WaterWired

The Girl Effect: Empower 600 Million

Take a look at this video from The Girl Effect (from the Nike Foundation).

The Girl Effect: The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society. 

International Water Conservation & Xeriscape Conference and Expo

The International Water Conservation & Xeriscape Conference will be held in Albuquerque, NM on 26-27 February 2009.  It will be held in conjunction with the 2009 Water Conservation and Xeriscape Expo, 28 February-1 March, 2009. The Expo is free to the public and will feature more than 250 exhibitor spaces.

Both are sponsored by the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico and are great events that have grown in stature since they were first held in 2000.

Here is the WWW site blurb:

Since 2000, the Water Conservation Conference offered by the Xeriscape Council of NM has become the national outdoor water conservation conference. The February 2008 conference attracted almost 400 registrants from 18 states. Over 35 city water departments were represented. Registrants have also attended from Mexico, Japan, Canada, and Argentina.

We have been able to attract and feature the world’s most renowned water experts.  Global water/climate keynoters have included the late Sen. Paul Simon, Sandra Postel, Peter Gleick, and Eileen Claussen.  Others, speaking on related landscape and water, water and energy and sustainability have included Hunter Lovins, Peter Warshall, Gloria Flora, Schlomo Aronson, Robert Glennon, and Amy Vickers.

The 2009 global water keynote will feature Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water. Our “Foodshed” keynote address will be by Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute, who is leading the research to develop perennial grains. The Land Institute has worked for over 20 years on the problem of agriculture with a primary purpose of developing an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops. Our increasingly current and relevant topic for 2009 is “Watershed – Foodshed”.

Yes, you read that right - Maude Barlow will be the global water keynote. Her topic is: "Downscaling of General Circulation Models and Coupling with Hydrologic Models: Implications for Southwestern Hydrology."

NOT!

But I doubt she'll be discussing New Mexico's 10-year water supply.  

"Sacred cows make great hamburgers." -- Unknown

Desalting Deep Brackish Ground Water

Fifteen billion acre-feet of ground water? That is about a 25-year supply for the world at current pumping rates!

That's how much brackish ground water lies beneath New Mexico, according to Sean Olson [thanks to John Fleck for alterting me] in the 29 December 2008 Albuquerque Journal (you will have to view an ad to read his article).  I know a lot of brackish ground water underlies New Mexico but I am a little skeptical of that figure - it seems awfully high.

But the exact number is not relevant to Olson's article,  which basically says that desalting New Mexico's huge supply of brackish ground water will likely cost a lot of money because of the energy required.

Mike Hightower of Sandia National Laboratories, a good guy (even though he attended New Mexico State University) who knows as much about the energy-water nexus as anyone I've ever met. says that it will cost about $3-$5 per 1000 gallons to treat brackish water to drinking-water standards. It costs about $1-$2 per 1000 gallons to treat 'normal' fresh water to the same standards.

Then there's the problem of waste disposal, about which I posted in August 2008.

For more information on the topic: here is Bruce Thomson's Op-Ed about the New Mexico brackish water issue, and another one of my posts on this subject from November 2008. 

Never a dull moment in the Land of Entrapment!

"We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases. " -- Goethe

Paying (More) for Water?

Todd Jarvis sent me this opinion piece from the Idaho Mountain Express. It's about a sensitive issue - paying for water. No, not for the infrastructure to provide it or the maintenance of the infrastructure. Most of us pay nothing for the actual water itself. Should we? Jon Marvel makes a case for doing so (I've not reproduced the entire article). He is the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project in Hailey, ID.

Marvel contends that charging for water is a way to mitigate the impact of recent state agency budget cuts mandated by Gov. Butch Otter (R-ID). He urges the legislature, "Don't Give Away Idaho's Water".

One possible area for this kind of fiscal reform is in the administration of Idaho's most precious natural resource—water.

Under current Idaho law water right holders do not pay the State of Idaho anything for that right even though the Idaho Supreme Court has affirmed that the State owns the surface and ground water within its boundaries. Every Idaho State water right establishes a point of diversion, a point of use, a season of use and the amount of water for that right, but the State charges nothing for the water.

Of course, there are costs for water users: farmers pay water districts for delivered water and may have costs for pumping water. City dwellers pay city water departments or private water companies for water but other than these costs, water is free for the taking.

One consequence of this free water policy is that the majority of the Idaho Department of Water Resources annual budget of $26,000,000 comes from the Idaho's general fund and not from water users.

Instead of this drain on public coffers and the sales tax revenues that could be supporting public education, why doesn't the State start charging all water users for the use of public water ?

Such a water charge could also encourage conservation of water by establishing a rising fee as the amount of water use increased. In this way large water users like irrigators would become accountable for their impacts that contribute to currently declining surface and groundwater flows in the Snake River Plain.

Hard times like these can lead to innovative ways to sustain important public programs like public education. The earlier we start to discuss new ways of funding critical public needs, the sooner we can help insure our children's future.

Rural (self-supplied) folks who pump their own water may balk because they generally pay more for water than city dwellers. A recent presentation (see slide 11) by colleague Jerry Schmidt shows that in Oregon, over 10 years a rural resident who pumps ground water can expect to pay about $17,000 versus about $5,200 for the city dweller. But the $17,000 figure includes $14,000 for the intitial cost of the well and pump and then $300 per year for operation (but nothing for replacement and repair), so the comparison is slightly misleading.

No one is paying anything for the water (although some municipal systems now levy a "scarcity" or "commodity" charge that purports to include the cost of the water). This needs to change. Such fees for using water should be used to support the various activities of state water resources agencies in the fields of outreach and education, and to provide funds to communities to plan/manage their own water supplies.

"Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand." -- Unknown

The Human Right to Water: The Time Has Come

After posting my review of the film Blue Gold: World Water Wars I decided to post a link to a recent editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle (thanks to Robert Teeter of the Santa Clara Valley Water District) about the right to water. The editorial is balanced, pointing out some of the ramifications, positive and negative, of declaring such a right. 

Here is another perspective from Dennis T. Avery from American Daily (thanks to Waterlover). 

So how much water do we have a right to? Good question. Here is a 1996 paper by Peter Gleick in which he supports a 'lifeline' of 50 liters ( about 13 US gallons) per day per person. Some believe that each person should be guaranteed this amount for free. Gleick believes this amount should be free only in cases of extreme poverty when people are unable to pay (see his comment below). 

Some have questioned the necessity for declaring access to water a basic human right, questioning whether it will really help the more than 1 billion people who do not have access to clean water. Others say that this is just a 'feel good' measure by Westerners to pat themselves on the back for doing something to alleviate suffering. Still others say it will just produce more government intervention and block private enterprise from meeting water needs in developing countries. 

I used to be among the naysayers. Then I met an Irish lawyer at the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto almost six years ago. At 3WWF there was hope that the Ministerial Declaration would contain support for such a right. It did not. The lawyer, whose name I cannot recall, explained to me why such a right was necessary. It would essentially put recalcitrant countries on notice that they need to put access to water at the top of their 'to do' lists. Failure to do so could lead to assorted sanctions and other pressures from the international community.

There is also a practical reason for declaring this right and pressuring countries to recognize and support it. Lack of access to clean water means more diseases, which themselves may not always be life-threatening but can lead to compromised immune systems, rendering people more susceptible to fatal diseases. Lack of access to clean water could also lead to civil unrest and pose a threat to internal and international security.      

I do not believe that having water as a basic human right should preclude the entry of private companies into the water sector in developing countries. Small systems can be constructed by locals with help and training from NGOs, but for larger systems, private firms would likely be better. Water would not have to be provided free, except for the amount below a lifeline, such as Gleick's 50 L per day per person. As long as the companies understand this and abide by it, there is no reason whay they should be forbidden to operate in developing countries. Who else is going to develop the large water systems? But oversight and clear ground rules need to be present.  

Maude Barlow and her ilk who decry privatization have it wrong. Without private industry we cannot bring safe water to over 1 billion who lack it nor sanitation to the 2.5 billion or so who  lack access to that. Declaring water to be a human right does not preclude a role for private industry.

The last sentence of the editorial said it best:

"As the United Nations studies making water a human right, it should avoid ideological extremes. Privatization isn't the enemy in making the water flow." -- San Francisco Chronicle editorial (26 December 2008)