Wow! A Famous Person Starts A Water Institute!

Curmudgeon alert!

Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator and New Jersey Governor, has formed a new water institute, the Water Policy Institute.

Here is her blurb on the Institute's WWW site:

Water issues have escalated in our country and worldwide, with record droughts, threats to water quality and cross-border disputes over water resources. I am pleased to introduce the Water Policy Institute, a one-of-a-kind forum for water leaders to consider the problems and develop new ideas and potential solutions.

Water issues impact all of us, from companies that deliver and manage water and industries that require a reliable supply of quality water to operate, to individual consumers and those who work to protect our environment. Environmental protection and water quality are of great importance to me, and while there are no easy answers or magic bullets to solve such complicated issues, progress is always possible. The Water Policy Institute brings together various viewpoints in a quest for sustainable, workable solutions. As chair, I welcome you to explore the benefits of membership and join us in an ongoing dialogue of issues critical to our future.

Here is a note from Director Kathy Robb:

Significant developments in legislation and consumption, as well as the rapidly changing climate, are already impacting, and will increasingly affect, the world's water supply. Companies deliver and manage water, and industries require a reliable supply of quality water to operate, but most individuals do not feel it is their responsibility to address these issues. The Institute provides a forum for exploring these issues across industry and geographic boundaries.

I like Whitman; I think she's a good person with her head and heart in the right places. But I'm wondering what she's hitched her wagon to.

The WPI has eight advisory panel members, 6 of whom are attorneys (one is friend, colleague, and good guy Gabriel Eckstein of Texas Tech University). Director Robb is also an attorney, a partner in the firm Hunton & Williams, which is spearheading and hosting the Institute. Corporate members (by invitation only) are: the Central Arizona Project, BP PLC, and GE Water (Maude Barlow alert!).

What, no Jeff Sachs?

Wow!  A water institute that is sponsored by a Park Avenue law firm, has corporate members, and has an advisory panel with attorneys for 6 of its 8 members!

Ask me why I'm not expecting anything but the SOS.

And if the institute were sponsored and housed in an engineering firm with an engineer for its director and 6 of the 8 advisory panelists, I'd have the same opinion.  

"Water may run uphill to money, but it gushes uphill to politics." – Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, Cato Institute, 1988 (courtesy of Todd Jarvis)

Comments

[Account Deleted]

The same thing happened here. Administrative people out there are not so much responsible.
http://chemicals.ezinfocenter.in

[Stuart Smith]

I saw that and had the same reaction (we're all tech folk watching attorneys and administrator types in action). They get together, write off lunch, write position papers. Kudos to ACJF for getting money to people doing actual work.

[David Zetland]

You're dead on. I just sent them an email offering to help ("it's well known that politicians and lawyers are not good at managing water") -- Let's see if they reply :)