unfunded) mandates. 
• Congress is proposing this type of legislation.
• Ambitious 

Bad

• Planning regions: potential bias toward surface watersheds at the expense of groundwatersheds.  
• What about the engagement of local agencies (counties, municipalities) with land-use planning responsibilities? 
• Unsure why the EPA Administrator is now "plugged in" since the OSWM's charge goes beyond water quality, the EPA's traditional interest in water. The OSWM encompasses water allocation, use, etc. So why might EPA's involvement be bad? Two words: "regulatory agency". Let OSWM distribute the funds, or use some non-regulatory agency (USGS) if an agency is needed. 
• No more OWSM Advisory Council, which could have helped the OSWM Director do her job, especially since OSWM must rely on Federal agencies for a lot of its work. 
• Unsure how this bill will promote coordination among Federal water agencies, except perhaps in the ten selected planning regions. The deleted Advisory Council could have helped to do this.
• How is "sustainable" defined?  Economically? Hydrologically? Environmentally? Socially? I know this sounds like nitpicking, but it isn't.
• Buy-in from all the key players in the ten selected watershed planning regions could be an issue. The regional watershed planning boards have to do a lot of work, so buy-in is essential.
• The bill goes into great detail about what types of persons must be appointed to the regional watershed planning boards. This is too much of a top-down approach.
• The GAO is to evaluate each regional watershed planning board. I would much prefer to see a group like the National Academy of Sciences or the National Science Foundation involved, although assessing ten boards would be quite a task. Why not leave it to the Director of the OSWM to arrange reviews?

Ugly

• How do you deal with 'virtual watersheds'? Consider the case of Los Angeles, whose 'watershed boundaries' extend into Northern California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado River Basin. 
• The OSWM Director must use USACE Principles and Guidelines to evaluate projects, regional water plan activities, etc. The Director should be allowed to use whatever procedures she deems appropriate, as long as consistency is maintained. If the choice is the USACE P&Gs, that's fine.
• I do not see how this bill will "ensure the sustainable use of the water resources of the United States". It may do this in the ten planning regions so selected but I don't see this accomplished on a national scale.

WaterWired's Take

I am very glad to see Congress tackling this issue and willing to spend some money on it. This particular bill will not accomplish what it wants to on a national scale. Nor can I see how it will improve Federal agency coordination vis-a-vis water. It is also far too "top-down" for my tastes. 

But I would very much like to see something like this passed. And soon.

"Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." -- Unknown

Pipeline People Speak

Emily Green has a great summary of all that transpired at the SNWA Board meeting on 21 August 2009, including selected quotes from the more than 40 public comments.

As was widely reported and misreported by some (at least in terms of the headline) the Board did not vote Y or N on the pipeline project, but Y or N on the following ( as reported by Green):

1. Direct staff to proceed with state and federal permitting processes, fulfill the requirements of stipulated agreements, and complete the necessary biologic and hydrologic monitoring efforts to support these activities.  (Y)
2. Authorize the General Manager to execute, in materially the same form, the Agreement for Management of the Snake Valley Groundwater System among the State of Nevada, the State of Utah and the Authority, and the Snake Valley Environmental Monitoring and Management Agreement between the State of Utah and the Authority. (Y)

More to come - you can count on that!

“If we vote in favor of this, our political futures are toast. We have political targets on our backs.” – Duncan McCoy, Boulder City councilman and SNWA director

The ACF Basin and Metro Atlanta Need a Watermaster

Judge Paul Magnuson's recent decision involving the metro Atlanta water situation could have done more to effect a solution.

What?

Reflecting upon my earlier (16 October 2007; 23 October 2007; 5 November 2007; 16 November 2007; 8 February 2008; 5 August 2008) and last two (19 August 2009 and 20 August 2009) posts on the metropolitan Atlanta water situation  has led me to conclude that the recent decision of Judge Paul Magnuson (see Watercrunch's post) didn't go far enough - he should have appointed a watermaster to oversee the situation.

That is a drastic step, but a watermaster is needed to "persuade' Alabama, Florida, and Georgia to resolve their differences and help metro Atlanta get on a water diet so that three years from now it won't become the world's largest purchaser of bottled water.

So let me explain myself, but first, some background.

About seven years ago I listened to my then-University of New Mexico colleague, law professor Chuck DuMars, talk about the chances that Alabama, Georgia, and Florida would amicably reach a compact agreement for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Basin (ACFB).

The accompanying map, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also shows the adjoining Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa Basin (ACTB).

Chuck, a brilliant water lawyer, was in the employ of Georgia at the time. He described the efforts to develop a compact, and was optimistic that the three states would reach an accord without more litigation. He noted that the technical people from each state were working together to develop a model (or models) that all could agree upon, thereby bypassing the dreaded 'dueling experts' syndrome ("Mine is bigger than yours."). This approach, he said, was quite different from previous cases in which he had been involved and would facilitate a compact agreement.

I left the presentation optimistic and enthusiastic, believing that the Southeast could get it right, unlike the West.

Boy, did I get it wrong!

Somewhere between then and now the wheels fell off, and the three states are still squabbling over water allocation and use in the ACFB. It's been almost 20 years of disagreements, which is actually short compared to some Western water water law fights. 

I've spoken to some colleagues about why the process failed; I won't go into those reasons here.

I now question whether the three states can reach an agreement in three years, even though there is a gun being held to their (or at least Georgia's) head. Some have opined that the three governors, Sonny Perdue (R-GA), Charlie Crist (R-FL), and Bob Riley (R-AL), each a Republican with about 18 months left in office, can get this on track and leave a legacy of sorts. I don't know all the political dynamics involved, but I am skeptical that three years can accomplish what needs to be done.

That is where a court-appointed watermaster could come in, reminding all involved of the court's looming presence and cajoling or knocking heads when necessary. The ideal watermaster would be someone knowledgeable about water but would not a stakeholder - preferably someone from out of the region who'd be viewed as an 'honest broker' by all three states.

The watermaster would not only help the three states reach an agreement, but would also be in charge of managing the basin's water. That's an unusual dual role - my limited experience suggests that a watermaster is appointed to enforce an agreement, not to help broker one.

This step might be viewed as some as an unwarranted Federal intrusion, but it needs to be implemented; the states have shown that they can't do it alone. The stakes are high. And these are indeed unusual times.

Suggestions? I've got one - Pat Mulroy. Why not? You want someone who can get the job done? A person who won't be intimidated by politicians? Someone without a vested interest in the outcome, right? Her only drawbacks might be too big for some - a go-go-growth philosophy and proclivity for increasing supply instead of managing demand. But if anyone can do it, she can.  

As I said earlier, these are unusual times, and an unusual approach is requisite.

Not to mention unusual people.

"I think the governors all felt they were likely to be victorious. I kept telling them that if you don't settle it, somebody's going to win and somebody's going to lose." - US Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin." -- H.L. Mencken

Pat Mulroy and SNWA Retreat

Today was the big vote at the SNWA Board meeting - Y or N on the rural pipeline project. So what happened?

Emily Green reports:

The much vaunted “up or down” vote  on the proposed Great Basin pipeline that General Manager Pat Mulroy reportedly demanded of her board at the Southern Nevada Water Authority today descended into a long, polite and more than a little bit bizarre political retreat. Rather than confront her board to commit to the pipeline, as it was reported that Mulroy would do by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Mulroy instead asked it for permission to do what she was doing already: Cooperating with the ongoing US Bureau of Land Management environmental review process and hammering out a Snake Valley monitoring agreement.

Read Emily's account for all the facts, and Henry Brean's story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back." -- Turkish proverb

Mulroy as Moses

Pat Mulroy as Moses? Wait a minute, since she's been called The Chosen One isn't Moses a step down? Can she lead her followers to the Promised Land?

I am not being facetious, though; I'm not referring to that Moses, but to Robert Moses.

Who?

Bear with me now.

Unless you have studied urban planning or grew up in New York state (especially the New York City metropolitan area) during the 1930s to the mid-1960s, you probably don't know who Robert Moses was. He was the Master Builder, and arguably the most powerful figure in New York City and perhaps all of New York State, for almost 30 years. His 'urban philosophy' became widespread as his disciples spread 'the word' to other cities across the USA.

His biography, the 1,300-page tome The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, earned Robert Caro a Pulitzer Prize and was voted one of the 100 most important English-language books of the 20th century by the Modern Library.

Moses wielded incredible power, and at one time held twelve different positions simultaneously and had 80,000 persons working for him. He made policy simply by building stuff, where he wanted it built.

From his New York Times obituary:

Before him, there was no Triborough Bridge, Jones Beach State Park, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, West Side Highway or Long Island parkway system or Niagara and St. Lawrence power projects. He built all of these and more.

Before Mr. Moses, New York State had a modest amount of parkland; when he left his position as chief of the state park system, the state had 2,567,256 acres. He built 658 playgrounds in New York City, 416 miles of parkways and 13 bridges.

Yet he never held elected office, and the only time he ran for one (governor of NY in 1934), he was creamed. He was a just a public servant.

Uh-huh.

So why all this stuff about Robert Moses and Pat Mulroy? I first thought of the similarity between the two when I got this comment to my The Chosen One post:

Is Mulroy pro-development? Mulroy was handed a job to do. She does not make policy on growth. Go blame the City fathers. The City fathers are responsible for water rates.

Moses was a powerful bureaucrat who cowed politicians and forced his vision on many - his vision of the 2oth century US city, and by God, it was his sacred duty to bring that vision to fruition, politicans and communities be damned. Yes, he made policy every time he built a bridge, tunnel, parkway, or housing project.

Sound familiar?

That's what Pat Mulroy does - make policy. She will deny that and likely say that she is really the public servant who simply does what her bosses tell her to do - find more water for growth in southern Nevada. She transcends the role of  an ordinary public servant. She has a vision of 21st century Las Vegas and will implement that: cheap, plentiful water to fuel growth.

I suspect her 'bosses' - Clark County elected officials - would follow her through Hell carrying gasoline tanks if she told them to.

Don't think she makes policy? Well, don't take my word for it - read David Zetland's post.

She and Moses have one big similarity - they really weren't trained to do what they do. Neither one was trained as a planner, engineer, or lawyer, yet each mastered what they needed to know, and got the job done.

And, like Moses, Mulroy's influence extends far beyond her city - to the entire state of Nevada, and beyond.

Some would prefer to say that Mulroy channels Western water giants such as Los Angeles' William Mulholland (see David Zetland's post on this) or New Mexico's legendary State Engineer (for 35 years!) Steve Reynolds.

But I vote for Robert Moses. Besides, his last name's a better fit.

"Those who can, build. Those who can't, criticize." -- Robert Moses