WaterWired

Needlessly Fretting About 1970s Global Cooling: Now You Tell Me!

I remember (albeit vaguely) my undergraduate geology days in the late 1960s at the venerable College of William and Mary. Other than taking fun field trips about the Virginia Valley and Ridge, Blue Ridge, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain provinces, we worried about global cooling.

Our geology books discussed some of the evidence, scant though it may have been, and our enthusiastic professors mentioned the possibility that another Ice Age might soon be upon us. I think I recall writing a paper on that topic in my historical geology class.

Yeah, we were waiting for the glaciers to come sliding/rolling (??) down from the north, swallowing Richmond before gagging on Hopewell (chemical industries, anyone?) and then devouring Williamsburg before marching on to Newport News, Hampton Roads, Norfolk,  and Virginia Beach.

Global warming? I don't think so.

I did not worry too much about global cooling in graduate school at the University of Arizona. As a budding hydrologist, I was concerned more with what would happen after all the glaciers melted and provided us with a gazillion acre-feet of water. But the scientific community was reaching a consensus on global cooling.  

Or so I have believed lo these many years.

Now come Thomas C. Peterson of NOAA, William M. Connolley of the British Antarctic Survey, and John Fleck (yes, that John Fleck of the Albuquerque Journal and blogging fame) who have the collective nerve to tell us that there was no such global cooling consensus, and that in fact, the possibility of anthropogenic global warming was dominating the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Their paper, "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus," recently graced the pages of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS).

John talks about the impact of their paper and attempts to debunk their work. Read about it here.

Moi? Bummer. All that angst for nada.

"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location.... I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made." -- Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK)

New Site in Town: WaterSupply.com

The other day I stumbled (as I am wont to do these days) on a new (to me, anyway) WWW site WaterSupply.com. It's a commerical site with lots of information related to water and wastewater: financial, regulatory, technical, etc. The word 'commercial' is not intended to be a pejorative term, but signifies that there are ads. I could not find out who owns or operates the site and just assumed it was some corporation.

It wasn't long after I posted the site's URL on WaterSISWEB that the site owner, David Murray, contacted me. Dave is an aquatic biologist whose "life is water" way up north in gorgeous Sandpoint, ID. Yep, Dave's another inveterate 24/7 WaterWonk.

He's owned the name and the site for a number of years, so although WaterSupply.com is new to me, it has been around. He told me the site went "dormant" for a while, but now he is back at it full-time so it will take time to develop. Tell me about it, Dave.

If you are interested in contacting Dave, his email is [email protected]. He's always on the lookout for those willing to provide articles.

Give it a view.

"Wish WaterSupply.com and the Internet had been around when I was doing my work on turbulent flow!" -- B.A. Bakhmeteff

New Kid on the Blog: Watering the Desert

No, this isn't Pat Mulroy's blog, but a new (again, new to me) one from CJ Brooks, Watering the Desert. CJ lives down in God's country (or it was at one time) - Tucson, AZ - and is a hydrologist, geologist, and recent law-school graduate.

All he needs now is an economics PhD to become the consummate Western WaterWonk!

Give him a read, and a hearty welcome!

"I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp, gaunt names that never get fat, The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims, The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat." -- Stephen Vincent Benet

Talking Dirty: The Politics of Clean Water and Sanitation

I can't take credit for this provocative, catchy title - it is the that of a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine by Michele Barry and James M. Hughes.

Download Talking Dirty article

Here is their first paragraph:

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Myanmar delta in early May, and the seismic earthquake that shook China shortly thereafter, access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation have become top priorities among those attempting to prevent epidemic diseases. But even without catastrophic disasters, the lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation represents a silent crisis affecting more than a third of the world's population. Some 443 million school days are lost annually to water-related illness, millions of women and girls spend up to 2 hours a day collecting water, and every day in Bangladesh alone 28 million to 35 million people consume drinking water containing dangerously elevated levels of arsenic. Given that the United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation — and that in the United States this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first chlorination of a public water supply — this seems an appropriate time to reengage in an ancient conversation about safe water and sanitation.

The Barry and Hughes article was brought to my attention by John Sauer's piece in The Huffington Post, in which he decries the lack of attention paid to diseases caused by poor sanitation. He compares the inattention to that "given" to HIV/AIDS in the "early days":

Another pandemic -- namely more than two dozen diseases associated with poor sanitation -- now faces the same kind of unresponsiveness. Every 20 seconds, a child dies of sanitation-related diseases, which kill five times as many children as HIV/AIDS. As an article in the New England Journal of Medicine documents, pathogens that cause diarrheal diseases, tracoma, and guinea-worm are among the culprits. You didn't think you can die of diarrhea did you? Well you probably can't but those living where open defecation is the norm can. Human excrement: it is the last taboo.

The last taboo. Recall that World Toilet Day was last week. Sauer's comments:

One US government official refused to release a statement on World Toilet Day because of objection to the word "toilet." Progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of people without basic sanitation by 2015 will not be met, at current rates, until 2115. In fact, the original version of the MDGs didn't have a sanitation target.

Sauer and others have pointed out that sanitation needs a "rock star". But who's going to be the face of diarrhea or other waterborne diseases? Talk about a career-killer, or being the butt of late-night jokes.

Barry and Hughes' last paragraph is most telling:

Global health issues have captured the attention of governments, global funds, and foundations. Yet most of this attention and the consequent investment have focused on diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS, which kill a fraction of the number of people who die from water-related diseases. The necessary political will has not been mustered to address the water and sanitation crisis, among the most neglected of the United Nations' millennium development goals. A recent cost–benefit analysis reported by the World Health Organization makes a strong case for investment in this sector, and, at its Tokyo summit meeting in July, the Group of Eight reaffirmed its commitment to addressing concerns about water.⁵ Political support is urgently needed at all levels for the development and implementation of evidence-based recommendations to improve access to safe water, for the enhanced surveillance of water-related diseases, for the financial support of relevant epidemiologic and laboratory research, and for the development of accessible educational materials. Clearly, we need to start talking dirty water.

We need to start acting on sanitation and clean water. Problem is, they are not "sexy", like finding a new vaccine or drug. Nor are they profitable for the drug companies. Clean water and sanitation are not rocket science, folks, and they are not especially expensive. The political will is lacking, that's all.

"Despite 150 years of acceptance of the healthful effects of clean water, an estimated 1.1 billion people still lack access to it, and 2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. ^" -- Michele Barry and James. M. Hughes

Top Ten List For Water Resource Planners; Brenda's Award

Dr. Brenda Ortigoza Bateman, Senior Policy Analyst for the Oregon Water Resources Department and Chair of AWRA's Policy Technical Committee, was kind enough to send me this list her committee produced. It was distributed at her panel discussion, State Water Resource Plans: Expensive Doorstops or Valuable Tools?,  at the recent AWRA meeting. Great title!

I dropped 'Future' from the post title (the list's title is actually 'Top Ten List For Future Water Resource Planners') since I think the list is valuable for current planners. The list will be published shortly in AWRA's IMPACT.

Here is a copy of the list and a description of the panel session, including panelists.

Download 2008 AWRA Policy Panel - Top 10 List

Brenda was recently awarded the AWRA's Outstanding Young Professional Award for her leadership and achievement. It is quite an honor.

1.       Start by Developing a Vision.  A product that is cost-effective and that resonates with policy-makers is one in which participants brainstorm what they want the landscape to look like in 20 or 50 years, putting recommendations up front and identifying benchmarks that help get there.  By comparison, plans often start with data collection and a gap analysis, which is resource intensive and controversial.

2.      Develop a Political Plan.  This is the piece that will make a technically good plan into a politically acceptable plan.  It includes the development of an overall game plan and identifies up front which issues may be deal makers versus deal killers

3.      Build a Solid Foundation on Water Law.  Planners must convey how they plan to allocate any “new” water (i.e., have water laws in place and well understood).  Certainty helps build and maintain support during the planning process.

4.      Establish Funding Sources.  Planning is not a one-time effort.  On-going funding is a key ingredient to ensure buy-in, participation, quality, and implementation of each plan.  Find a dedicated funding source, but also leverage additional funding.  Integrated planning that includes quality and quantity, water and land, etc., helps leverage additional funds from the federal government, foundations, etc.

5.      Employ an Open, Transparent Process.  Give stakeholders plenty of opportunities to suggest goals, methodologies, data sources, and content.  Post documents on-line so they are easy to access.  Establish Advisory, Stakeholder, and/or Technical Groups that will ensure a wide range of perspectives and expertise.

6.      Turn Challenges into Opportunities.  Challenges such as droughts, floods, climate change conditions, population growth, or other water-related events provide opportunities to establish or strengthen a water plan. Water challenges can provide needed insights and political support to improve plans and their implementation.

7.      Collaborate across Political Boundaries.  Planning is an inherently political process and must account for the fact that multiple counties, states, and even countries depend on water from the same river basins, watersheds, and aquifers.

8.      Use Regional Partnerships to Create Local Solutions.  In states with limited financial resources, supporting a series of disconnected local projects is no longer practical.  Foster region-wide or basin-wide partnerships that will account not just for water quantity, but also water quality, ecological needs, land-use planning, and other factors.

9.       Standardize Data Sets and Methodologies.  Robust, state-wide forecasting tools, water budgets, and program evaluations require access to data sets that are developed with standardized methodologies.  Use incentives to encourage the adoption and sharing of these methodologies.

10.  Strive for Consistency (and Flexibility)!  Provide a sense of continuity by building upon the work begun in previous plans and studies.  At the same time, those with a background in planning recognize that times change, leaders change, and so does climate.  Address important issues of the day to keep your plan relevant.  As much as anything, this process is about managing “change,” not just managing “water.”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." -- Unknown