WaterWired

WaterWired Gets Introspective and Maudlin

Okay, I just returned from a great conference - AWRA's Riparian Ecosystems and Buffers: Working at the Water's Edge - so I should have lots of news to post, right?

Well, yes and no. I have lots of news, but I'm not going to post it. One of the things that I and other bloggers contend with is an ethical one: what can we post and what's off limits?

I don't make my living blogging and I, not Oregon State University, pay for the privilege to blog. I work as a water resources professional. I blog to provide information and commentary (bloviation?) on the current important (in my view) water issues, an opportunity for others to comment, and frankly because I am an inveterate 24/7/52 WaterWonk with a bit of an ego. I do not pretend to be a journalist, but blogging has journalistic characteristics (perhaps I should say 'pretensions').

Most water people know me not for my blogging, and some of my professional colleagues don't know that I blog. The latter tell me things that they might not if they knew I was a blogger. If they did, they might do what one of my colleagues did a few days ago: preface their comments with, "Now don't blog this, but..."

On the other hand, I worry that long-time colleagues and friends will be more circumspect when chatting with me for fear that I'll blog something I shouldn't. There are times when I don't want to be a blogger, but just a hydrologist/WaterWonk.

So here are some of the things I worry about, in no particular order:

1. Violating someone's confidence
2. Distinguishing between news and commentary
3. Reporting the facts correctly 
4. Being civil, tasteful, ethical, and honest
5. Posting interesting items
6. Balancing humor and gravitas, with a dollop of sarcasm 
7. Respecting copyright issues
8. Writing well 
9. Burning out 

I haven't gotten it right yet, but I am working on it and enjoy doing so.

This November, at AWRA's Annual Conference, I am planning a panel discussion on the aforementioned issues as they relate to other waterbloggers. Bloggers Robert Osborne (Watercrunch), Noah Hall (Great Lakes Law), Abby Brown (Water For The Ages), and Jared Simpson (Waterblogged.info) will participate. It'll be fun and informative.

Let me get a bit maudlin on this Fourth of July. Each year at this time (read more on my personal blog, Campanastan) I sit down to read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I am partial to the First Amendment and its guarantee of five fundamental rights: religion, assembly, press, petition, speech - RAPPS.

I especially appreciate the fact that I do not have someone or some agancy looking over my shoulder telling me what I can and can't say. Now that I blog, I value that right more than ever.

So have a happy Independence Day, and thank those 56 guys who signed off on that thing 232 years ago.

 “We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.” – Ben Franklin

Is Water The 'New Oil'? Tell Me Something I Don't Know

The 28 May 2008 issue of the Christian Science Monitor (arguably the best newspaper in the USA, by the way) has a story by Mark Clayton that asks "Is water becoming the new oil?"

For readers of this and other water blogs, this is not a provocative headline: the media has been full of water shortage and water privatization stories in the past few years. Some of the usual suspects are cited: the always logical Peter Gleick, and the always peripatetic Maude Barlow, who weighs in with her usual dose of enlightenment:

“Water is a public resource and a human right that should be available to all,” she says. “All these companies are doing is recycling dirty water, selling it back to utilities and us at a huge price. But they haven’t been as successful as they want to be. People are concerned about their drinking water and they’ve met resistance.”

Yes, water should be available to all. But "All these companies...recycling dirty water" - does she mean water reuse, whereby water is treated to drinking-water standards and then sold as such? How despicable! Public utilities do this too, Maude - try the Orange County Water District in SoCal. Shouldn't the OCWD be allowed to recover the cost of water treatment?  

The article does focus heavily on privatization, and of course, cites the pathetic case of Cochabamba, Bolivia, out of which Bechtel was tossed in 2000 over high prices for water. What you never hear about is what a mess the public utility had made of the city's water-supply system. That does not justify turning over the keys to the safe to multinationals like Bechtel, but if the city had done a good job of managing the water supply and maintaining the infrastructure, Bechtel would not have been needed.

People forget that you don't have to have a private, profit-making utility to have a good water system. A publicly-owned system can charge a "fair price" for water, one that ensures the utility can maintain the system and yet not give the resource away. I don't care what your economic status is; if you get water for free or for an unreasoably low price, you won't value it and you will waste it. That is the last thing we need in these times. That is what people like Maude Barlow forget: you cannot give water away for nothing or next to nothing. Well, you can, but...

And a private utility is not necessarily the devil incarnate. If a community votes to turn over its water supply utility to a private utility because they think it can do a better job, they should do so with their eyes open, ensuring that there are oversight and lifeline rates. 

The article notes that the Canadian House of Commons voted last year to begin talks with Mexico and the USA to exclude water from NAFTA.

And I just heard about a local Pacific Northwest legislator who annually wants to sell one million acre feet (1 MAF) of Pacific Northwest water "internationally" at a penny per gallon to make $3.26 billion per year for the public coffers! Such a deal! Why sell it internationally? Just ship it to Las Vegas or SoCal.

This person will likely have his head handed to him. But what if entrepreneurs in the PNW used 1 MAF to produce or grow widgets, then sold these things overseas for a hefty profit? People would applaud them. But they are still shipping 1 MAF of water overseas, only it is "virtual water". Why not eliminate the middleman and just sell the water?

Oh yeah, the article does have one flaw: it says Canada (which has often been mentioned as a supply for the USA) has 20% of the world's fresh water. If you have been a faithful reader of this blog, you will know the error of that statement.

But don't let that stop you from reading a great article.

“Never underestimate the collective stupidity of very smart people in small groups.” – Unknown

 

UN Human Rights Council: Water Not A Global Human Right, or NAFTA 'Rains' Supreme

Abby Brown posted this item on her Water For The Ages blog, 11 May 2008. Germany and Spain wanted to pass a resolution proposing that water be a global human right. But the USA and Canada - yes Canada (Oh, Canada!), homeland of the indefatigable Maude Barlow - wanted and got the wording changed so as not to interfere with NAFTA, which defines water as a "good and investment".  Or should that be a "good investment"?

Looks like the UN could learn from our friends in South Africa.

"When the people take to reasoning, all is lost." -- Voltaire

Will Global Warming Increase If We Eradicate Malaria?

John Fleck posted this item by Roger Pielke, Jr., and labeled it a "provocative post". Quite an understatement. Pielke posits that eradicating malaria may lead to increased GHG emissions from African nations, where over 3 million people die from the disease each year, and one billion contract it. Sick people are a drag on the economy. It's difficult for them to be productive.

So let's treat people, rid the continent of malaria, and help people escape from poverty. What happens as people start working? The economy grows, and guess what? More GHGs!

Sounds like a recipe for more global warming.

Read Pielke's article. He's not advocating (nor am I) that we refrain from eradicating malaria, but it's a provocative (Draconian?) premise.

As John says:

This is not, of course, to argue against treating malaria. It’s merely another illustration of the tangled relationship between disease, poverty, economics and climate change on a global scale. It’s a really hard problem.

Recall that on 25 April we observed World Malaria Day.

"Never underestimate how poorly people can treat one another." -- Unknown

OSU Offers New Graduate Certificate in Water Conflict Management and Transformation

Oregon State University (OSU) is now offering a new Professional/Graduate Certificate in Water Conflict Management and Transformation. Click here for more information. [Disclosure notice: I am at OSU and am an affiliated faculty member with this program.]

The following text is from the Program's WWW site.

This program is designed to provide decision-makers and water professionals with the required specialized resources and skills that go beyond the traditional physical systems approach to water resources management. It will explicitly integrate human, policy and scientific dimensions of water resources within the framework of governance and sustainability.

The Professional/Graduate Certificate in Water Conflict Management and Transformation will invite instructors, students, and professionals from across the state, the country and internationally to participate in case-based, interactive course and fieldwork in a multicultural and multidisciplinary learning environment. This 18-credit graduate certificate provides in-depth skills-building training to enhance personal and institutional capacity in water governance issues and strategies across distinct and overlapping contexts: Water Governance, Water and Ecosystems, Water and Society, and Water and Economics.

A highlight of the professional/graduate certificate program is a capstone course (Water Governance and Conflict Management) coupled with an intersession practicum working with watershed councils, landowners, and agencies in Northeast Oregon; and a guided and critiqued project in which two teams take on, for example, the roles of Jordan and Israel to negotiate a treaty for water resource allocation in a simulated water negotiation. These techniques will hone student skills, understanding and thought development. Students will also take part in fieldwork in a watershed or basin at risk of, or in, water conflict. Read about the 2007 practicum, in the article entitled "Outside looking in: OSU students get a taste of community-based restoration in the Grande Ronde Watershed."

It is expected that candidates entering this program will already have a Bachelor's Degree and will enroll in the university, either into a graduate degree program or into the graduate certificate program. All the courses listed in the program are currently offered at OSU and some are offered as online courses. Presently, we are also working towards developing new e-courses to provide online candidates with an opportunity to successfully complete the entire program online.

Program affiliated faculty have designed and implemented a broad spectrum of applied activities in the Western U.S. and throughout the world, including: facilitations and skills-building workshops between stakeholders at both the transnational and international levels; skills-building workshops and training courses for graduate students and professionals from mid-career through the ministerial level; and collaborative learning processes in which stakeholders develop conflict management skills while enhancing dialog on current issues of dispute.

See a list of courses related to water conflict and management that are currently offered at OSU.

"If we work together, a secure and sustainable water future can be ours ." -- Kofi Annan, February 2002

'The Water Haulers': Film About Navajo Water

Just after I posted about Matt Jenkins' excellent High Country News article on the Navajo Nation's effrots to get the water due them, colleague Leslie Kryder sent me this link to a film produced by Albuquerque's PBS station KNME, The Water Haulers. Here is a direct link to the film.

The film's $30,000 cost was split equally between the Navajo Nation and the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (NMOSE). The latter used a grant from the Healey Foundation for its share.

The film begins with the plight of 70,000 Navajos, who have no access to water infrastructure. This is a good object lesson for us all, who think that it is only people outside the USA who do not have ready access to potable water.

The film intersperses the Navajos' story with clips from old, mid-2oth century "promotional" films about MAWGs (Middle-Aged White Guys)  and OWGs (old white guys) building dams and pipelines, and housewives enjoying the fruits of their labors. I fully expected Beaver Cleaver to appear in one of the clips, decrying the bullying tactics of Eddie Haskell, and asking big brother Wally to extract some measure of revenge, all while drawing a refreshing glass of tap water.

Hey, wasn't Ward Cleaver an accountant for MWD?  Naahhh...

Okay, back to Navajo water.

The flim focuses on the San Juan River basin and the recent out-of-court agreement between the Navajo Nation and New Mexico that gives the Nation 56% of the San Juan's water and calls for a 270-mile pipleline system to provide water to 60,000 tribal citizens.

Here is a publication about the San Juan River basin's water issues by Joe Leeper, a Navajo Nation water engineer who is quoted in the film.

Download san_juan_basin.pdf

The San Juan River is one of the world's premier fly-fishing streams - just a few miles downstream of Navajo Dam, which releases cool bottom-water from its reservoir. It is also the second-largest tributary to the Colorado River and also provides over 1,000,000 tons of salt per year.

The fly in the ointment: money (duhhh....). The agreement needs about $800M from the Feds to make it work. It's unclear that this will be forthcoming, but New Mexico's two senators, Jeff Bingaman (D) and Pete Domenici (R) are both powerful and in favor of this settlement. I would not bet against it.

"The waterworks men have the answers to the problem. With your help they can put their plans to work to provide plenty of water for tomorrow." -- quote from one of the clips in The Water Haulers

Maude Barlow: No Free Pass

Jared over at Waterblogged.info has a great post with two videos featuring Amy Goodman (raised on Long Island!) of Democracy Now!, the film FLOW (For Love Of Water), and Canadian activist Maude Barlow. The topic is obviously water.

Goodman and Barlow remind me of Michael Moore. I don't necessarily agree with every utterance, but society needs such people to poke it in the eye every so often (see today's aphorism).

The first clip has a few minutes of the film, then gets into an interview of Barlow by Goodman that carries over to the second clip. Barlow has written a number of books about water, and is well-known for being rabidly against the corporate takeover of water and the "commodification" and "privatization" of water.

I support some of the things Barlow does: more community say in the management of water resources and less use of bottled water are two items upon which we agree. She is also aware of and concerned with our decaying water infrastructure. But I need to call her on several things she said in this interview. Goodman did not take her to task because they are like-minded and Goodman is not a Water Wonk.

1) Barlow states that in the USA we are not protecting source water, and putting all our "water eggs" into cleaning dirty water, then implies we are doing that so companies like General Electric (GE) can make mucho dinero by cleaning it up.

In the USA, we are concerned with protecting source water. Has she not heard of wellhead protection and the more general source water protection programs? Source water protection enables the USA's largest municipal drinking water utility, the City of New York, to provide excellent water to over 8,000,000 people because it is aggressively manages its upstate watersheds for drinking-water quality. And yes, the locals are involved.

2) Goodman and Barlow seem to think that virtual water is something new and perhaps unseemly; it's not. Although the term "virtual water" is relatively new, virtual water has been around ever since one region exported some goods that required water to produce to another region. Water is embedded in many products, food and non-food alike. Barlow likes to cite the USA and China as virtual water exporters (and they are also virtual water importers, too), but fails to indicate that her own country exports huge amounts of virtual water in its wheat and beef exports. And, for every virtual water exporter there is a virtual water importer. So?

3) Barlow seems to downplay climate change ("...glaciers melting and all that") and places most of our water ills on water privatization. The latter is a relatively recent phenomenon, whereas climate change by humans has been going on for quite some time. Which scares me more? Climate change. So, yes, I guess I'm dead, catatonic, or Jack Bauer. She even seems to conflate climate change and our "abuse" of water. Not sure about that one.

4) What is wrong with putting water meters in homes and requiring people to pay for water? I have a water meter in my home, and it wasn't placed there by GE or Suez, but by the City of Corvallis, a place of 55,000 souls that is not hell-bent on taking over the water resources of the world. One of the reasons places have water problems is that people don't have to pay for water, or they pay too little. It's a fact: when you get something for free, you don't value it. Doesn't matter whether you are a peasant in Laos or a denizen of some toney Toronto suburb. In fact, many of us on municipal systems pay nothing for the water; we are paying for the system to deliver (O&M) the water. The water itself is assigned no value. Some municipalities are instituting commodity or scarcity charges so that the water itself is assigned a cost.

Regarding water systems and "charging" for water: when I started learning about building village systems in developing countries, the thing that was drilled into my head is that people must pay something for the water. If they don't, they won't feel "ownership" and the system will fail.

I see nothing inherently evil about privatization; what is important is to have local oversight and lifeline rates. Without those, it is bad.

5) Barlow states that China has "destroyed its water table". China actually has lots of different water tables, but aside from that, I'm unsure what she means. Does she mean that China has pumped so much ground water that it has dramatically (excessively) lowered the water tables in many of its aquifers? Or contaminated the aquifers?

6) She says that the USA water hunters are after the Guarani aquifer in Latin America as a potential domestic source.

Okay, here's a map of the Guarani aquifer, which underlies Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina. It is arguably the largest single body of fresh ground water in the world - maybe even the largest single body of unfrozen fresh water in the world.

Let's get serious here. If we took this source over, how are we going to get the water to the USA? By thousands of miles of (expensive!) pipeline through hostile territory? Maybe an undersea pipeline? Shipping it up in supertankers or 'baggies'? It would likely be cheaper to desalt sea water, or get it from Alaska or Canada.

The USA is interested in this aquifer, as is the UN, but not as a potential domestic source, but because as a transnational water body it is subject to international disputes and other events that might threaten our security. It's the same reason NATO is funding me to manage a water project in the South Caucasus - to ensure that there are no fights over water that could destabilize the region. And it's the same reason that the Pentagon is concerned about AIDS in Africa. Altruism? Maybe not. Self-interest? Definitely!

7) She states that New Mexico has 10-year supply of water left, but provides no evidence for this statement. I worked in New Mexico for 17 years (1989-2006) and never heard any statement like that. And Lake Mead is the primary (not "back-up") water supply for Las Vegas.

8) Barlow says in school we erroneously learned you can't "interrupt" the hydrologic cycle. If we are talking about the global cycle, as shown below, that's true, you can't interrupt the cycle. What is true is that over time, the hydrologic cycle in a particular place likely changes; runoff may increase at the expense of evapotranspiration, precipitation may decrease in one place and increase elsewhere, etc. These changes have been happening naturally for millennia and have recently developed an anthropogenic signature. So yes, humans (and nature) have changed the cycle in various places. But interrupt? Not the right word. Alter? That's different.

I'll stop for now, lest I be accused of piling on Canada (again!). If you want to call me a nitpicker, fine, but remember, if Barlow is passing herself off as a world water expert (she's written 16 books, 16 more than I have), she needs to have a better grasp of the topics.

"Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on top." -- Edward Abbey

Winters Doctrine Centennial Conference

On 28 February 2008 I posted about Indian water rights and the Winters Doctrine. I was remiss in failing to mention that 2008 is the centennial of the Winters vs. United States Supreme Court case that established Federal reserved rights.

Well, no sooner had I posted the item then I received an announcement from colleague Sanford (Sandy) Gaines, the Director of the Utton Transboundary Resources Center (Utton Center) about a conference the UC is hosting with the American Indian Law Center, Inc. (AILC): The Winters Centennial: Will Its Commitment to Justice Endure?.

The symposium will be 9-12 June 2008, at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort just north of Albuquerque on the Santa Ana Pueblo, which owns and operates the resort.

An all-star group will be speaking: Dan McCool, A. Dan Tarlock, Charles Wilkinson, Patty Limerick, et al. Check out the program:

Download Winters_Program_3-5-08.pdf

Jim Thebaut will be showcasing a rough cut of his film, The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?

From the conference WWW site:

The year 2008 marks the centennial of Winters v. United States, in which the Court formulated the reserved water rights doctrine now broadly asserted by Indian tribes and federal agencies. The decision, because of its enduring promise of justice to Native Americans, marks one of the great achievements of American jurisprudence.  The decision made possible the continuity of many Indian communities and non-Indian communities alike, along with the protection of important environmental resources. Now, one hundred years later, the question is whether the promise of Winters will be fulfilled. In celebration of the Winters Centennial, the Utton Transboundary Resources Center and the American Indian Law Center will convene a major symposium in June 2008 along the waters of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque. The symposium will review the legal and cultural history of the decision, assess the contemporary consequences of the reserved water rights doctrine (both nationally and internationally), and project the significance of Indian water rights into the 21st Century. The goal of the symposium is to assemble Indian reserved rights policy makers and decision makers at all levels in order to deepen the understanding of the effect of Winters and to advance the dialogue regarding the future role of reserved rights.

This will be a can't-miss event.

"Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." -- Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Indians

'Drink Two Glasses of Tap Water and Call Me in the Morning'

Maybe that's what your doctor will say the next time you call her.

Just to show that I don't exclusively excoriate bottled water, I'll also pick on municipal drinking water. The Associated Press reported today that it found pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies that serve 41 million Americans.

NPR has more, including graphics. Talk of the Nation interviewed water quality expert Dr. Joan Rose of Michigan State University on this issue.

Senate hearings are planned.

Here's the intro from the story by Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza, and Justin Pritchard:

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, KY.

Supplies in Albuquerque, Austin, and Virgina Beach tested negative. Try again, guys.

So you have your own well or drink bottled water? In the clear, right? The story continues:

Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.

The Stroud Water Research Center, in Avondale, Pa., has measured water samples from New York City's upstate watershed for caffeine, a common contaminant that scientists often look for as a possible signal for the presence of other pharmaceuticals. Though more caffeine was detected at suburban sites, researcher Anthony Aufdenkampe was struck by the relatively high levels even in less populated areas.

He suspects it escapes from failed septic tanks, maybe with other drugs. "Septic systems are essentially small treatment plants that are essentially unmanaged and therefore tend to fail," Aufdenkampe said.

Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.

There are three issues to consider:

1. As we get better and better analytical equipment we can detect chemicals in lower and lower concentrations. These low concentrations may or may not be hazardous.
2. When we start looking for more chemicals, we find more. Are these "new" chemicals bad? Don't know - there may not be standards for them.
3. Most wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals.

Ethical issues often arise for water managers where drinking water is concerned. If a manager determines that there are contaminants in the drinking water she supplies, but they occur in concentrations below harmful levels or have no standards, should she report them to the public? It's a dilemma: if she reports them, people may get overly agitated, but if she doesn't, and it eventually surfaces (and it will), the manager will take a beating and even worse, good will and trust will suffer.

Here is the story from Fox News:

Download foxnews.com - Study Finds Over the Counter Drugs in Drinking ...pdf

I'm concerned, but I'm not about to go out and buy a year's supply of bottled water. This is not really a new issue; people have known for 15+ years that pharmaceuticals have been showing up in natural waters, and many professional societies have held "emerging contaminants" conferences on this issue (see this 1999 NRC report, Identifying Future Drinking Water Contaminants). And colleague Bev Herzog sent me this 1995 paper from Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T) describing pharmaceuticals in ground water in Denmark:

Download phar_in_denmark_gwest.pdf 

Ona lighter note, friend Michael Dale noted that steroid levels downstream of a Nebraska feedlot were four times higher than upstream levels. And we all thought there were no major league baseball players in Nebraska.

We used to joke about '9-eyed carp' hanging around the outfall of the wastewater treatment plant. We'd better start looking for them. 

I suspect Erin Brockovich is just around the corner.

"I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers." -- Charles Kuralt

Maude Barlow: New Book and USA Tour

I got this item from Tara Lohan of AlterNet. Maude Barlow is the Canadian activist and author who lobbies for corporate and governemtn accountability as it relates to food, water, and fishing. She is opposed to economic globalization and the "commodification" of water. From Tara Lohan:

Many of you probably know that Maude Barlow is touring in the U.S. right now for her new book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (book information here). I was fortunate enough to get to speak with her last month and the interview is posted on our website right now. It's a great introduction to some to the main points in her book. You can check the interview out on our Water page. Here is her tour schedule.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

Symposium - 'Common Grounds, Common Waters:Toward a Water Ethic'

Friend and colleague Gabriel Eckstein of the Texas Tech University School of Law, who is a Professor and Director of both the International Water Law Project (IWLP) and the TTU Center for Water Law and Policy, will be co-chairing the symposium, Common Grounds, Common Waters: Toward a Water Ethic (click here). The meeting will be held at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA, on 14 March 2008.

Here is the Program Description:

The upcoming symposium builds on a symposium held at Texas Tech University School of Law in November 2005 - Precious, Worthless, or Immeasurable: The Value and Ethic of Water- to further explore the idea of water ethics. This symposium will bring together people from a wide variety of groups representing different interests in water, such as the water industry (e.g., privatized utilities, bottled water, water marketing, etc.), agriculture, government (at the municipality- to the national level), environmental and nature organizations, indigenous peoples, human rights organizations, and others. The purpose of the symposium is to seek common ground in identifying a water ethic that are fundamental to all of these interests and that might lay the foundation for compromise, cooperation, and sound management of fresh water resources. Fundamental to this goal is the ideal that common water ethics should be at the base of all agreements, legislation, and management efforts related to fresh water resources.

Gabriel's co-chair is Dr. Irene Klaver, Director of the Philosophy of Water Project at the University of North Texas.

The symposium will have three panels:

1. Water Ethics and Commodification of Freshwater Resources
2. Ethics-Based Decision-Making in Societal Water Management
3. Water Ethics in a Globalized World

The final session will be a roundtable on "Toward a Water Ethic".

Avoid this excellent symposium at your own peril!

"Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics." -- Jane Addams

Water Wisdom from Luna B. Leopold - Would You Expect Anything Else?

Colleague Garrett Meigs sent this quote. I think it bears repeating.

****************

Water--Our Common Pleasure and Our Common Responsibility
By Luna B. Leopold, Water, Rivers, and Creeks (1997)

Flood control, irrigation, water supply, and pollution are examples of water projects whose merits should be hammered out in public discussion; unfortunately such discussions often proceed with cavalier disregard for the available knowledge in the field of hydrology.

Hydrologic principles are not controversial.  The more that is known about hydrology, the easier it is to judge alternative proposals and to compare their benefits and costs.  Sound decisions require an informed citizenry.

But beyond such details, it appears that in the next decades, water needs, along with ethnic strife and state boundary disputes, will dominate the relations among people and nations.

Water, like air, is a resource required by every living creature.  Because it is so common, it is easy to take for granted.  But if any form of life is deprived, even temporarily, of access to water, a struggle will result.  There is a need to place such common resources as water, land, and air on a higher plane of value and to assign them a kind of respect that Aldo Leopold called the land ethic, a recognition of the interdependence of all creatures and resources.  No one species such as the Homo sapiens is any more deserving, any more entitled to dominate, than any other species, for all are part of the total web.  Water is a part of this whole, and it deserves what I called in another essay a reverence for rivers.

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

Ethics and Water, Part 3: Is Water a Basic Human Right?

I received the following from my good friend Bob Jarrett. It deals with the premise that water is a basic human right. To me, this is a no-brainer, but not all feel this way. One argument some put forth is that if a country accepted this, then it would be liable to sanctions ($$$) if it did not provide all its citizens access to water.  Sounds great to me! What do you think?

                   Proposal for Recognizing Water as a Basic Human Right
The declaration of the first Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol on Water and Health to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes includes a paragraph on water as a basic human right. The meeting adopted several decisions, mostly related to the implementation and compliance procedures of the Protocol, transparency,
and involvement of local authorities into the Protocol's implementation at early stage. The European ECO-Forum proposed the development of guidelines for governments (national and local authorities) to help in the implementation of the Protocol and urged that they be adopted at the Second
Meeting of Parties that would be hosted by Romania in 2010. The first meeting was held January 17-19, 2007 at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland. The Protocol entered into force on August 4, 2005 and as of January 2007, has been ratified by 21 countries.

Sources:
First meeting of the Parties (Geneva, 17-19 January 2007)
www.unece.org/env/water/meetings/documents_MoPPWH.htm

Protocol on Water and Health  www.unece.org/env/water/text/text_protocol.htm

European ECO-Forum Newsletter No. 16, January 2007 (Relevant text in the
Appendix) www.ecoaccord.org/english/efe/news/012007.htm

"There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed." - Gandhi

Ethics and Water, Part 2

I received some favorable comments (but not posted as such) on the first Ethics and Water post of January 17.

However, I was remiss in neglecting to mention something of interest to my post on ethics. My good friend and colleague at the Texas Tech University School of Law, Professor Gabriel Eckstein, convened a symposium on Precious, Worthless, or Immeasurable: The Value and Ethic of Water on November 2-4, 2005, in Lubbock. I was unable to attend this seminal event. You can get some information by going to www.watersymposium.net or www.texastechlawreview.org/symposium/symposium_index.htm. I have taken the liberty of pasting the introduction to the symposium below.

   "The value and ethic of water encompasses the complex inter-relationship between human beings and fresh water resources. It addresses how societies view and interact with this unique substance from diverse perspectives, sometimes complementary, but often contradictory. For some, water is an integral component of the natural environment; for others, it is a property right and a commodity that is subject to the free market; still others regard water as a heritage of cultural, religious, and societal significance. To all, however, water is an absolute necessity, a fundamental substance for life as we know it. 

    Despite, or possibly, because of the irreplaceable role that water plays in so many aspects of life and society, water is all too often the subject of controversy. Disputes over fresh water resources in the American West, the Middle East, and elsewhere have pitted farmers against municipalities, businesses against environmentalists, “haves” against “have nots”, and state against state. In the Klamath Basin of Oregon, for example, environmentalists and Native Americans have long challenged farmers and irrigators, as well as the government, for greater instream flows. In West Texas, millionaire T. Boone Pickens is sparking controversy by seeking to pump water from the Ogallala Aquifer to sell to thirsty cities like Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso. In the Middle East, control over and access to scarce water resource is a major issue among Israel and the Palestinians, as well as their neighbors.

   Fundamental to all of these controversies is the diversity of values and ethics that adversaries ascribe to water. Such values and ethics are often at the core of disputes over water. These values and ethics greatly depend on personal perspectives, social and economic ideals, cultural, religious, and societal backgrounds, and even politics. Ultimately, they serve as the basis for legislative and regulatory action and business decision-making, as well as the means for resolving conflicts over water resources.

      The symposium – Precious, Worthless, or Immeasurable: The Value and Ethic of Water – will feature a diverse panel of experts from around the nation and abroad who will explore the value and ethic of water. They will do so by discussing how this precious liquid is valued and assessed with regard to law and regulations, economics and commerce, people and communities, culture and religion, and others aspects of society that are impacted by water. They will also consider how water is perceived by different communities, peoples, and entities throughout the world, as well as address the roles that the public, the private sector, and government agencies play in developing rules and standards for managing water resources at all levels of society, from the purely local to the decisively global."

I trust you will find this enlightening.

"Tell my soldiers what they really fight for, and the ranks would be empty in the morning." -- Frederick the Great.

Ethics and Water, Part 1

How often have you thought about ethics and water? If you are like me, probably not very often, and I am supposed to be a professor on the "cutting edge of thinking" in water. Sure, I have read articles about some ethical issues, such as our approach to water issues in the developing world, water pricing issues, location of waste disposal sites, professional practices, etc., but I never thought much about them. What's worse, in over 30 years of teaching I never really introduced many ethical considerations into my classes, except in a very cursory manner. 

All that changed about five years ago, when I came across a book that enlightened me about water and ethics: Navigating Rough Waters: Ethical Issues in the Water Industry, edited by Cheryl K. Davis and Robert E. McGinn (2001, published by the American Water Works Association). The book is a collection of 24 articles about - you guessed it - ethics and the water world. Davis, McGinn, and the AWWA have done us all a great service. Over the years there have many articles and books about ethical issues in water; what's different about this one is that it is the first in-depth treatment with a number of thoughtful articles and case studies. It covers water treatment, planning and management, international work, water privatization, manufacturing, consulting, "fear-mongering", sustainability, intergenerational equity, and more. It broaches issues that I probably would not have considered "ethical" questions.

The book has some excellent discussion topics at the end of the articles. Some of them deal with trying to decide what you should or should not tell the public about their water supply. For example,if you are a water utility manager and your water-quality testing identifies a "hot-button" chemcial (hexavalent chromium, arsenic, TCE, whatever) in the water but at concentrations well below the MPC or any known health risk, are you obligated to tell your customers, knowing full well there will be a demand to remove it from the water supply when there is no compelling evidence it is harmful? What if the customers want it removed, at an additional cost that will impact low-income customers? What are your obligations?

Let's try this one. Is it ethically incumbent upon water officials from developing countries to adopt and use less rigorous but affordable wastewater reuse standards geared to their countries instead of "importing" those that prevail in the developed world?

The conversion of wastewater into drinking water presents some interesting dilemmas. The book has an excellent little study about NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) in the Orange County Water District's water supply and the praiseworthy approach taken by the OCWD.

What about a foreign, multinational firm that partners with a local firm to present a facade of "local control" to win a contract for a project in a developing country?

The book also discusses the Principle of Intergenerational Equity and the current generation's obligations to the ones following. 

I'm sure you can think of many other situations. I was so impressed with the book that I started broaching these topics in my classes and will continue to do so. I only wish I had some formal training in ethics.

The book costs about $150 and is well worth it. If you are an AWWA member there is a discount.

By the way, would it be ethical to get a friend who is an AWWA member to buy it for you? Just thought I would ask.

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." -- John Cotton Dana