WaterWired

Another Baltimore Blockbuster! NGWA's Ground Water Summit: Meeting Groundwater Challenges in Uncertain Times

 
There is another top-notch water conference in Baltimore this Spring. Not only is AWRA in town, but a few weeks after that conference NGWA will convene its seventh annual Ground Water Summit, Meeting Griundwater Challenges in Uncertain Times. The Summit will be combined with the Spring 2011 meeting of the Ground Water Protection Council.  

From the conference WWW site:

Economic conditions have placed enormous stresses on the resources of government, private industry, and academic and research institutions, which affect our ability to respond to the challenges of understanding, protecting, restoring, and managing the complexities of the nation’s groundwater resources. This conference focuses on the critical need for cooperation and collaboration to raise and address issues affecting groundwater resources in 22 sessions within eight tracks. Save by registering today!

At this conference, you will have the opportunity to:

• Interact with groundwater professionals from the consulting, policy, regulatory, and academic communities
• Discuss public policy implications related to groundwater
• Learn what processes affect coastal aquifer systems
• Explore the development of alternative water resources
• Learn effective ways to deal with stormwater
• Identify which models work best under which circumstances.

Check out the tracks and session topics.

Short courses, Marcellus Shale, hydrofracking, and lots, lots more.

This is the groundwater conference of the year. Two good friends and colleagues, Dr. Steve Silliman and Dr. Jeff McDonnell, will be featured speakers.

I'm a bit sad because I love this meeting but will miss my first one since we started these in 2005. I was part of the group that conceived this meeting, chaired the first one, and helped plan the first few.

This Summit will be a milestone: the first one in the East.

"If you do groundwater, you gotta do the Summit."-- Unknown

Another Player in the Water Policy Game

On the eve of AWRA's Board of Directors meeting in northern Virginia I learned of yet another player in the water policy game (thanks to David Zetland).

Seems that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has received a $2.6M gift from Schlitz Brewing Co. heiress Lynde Uihlein to support a Center for Water Policy. The new center will be a part of UWM's School of Freshwater Sciences.

Payback for all those UWM keggers?

Here is the story from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentnel.

So will the new center deal with only state and local water issues? Here is an excerpt from John Schmid's story:

At a time of increasing water shortages, from China and India to Arizona, Georgia and Waukesha, the center will study policy implications on an international and national level, said UWM interim chancellor, Michael Lovell.

The center dovetails with efforts to coax jobs and investment in the metro region in the field of water technology, a sector that economists say is green, global and growing. Metro Milwaukee, as a fluke of industrial history, presides over a stable of water-engineering companies.

"It will further position Milwaukee and the region as a national and international hub of water policy and technology innovation," Lovell said of the center.

Lovell said UWM will seek research collaborations with Marquette University, which just launched a curriculum in international water law - relevant at a time when political tensions are simmering over water rights - and UW-Whitewater has a business curriculum in water. The Milwaukee Water Council, a trade group, announced this week that this year's annual water summit has become a national two-day affair.

Recruitment for the endowed chair and center director will begin this spring, simultaneous with the review and approval of the new center. The director could begin work later this year or in early 2012.

Here is a story from UWM.

Welcome to the club, guys!

We'll be discussing our own future water policy efforts at the AWRA BoD meeting.

And we'll settle for $1M.

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." -- e.e. cummings (thanks to Ken Reid)

AWRA Conference Program Posted: Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources

 
Another shill alert!

AWRA's 2011 Spring Specialty Conference, Managing Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources: Adaptation Issues, Options. and  Strategies, will be held at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, 18-20 April 2011.

The preliminary program has just bee posted.

Here is the Program-at-a-Glance:  Download Baltimore-Program-at-a-Glance

Here are the oral sessions in-depth. And the plenary session.

All the conference information is here.

And the Orioles will be in town playing the Twins. What more could you want?

Well, maybe the Yankees vs. Red Sox.

"I was just a bumpkin. Just a country bumpkin. I had just come to New York from Virginia. Or was it Baltimore?" -- Cass Elliot

How I Spent My Four Days in Paris

Just finished our last day of meetings and here is what we produced: the official logo and slogan of the Sixth World Water Forum!

The bottled water was thrust into the picture just as I took it. Obviously, it was an effort to tarnish my reputation. 

Actually, we did a lot more: we produced a French version!

 
 All joking aside, we accomplished quite a lot en route to Marseille in March 2012.

Back to the USA tomorrow for three more days of meetings - AWRA staff and  Board of Directors.

"Time for solutions." -- motto of the Sixth World Water Forum 

Nicaraguan Nightmare Ends: ETAP Gets Its LS-100

Okay, so this post's title is a bit of hyperbole. And there is some self-promotion, so be forewarned.

Last September I posted about the Ann Campana Judge Foundation's donation of a used LS-100 drilling rig to Agua Para La Vida and its Escuela Técnica de Agua Potable (ETAP). The school would use the LS-1oo, a scaled-down version of a mud rotary rig, to teach Nicaraguan students to drill water wells for their rural residents. The LS-100, shown to the left, is about 500 kilograms and fits into a wooden crate that occupies under 1.5 cubic meters.

The rig we sent to Nicaragua was donated by the Desert Research Institute through the intercession of good friend and former colleague Alan McKay. I had the rig shipped via sea and it arrived in about a month, in late July 2010.

I had assumed that my Nicaraguan friends had since retrieved the rig from customs in Managua.

Silly me!

Yesterday I received an email from ETAP's Denis Barea saying that after an 'administrative nightmare' and great expense, the rig had been released by customs after almost four months in storage. I inferred that the crafty bandits in Managua had given APLV-ETAP the runaround, all the while adding on daily storage charges. It was certainly in customs' best interests to drag out the process so they could make more money. When the bill was presented to APLV-ETAP, the amount owed exceeded not only the shipping costs but also the value of the rig as determined by the DRI accountants.

Suffice it to say that I will reimburse them.

Stories involving customs ripoffs in developing countries are legion. Add this saga to the pile. I have never had any trouble with government officials in Nicaragua and have always been treated courteously by them. I have some wonderful friends there (especially former students Lucia, Lola, and Natalia) so I hope they forgive me for thinking of the term 'banana republic' when I read of the problems APLV-ETAP experience.

I guess I was surprised that customs would treat its own NGO so badly - withholding a piece of equipment that would benefit Nicaraguans. I guess I am more naive than I thought.

Four months?

However, the email I received from APLV-ETAP went on:

Everybody at Agua Para La Vida is very excited with the machine. We are now looking for someone to train us on how to use it. We are in contact with a Salvadorian engineer who knows perfectly this model. He will train us next time he comes to Rio Blanco. If you want I will send you some pictures when we drill our first well so that you can write a little article on your blog.

On behalf of the people of Agua Para La Vida and the ETAP I want to thank you for this machine. It is a very nice present that you offered to us. Thank you again and have a nice year.

That made it all worthwhile.

But I now may have to forsake Flor de Caña rum.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.