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Global Green USA and Green Cross International
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Participants (in order of appearance on transcript):
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Transcript of Symposium Today we are here to talk about water conflict,
the newest program for Global Green and Green Cross International, one which
we hope will be effective in all its efforts. Green Cross International
is based in Geneva. We have our Executive Director, Bertrand Charrier, from
Geneva here today. |
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Michael Jackson:
I'm honored to be here today as your moderator for a distinguished panel. Very soon we're going to hear from President Gorbachev to begin our discussion of an overview of global freshwater issues. Then we are going to hear from Congressman George Miller, followed by remarks on the Green Cross International program by Bertrand Charrier and at that point we are going to pose some questions for our panel to consider before we proceed to panelist presentations on the three regions of the world on which we're going to be focusing for the second half of the panel. Now after these presentations and a discussion, we'll have a question and answer period from the audience, using the sheets supplied with your programs. |
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As you'll no doubt hear more than once today, many international observers believe that water scarcity and water quality will be the most important and contentious resource issues of the coming century, if not the coming millennium. In California, of course, we think we know all about water. Mark Twain put it well. He said, "In the West whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting." Elsewhere in the world, water issues are literally a matter of life and death. President Gorbachev asked Global Green USA to convene today's program in order to bring together regional, national and international experts on this precious resource, to share experiences and ideas about efforts in at least three regions of the world to solve developing and long simmering conflicts over fresh water. And he has another motivation: President Gorbachev has been asked to help lead efforts in the Middle East and in South America to find solutions to thorny water issues, which are so important in these regions. Hence our focus in this panel on the Middle East and the Pilcomayo River Basin region of South America, as well as California. We hope today's discussion will provide President Gorbachev and the staff of Green Cross International, who are here with us today, with at least a few nuggets of wisdom and perhaps some ideas for new partnerships and approaches in their international work. And who knows, perhaps we here in California may learn a few things as well. |
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And now sir, with our gratitude for his international leadership on these vital issues, may we hear from President Gorbachev. President Mikhail Gorbachev (in simultaneous translation): Thank you. Good afternoon, and I would like to salute all of you very warmly. It's very good that you have come here to discuss this matter that is very important to all of us. In my political career, in the Soviet Union, I had to address the problems of water scarcity of water supply in a number of regions of the former Soviet Union. In Central Asia there are two rivers, Syrdarja and Amudarja, that flow through four republics of the former Soviet Union and agriculture there depends very much on irrigation. This region is an area where a lot of rice was grown and is still being grown, but it is not just agriculture there. The region is urbanizing and so water is needed for the people and there is a lot of people living there. The population there is increasing. When we lived behind the Iron Curtain, you were now quite aware of how dramatic and acute that problem was in those republics of the Soviet Union, but actually it was so bad at some point that it came to blows between the peasants in their fight for water allocations. So when I was a member of the Soviet Politburo under Brezhnev and I was responsible for agriculture, I was in charge of the commission that allocated water quotas to those different republics and that tried to settle those conflicts, so I do know how difficult this problem is. |
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What often happened is, let's say, during the daytime
an agreement is reached and quotas are allocated and the machines are adjusted for this allocation, but then overnight the peasants have changed it and the peasants have readjusted the allocations. Because this is a problem that affects people's lives, their everyday life, their families and we have now seen that we have many shortages, many scarcities, but the water scarcity is the number one problem, the number one deficit. After all, even the human body consists of mostly water -- 75% of it is water. So we can't get away from that fact. And food, of course, food production depends on irrigation. So fresh water is a problem that affects just about every aspect. Green Cross International is an emerging global environmental organization. We have looked at the number of environmental problems, but our contacts and discussions with people in various countries -- and with environmentalists and governments in various countries -- have indicated to us that this is one of the problems on which we really should focus, the problem of fresh water supply. To address this problem on an international scale, we have recently held a discussion, a seminar in Geneva at our Green Cross International headquarters that brought together the best international experts to discuss the problems of fresh water. We are very pleased that the World Bank has shown real interest and a real interest in supporting our project for fresh water. |
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This project is now one of the important projects
of our international organization. The water shortage is a global problem, but the situation looks different in different regions. There are some regions where there is even a surplus of water. But there are some states and some regions, some countries and some regions where the water problem is truly awesome, truly monumental. So this is a problem of which there should be global awareness. On the other hand there should be a lot of local and national action and also action at the regional level where the water problem is between different states or countries. The fact that you have gathered here in this auditorium, the fact that these experts have come here to address this problem is something that I very much welcome. I would like to salute the initiative of Global Green USA, which is the affiliate of Green Cross International, and I very much hope that this initiative will get off to a good start here and that perhaps we will be able, working together with you, to develop a model for the resolution of water issues, a model that we will be able to use in other countries and in other situations. We have asked your congressman, Congressman Miller, whom it so happens I know quite well, because we first met in Moscow, in 1985, when I was just beginning as Soviet leader. So Mr. Miller, my old friend, will be offering his report, after which the Executive Director of the International Green Cross, Bertrand Charrier, will present to you a report on our project, on what we intend to do. And then we hope for a good discussion that will be moderated by Mr. Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson the second, perhaps. [Laughter] |
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Very good. I'm now asking Congressman Miller to speak. Congressman George Miller: Thank you very much, President Gorbachev, for Green Cross International and to Global Green USA for convening this forum and for focusing our attention on a worldwide problem that may do more to define winners and losers if it's not resolved in the proper fashion. My fellow panelists and ladies and gentlemen in the audience, I'm pleased to be in this program today. Over the past century, much of the world has struck a Faustian bargain. They developed natural resources to promote economic growth with little consideration for long-term environmental damage or remediation. Nowhere has the trade-off been more dramatic or more cataclysmic than in the case of water development in the American West. In California, as in the Aral Sea, or the forests of Indonesia, or the polluted rivers of Eastern Europe, we are paying a huge environmental price for short- term economic growth. Correcting those past errors will not be cheap or without political risk. Because of our rapid economic development, we here in the United States committed serious resource management blunders earlier than many other nations, but we also have been among the first to recognize the errors of the past and to develop, if haltingly, innovative solutions. Western water policy provides a textbook example. The great dams and reservoirs and the waterways planned over the last century were supposed to reconfigure nature for 500 years. Now, in the Pacific Northwest, in Utah, in Arizona, North Dakota and California, we are confronting the urgent need to redefine the mission of these projects. The goal of the great water planners in arid California was to make the deserts bloom and to permit the cities to flourish. The decisions to build the great dams and canals were made by farsighted, powerful and wealthy interests who spent more time asking "how," than "should we?" We built the dams when destruction of wetlands and fisheries were ignored. We became addicted to subsidies in an era when long- term deficits and inflation were not considered. We allowed irrigation of low quality lands without adequate drainage and we allowed urban growth that within a generation would push the population of our water-short state to nearly that of France and Britain. We created, in short, a population, an economy, and a political system that thirsted for water and that has created a host of economic and environmental problems. |
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On the cusp of the twenty-first century, we are compelled
to modernize water policy conceived in the twilight of the nineteenth, when many have doubted that the political system could exercise the bold leadership that was essential to alter the destructive and costly habits we now have. And yet five years ago, we did begin a unique experiment to conform water policy to the environmental, political, and economic standards of our own time. Interestingly, these changes were not initiated by local officials in California, but rather were imposed in the national government that recognized that reform was urgent. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act included, for the first time, environmental restoration and fish and wildlife mitigation as fundamental purposes of a major Federal water project. This law represents something rather remarkable, even for those who are utterly disinterested in water policy. The CVPIA is fundamentally a mandate to reconfigure our most critical resource in a way that preserves the vitality and the economy and then does more. Unlike earlier periods, we were not basing policy solely on what engineering, money, and political muscle can achieve. Now we must pay attention to what science and ethics tells us is necessary to pass a healthy, diverse and prosperous California on to future generations. |
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Policy can no longer benefit those who arrive first
or struck the best bargain. Today, fisherman, hunters, Native Americans, fish and wildlife and the environment itself must be included. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act has established the right of all of these parties to a seat at an expanded table and to participate fully in the making of the fundamental decisions about how we remedy the severe mistakes of the past and plan for more equitable sharing of our resources in the future. Securing such change is difficult enough within a single heterogeneous state like California. But adding the overlay of clashes between cultures, nations, and religions makes solutions seem impossible unless great tenacity is displayed in political and other leaders. And yet in California we have begun to make great progress, in no small part because all parties have begun to recognize the inevitability of change, to understand that it is cheaper, better science and smarter business to help create new frameworks than to defend those of the old order. I am encouraged that the progress we are making through the CalFed process and CVPIA implementation, however halting, though difficult it seems at times, represents the only course for California. And it can serve as a successful model for those in the Middle East and in South America and elsewhere where water policy threatens both political stability and environmental quality. |
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Lastly, Mr. President, may I say that it is an honor
to participate at this meeting with you. Your willingness to venture great thought and to take enormous risk, both politically and personal, stand as one of the great legacies of our century. And I am tremendously gratified that you are lending your distinguished efforts to resolving the problems of the environment around the world and particularly that of the supplies of fresh water. Thank you. Gorbachev: I would like to respond. I would like to thank Congressman Miller. I am very happy at the position that you are taking and I very much hope that you will get support. But of course, you will have to be prepared to answer many questions. And now I would like to ask Bertrand Charrier to speak on behalf of Green Cross International. Bertrand Charrier: Thank you Mr. President, I will be glad to be short and to be at this meeting. |
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Fresh water is a most important natural resource in
the world. We have to face a lot of mismanagement and even around the world we have to face the problem of water quality and water quantity. And this problem of scarcity of water around the world creates a lot of tension -- regional tension. Even in Africa, even in Asia, even in America, we have to analyze, carefully, what are the drivers of fresh water conflict. In the developed country the drivers are really overuse of the water. And, often in a developing country, it is a problem of quantity and the access. One of the programs of Green Cross International and Global Green is to have action to prevent water conflict. Second one (overhead). We have to keep in mind that fresh water is, really, a limited resource. We have to keep in mind that 97.5 percent of the water around the world is salt water and most of the water accessible is water frozen in a glacier and an ice cap. Two-thirds are lost by evaporation. And water also is frozen in an inaccessible region. Two-thirds of water is lost by flood. So, that means at the end, just 2,500 cubic kilometer are accessible for human needs. And today, 4,400 cubic kilometers is used, and in the future we have a margin of 6,000 cubic meters -- no more. |
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And we have to be faced also with the inequity of
repartition. And in some countries we have below the level of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year and creating the stress of water scarcity. And we see in Egypt just 30 cubic meters per year are accessible to the people. And Israel, Jordan, live with a lot of scarcity. At the end the people suffer water scarcity, and just keep in mind the last sentence, three million children die per year from a disease due to unsafe water. The situation today is very tough around the world, we have to keep in mind in the future, in two generations the world population will increase and double. We will be 10 to 11 billion people in the middle of the next century. Food production has to be doubled -- one of the main challenges of our generation is to prevent a catastrophe like that. To prevent water conflict we have to elaborate a sustainable management procedure. We have to keep in mind fresh water is the oil of the next century and to implement sustainable water management, we have to educate humans about environmental needs, to give to the water the true price, and to analyzing all environmental effects. By regulation, by incentives, politicians can drive for better management. |
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What is interesting with the CalFed process here in
California is to choose a realistic approach -- integrating environment, integrating all partners, all stakeholders, including human utilization, industry, agriculture. But we have not to forget the ecosystem. If the ecosystem is not protected, water management cannot be sustainable for the long term. But what is beyond this sustainable management is value change. It is necessary to change our approach between man and nature. Without this shift, nothing very sustainable will happen. And President, three years ago, launched an initiative, the Earth Charter. And this Earth Charter, he says, is clearly for this: to educate people to the necessity of value change. And another point important to allies -- the necessity of international law. The United Nations adopted this year an international law of non-mitigation use of water courses. This is a framework to deal with an international program and international dispute. If in an industrialized country as the United States, we can find money to solve the problem of water scarcity, water quality, in developing countries the situation is quite different. The World Bank estimates that for the coming years, six hundred to eight hundred billion dollars has to be found to allow people to have access to fresh water. It is one of the main challenges of the future: to help developing countries find this money from the developed countries, but we also have to help them and to inform them with technical transfer of our technology. |
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At Green Cross, around all these issues, we are working
as a mediator. That's the philosophy proposed and implemented by President Gorbachev, as a mediator and facilitator to prevent conflict. And we have three main domains of the work: One is awareness building. We are working on case studies on water conflict. We organize conferences around the world. We have launched a Green Cross youth contest with the name "Water for All." The second is multi-sectoral partnerships. This morning, we had a fabulous meeting with President Gorbachev, NGOs, and California water authorities to exchange information on how we can all work together for an international purpose. And in this case, we want to organize next year a conference - - an international conference in the Middle East as one of the focused points where the tension is so high. If water scarcity, water distribution, water access, is not solved, peace will never happen. Third is integrated assessment. With the Argentina government, Green Cross International works on the holistic approach of integrated assessment on water used on the Pilcomayo River and we have Professor Natale here who can answer some questions about this project. Solutions must be elaborated altogether. Because if the problem of water issues is solved in California, you cannot live alone, isolated from the world. And if three million children died every year, that is clearly unacceptable. Thank you. Jackson: Let me point out that prior to joining Green Cross, Mr. Charrier worked for 15 years with Jacques Cousteau on international environmental issues. Mr. President, do you have time for one question, watching the clock very carefully? Thank you sir. |
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Gorbachev: If I can answer a question I will. Jackson: Picking up on what Mr. Charrier said, he said "Water is the oil of the next century and peace will never happen." How does water become an international diplomatic and political issue and what is the best approach to resolving cross-border conflicts? Gorbachev: I think that cross-border water problems require a very special approach. This is a matter that requires a lot of sensitivity and this should be a very special concern. We have spoken about the need to educate people to make people aware of the problem of fresh water, to make all people participants in efforts for the proper management of water resources. And this is very important, but in addition, where water problems become a focus of international conflict, of cross-border conflict, this is something that the governments need to address, but also, experts and professionals need to address because this is a kind of conflict that requires a lot of expertise and attention at national level. My initial contacts with policy makers and experts on water resources indicate that all of them emphasize the need for a very balanced and very sensitive approach to such international water problems and conflicts. In some regions the tensions are so high that you have to tread very carefully to make sure that you don't make matters worse by addressing the conflict, addressing the problem in a wrong way. Therefore I believe it would be very important to create expert panels including authoritative, credible experts on water problems to address cross-border water conflicts. And such panels could help in the mediation efforts and there has been a suggestion that Green Cross International and I as President of the International Green Cross should mediate on some of these conflicts. I believe that would be the right approach. Jackson: Mr. President. Thank you, and I think I can speak on behalf of not just all the people in this auditorium, but in this country. I don't think any of us ever thought growing up that we would look to the President of once the Soviet Union and say he's one of our heroes. You are, sir. Thank you very much for all you've done. |
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Gorbachev: As I've already said I'll have to leave.
I wanted to leave inconspicuously; it's very difficult to do so. [President Gorbachev departs.] Jackson: And now, it is my pleasure to introduce the panel for the remainder of today's discussion, in no particular order: David Kennedy, he's been the Director of the California Department of Water Resources since 1983, appointed successively by Governors Dukmejian and Wilson. His department among, many other tasks, runs the State Water Project. There is Tom Graff, he's an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental organization headquartered in Oakland. Mr. Graff founded EDF's California office back in 1971. John "Woody" Wodraska is the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the world's largest water purveyors. We met, of course, Bertrand Charrier. David Freeman is the new general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, our hosts today, having taken that post just about one month ago. There is Peter Gleick, cofounder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. He is one of the leading experts on environmental security problems and international fresh water resources, including water conflicts in the Middle East. Then there is Lester Snow, he's the executive director of the CafFed Bay/Delta Program, which is seeking long-term solutions to water problems associated with the San Francisco Bay/Delta. Oscar Natale joins us from Buenos Aries. He just arrived, I gather, this morning. He will give us a report on jet lag. He is the coordinator of the toxic substances and water quality program at the National Institute of Water and the Environment for the government of Argentina. Peter Moyle -- He is a professor of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at the University of California at Davis, and Dr. Moyle is widely recognized as the foremost authority on California fish species, particularly those in the San Francisco Bay/Delta estuary. And Larry Farwell is a psychologist who has been professionally active in water conversation efforts on the south coast and statewide since 1986. He also has advised the governments of Canada, Spain and South Africa on water conservation matters in recent years. Let me start with a question and any one of you jump in if you will. We all know the population is growing worldwide and very much so here in California. I gather that in few years from now, California will have a population currently of France. But what are the implications of population growth for water demand and water scarcity and how should we grapple with those implications? John Wodraska. Wodraska: I'm going to help you out here. Jackson: Thank you. John Wodraska: I think, certainly in California -- and we had a chance amongst ourselves to discuss what was happening throughout the world in other areas -- in the past we had an orientation towards supply augmentation: "Let's build facilities to meet the growing demands." And then I think we realized the problems that we might have created and that we hadn't looked at the other side of the equation on the demand management side. And hopefully we've come back and I see the pendulum having swung far in one direction and then pretty far in the other direction, and it is my hope, that as we try and deal with the future population demands really throughout the world but most prominently in the United States and California, it's a balancing act between demand management -- cutting back on making more efficient use of the water we use -- but not giving up the opportunity for infrastructure where appropriate. Particularly, in a year like this, with the predictions of El Nino and heavy rainfall, we need to figure out some way in California to hold on to that water when we do get it, through storage and through conjunctive use programs, better groundwater management and other storage options. |
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Jackson: I think I was thinking of Peter Gleick when
I asked President Gorbachev about international conflict. What is new about the efforts to resolve conflicts over water in your view and how have changes in the approach to water conflict changed the impact of that conflict on society? Peter Gleick: Well, first of all, one of the problems of growing population is meeting the basic needs for water for people. We fail today to meet the basic needs for water -- for drinking water, for sanitation services, for billions of people world wide. That's not going to get any easier, it's an enormous effort to meet those current needs with a population now of almost 6 billion. With a population of 8 or 9 or 10 or 12 billion people that's going to be that much harder; that's one of the major problems. Associated with that is the problem of growing food for those people. And the problem of providing the water necessary to grow the food for that; I think that's going to be a critical issue. And third, as you point out, this issue of conflict. Much of the water internationally is shared internationally. It belongs to what we call an "international river basin," shared by two or more people. And mechanisms for reducing conflicts over water involve international water principles embodied, for example, in the new convention on non-navigable use of shared water courses that the UN approved this year, that provide some general principles for how we ought to negotiate and share international water resources. That's one mechanism and another is specific treaties signed by nations that share water resources. We have a treaty with Mexico that allocates, in theory, the waters of the Colorado River. There are many examples world wide. International principles and these specific treaties have a mixed record at reducing the risks of conflict over water resources and we need basically to get better at negotiating joint management of water resources institutions that can resolve conflicts over shared water resources. And there was some discussion this morning about the possibility of using the model in California, of CalFed, where all of the parties, who have very different interests, but in the long run who have an interest in seeing conflicts over water resolved, come together to discuss them: that may be the answer. Jackson: Let me try one more question before we change direction and any of you pick up on it. And that is simply, global climate change is being increasingly factored into a wide range of issues, what are scientists saying about the potential impact of global climate change on fresh water resources? Miller: Well, there is some indication that we may get the water in a different form, if you will. In California we think normal is sort of that October through March is the water year and that water is sort of evenly distributed and it is stored in the snow pack and then we find out all of a sudden that a storm can come along in January and deliver almost all of the water to the state and destroy the snowpack at the same time - - our system isn't designed for that. I don't think we know what the full impact will be but we think we know that we may see more volatile weather patterns. Whether it is going to be warmer or colder is for the politicians to debate, but the fact is that we may see more volatile weather patterns which call into question the designs in various basins on how that water is stored and utilized. Jackson: This might be off the subject, but only slightly. Earlier this week I moderated a panel for Vice President Al Gore and FEMA on the prospects of El Nino. And the first question that was thrown at me was, "What if it doesn't happen?" To which I replied, "Isn't it better to be prepared for that which doesn't occur, than ill prepared for that which does happen?" Miller: The interesting thing about that is that if you look at the people who have to bet with real money, the reinsurance industry, they're betting very heavily that it will happen, and they're changing their manner of exposure worldwide based upon this phenomena. So they're betting their shareholders' money and their investors money and all the rest of it, based upon the fact that they think there is something very real to this. Jackson: Now we're going to focus a bit more on three regions of the world where fresh water issues and fresh water conflicts are prominent: The Jordan River Basin in the Middle East, the Pilcomayo River Basin, in South America, and California, where we're going to talk about the San Francisco Bay/Delta and the Colorado River. So we'll have three presentations of precisely, if possible, five minutes each, followed by a five-minute opportunity for the panelists to sort of amplify on that presentation, perhaps by linking their own experiences to those described in the presentation or by asking questions of the particular presenter. After the three 10-minute presentation and comment periods we'll throw it open for a general sort of synthesizing discussion from the panel which will be followed by your written questions here in the audience. So for the first presentation on the Jordan River Basin, we have Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute. |
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Gleick: Thank you. I'd actually like to start with
my second overhead instead of my first. As you might imagine, explaining the water situation in the Middle East in five minutes is somewhat akin to explaining the California water situation in five minutes, which I leave to Lester to do. First of all there -- Does it say "Critical Issues" at the top? I've got the cheap seats over here. Overhead operator: Yes. Gleick: Okay. There is a very long history of conflict in the Middle East. And that's a conflict over religion, over ideology, over borders and over water. We did a study at the Pacific Institute looking at water-related conflicts in the Middle East between 3,000 B.C. and 300 B.C. and there is quite a remarkable history of conflicts over water in the legends and the myths and the history of the Middle East. One of the major characteristics is that every major river in the region is shared internationally. The Nile is shared by 10 nations. The Tigris and the Euphrates are shared by Turkey and Syria and Iraq -- three countries who have never been friends in different combinations at different periods of time. The Jordan River is shared by Syria and Jordan and Israel and Lebanon and the Palestinians in the West Bank. Needless to say there are some interesting political disputes going on among those parties in different combinations at different times. Populations in the region are growing very rapidly from between two and almost four percent a year, which puts extreme pressure and growing pressure on what the water resources there are there. The water distribution is very uneven. This is true worldwide. Certainly it is true in California. But it is also true in the Middle East, ranging from between 300 and well over 3,000 cubic meters of water per person, per year -- a standard measure of water availability in any region. Water use is very uneven throughout the region, from about 170 cubic meters per person per year to well over 2,500 cubic meters per person per year -- for everything, for agriculture, for urban use, for industrial use, for commercial use. And the truth is it's actually even worse than that. There are parts of the Gaza Strip -- there are individuals that get less than 170 cubic meters per person per year. There are enormous constraints on what people can do with that little amount of water. First view graph. First overhead, please. Now the problem is that the lack of water in the region is a contributing obstacle to peace. There are many issues involved in the peace talks in the Middle East, but water is a real one. It is a separate track of the multilateral peace talks in the Middle East and the shortage of water and the way the water is used and the way the water is distributed contributes to the lack of agreement over how to resolve conflict in the Middle East. The lack of peace in the Middle East is an obstacle to efficient sharing of water. It goes both ways. The fact that there is not enough water the fact that it is unevenly distributed and used, contributes to the tensions and contributes as a major obstacle to a equitable solution to the conflicts in the region. And as I mentioned, the current uses of water are inefficient in many places and inequitable. Sound a little like California? The solutions are varied. First of all, I would argue joint basin management of the shared water resources is absolutely necessary. There's going to be no agreement on peace in the Jordan Basin and on equitable sharing of water in the Jordan Basin unless there is an agreement on how to jointly manage the waters of the Jordan Basin. That means involving the Syrians and the Lebanese and the Israelis and the Jordanians and the Palestinians in discussions over sharing in management, over sharing in oversight, over sharing in the region. Some progress has been made. The Jordanians and the Israelis have signed a peace treaty that explicitly involves joint management and sharing of water in the Jordan Basin. It is an enormous step forward; implementing the peace treaty is another issue. Reallocation of existing water uses is necessary -- and again, think of California -- between agriculture, between urban uses, between environmental uses. Those three sectors in the Middle East have to discuss together how to reallocate and how to share the water uses there. Eighty percent of the water in the Middle East goes to agriculture. Sound familiar, again? There's an enormous discussion going on there about reallocating water from agricultural uses to the cities, which are growing very rapidly, like here. And that reallocation is going to continue in the future. |
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Improvements in the efficiency of water use are needed. Enormous progress in Israel and Jordan have been made in increasing the efficiency of water use there. Drip irrigation is very extensive. Urban water use is very efficient. But both of those sectors still use water inefficiently. As efficient as they are there is still enormous potential for additional improvements in the efficiency of water use. There is enormous progress being made in the reuse of water in Israel and Jordan; less in other parts of the Basin. And there is some talk that within 20 years the only water that is going to be available for use in the agricultural sector is reclaimed water, that's already been used in the industrial, in the urban and in the residential sector. Finally, it is possible that new supplies are needed. The water availability in the Middle East is very limited. They are much more water short than California and they are discussing the possibilities of new supplies. But as you might imagine, as is true here, new supplies are very expensive. They are expensive economically and they are expensive environmentally. And so whether or not new supplies will be developed is still up in the air. There is talk about desalination for very expensive high value uses. That may go on, it may not. There is talk about bringing water in from outside the region, like we do. Whether that happens or not is still unresolved, I would argue. But those are all part of the solutions being discussed. Let me stop there. Jackson: Thank you. Does anyone wish to comment on that or shall we move on, whichever you like. Okay. Here's a presentation, a five-minute presentation I hope from Oscar Natale of the National Institute for Water and the Environment, the government of Argentina, on the Pilcomayo River Basin of South America. Oscar Natale: Thank you. The Pilcomayo River Basin project, as it was said, is to be an example of how to deal with water conflicts, or to prevent water conflicts through knowledge. And this is the case and the idea when the National Argentina Secretariat of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development and Green Cross International signed an agreement to begin this project. The first overhead. Here we have the continent where the project is being developed, that is South America. Second overhead. And the Pilcomayo River Basin is within the LaPlata River Basin that is shown here and it's a case of a basin shared by three nations. The next one. Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina are countries shown here where most of the basin is developed in what is called the "Upper Basin", within Bolivian territory, and in the Andes Mountains at heights of 4,000 meters above sea level, and then it drops to 400 meters in what is called the Chaco area and drops finally into the Paraguay River, entering in through this way into the La Plata River Basin. The next one. Here we have some characteristics of the Basin. The area of the watershed is 68,000 square kilometers. Some typical parameters like minimal annual discharge of 208 cubic meters per second, a maximum amount of annual discharge minimum of 446 cubic meters per second. But then, in summer, you get cases where you can have huge flows up to thousands of cubic meters per second. The historical maximum has been 4,000 cubic meters per second. And the particularity is that these drop from 4,000 meters above sea level down into 400 meters. The movement, the erosion from water, creates a huge input of suspended solids into the lower basin, and this amount is in the order of 135 million tons per year. The main water uses of this basin is primarily for agricultural purposes, that is, irrigation, both in the upper and lower basin. It is used as a drinking water source for the Indian population. In the Argentinean territory there are Guarani and Mataco populations that are of the order of 18,000 inhabitants and they use this as the drinking water source, drinking directly the water from this river without any kind of treatment, and also using as the main food source the fish species of the river, in particular, the Savalo that is the most ubiquitous. In the Bolivian territory one of the ancient and most important uses of the water of the basin is for metal, for mining activities, going back to the Spanish period. That is, from the 16th Century until now, it has been evolving through different mining and metallurgical processes, for getting gold and silver, tin, lead, zinc, etc. These generate one of the main water quality problems. The presence of heavy metals is not only, of course, in the upper basin within the Bolivian Territory, but also in the lower basin shared by Argentina and Paraguay. Other water quality problems are related with, as I said, the influence of suspended solids creating obstructions in the lower basin and, of course, the entrance of loads of municipal effluence without any kind of treatment, creating sanitation problems. The following one. In particular, this project will stress how to improve the level of knowledge in relationship with the presence of heavy metals in the basin that are coming, mainly, from the Potosi area that is the upper branch of the Pilcomayo River and also a series of rivers from the lower branch where last year an accident happened in a mine called Porco, dropping about 300 cubic tons of tailings from a mine. This accident generated attention from authorities of the governments of Paraguay and Argentina and also from some provinces in Argentina that are sharing this resource. Evidence of the presence of heavy metals in this river is given through some data -- the following one -- where you can find values of zinc, cadmium, lead in the lower branch of this Pilcomayo River Basin after the Porco accident, where you find huge amounts of concentrations of these metals in sediments quite over some international guidelines. This is also shown in the following one, where you find also values for arsenic. |
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So the proposal is to implement a comparative trinational
and international project on risk and sustainability of water uses assessment in this basin with the following objectives: to develop and enforce agreements and to strengthen institutions and programs related to water quality, sediment and aquatic biota assessment, regulation and control in the Pilcomayo River Basin; to implement clean mining and metallurgical technologies in the Basin; to establish and finance a long- term technical cooperation program that has both a horizontal axis that is among the three parties or three countries riparian of this Basin and a vertical one with the presence of supporting international agencies like Green Cross International in order to ensure the sustainable development of the region and the multiple use of water resources in the Basin; and finally, to design and establish, operate and maintain a communication system and a contingency plan for pollution events in the Pilcomayo River Basin. These are the main objectives that are to be developed through a two-year program through the participation of governmental and nongovernmental organizations of these three parties and international ones. Thank you. Jackson: I noticed, Mr. Charrier, you're making notes. Would you care to make any comment on what you've just heard? Charrier: The comments I would like to highlight, in the Pilcomayo River we have to face the issue of water quality. In the Middle East we have also to face water quantity, and these are two main parts of the program on water and is certainly the reason why Green Cross has chosen to work on these two regions -- the Middle East and the Pilcomayo. Jackson: Thank you. Now a five-minute presentation from Lester Snow, of the CalFed Bay/ Delta program -- California issues, the San Francisco Bay/Delta and the Colorado River. Lester Snow: Did you say five minutes or fifteen, I can't, couldn't get that straight? Jackson: We have all day -- until the water runs out. Snow: Everybody up here says five. Can I have the first slide up please. I was, after listening to Peter going to declare at least we have not had open conflict on California water issues and then I remembered a rich piece of Los Angeles' history in the Owens Valley that I believe involved significant amounts of dynamite in the cover of darkness, and then a large militia, if I'm not mistaken. To understand California's water problems and where I want to head with the CalFed program, this is a basic fact, "Water occurs where the people aren't." This is the basic rainfall where we have sufficient rainfall to generate a renewable water supply. This is where the people are located, the Bay Area. . . Southern California. . . agriculture is in the brown area. And not only do we have the displacement but then we have a very irregular pattern of precipitation which we think is getting worse. The way California has dealt with this in the past is probably one of the most extensive and sophisticated water systems in the world. Starting with some of the cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles developing their water supply delivery systems, the Colorado River Aqueduct, a Federal project and State project that allowed water to be moved from where it was to where it was needed, and to do that to develop sophisticated reservoir systems to catch the water when it's available and release it when it's needed. I think to have a better understanding we have to understand that we've had an incremental deterioration of the ecosystem in the State of California, even before the water projects, as far back as hydraulic mining that took place in the last century. And then we had a significant effort at levy building within the delta itself, where we were reclaiming lands that were referred to as "swamps" back then, to make farmland that significantly altered the landscape in terms of the ecosystem and river function. Then we got into building dams, to capture water, to generate power, to make California a prosperous place. Those systems have moved water all around this state for a good many years to provide a lot of different kinds of benefits to become the number one agricultural producer in the United States. The Central Valley produces 45 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables, a major export of food to other countries, and the rapid and significant urban growth. And we have ended up, based on this water system, with a trillion-dollar-a-year economy. We finally have gone over into the trillion. That's what California has now. But at a cost. As Congressman Miller has already indicated, a lot of unintended consequences that have been most manifest in deterioration of the ecosystem and environmental problems. We also have seen significant flooding, as recently as February, in terms of the interface between our floodways, our levies, our ecosystem and where we choose to build houses. |
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The primary conflicts that we have seen in the system
have resulted in taking a different approach, the conflicts between diversion of water and fisheries, between habitat and flood protection, between water supply and the competing uses and certainly water quality and land use. These conflicts have focused mostly in the Bay/Delta system. This is where the system comes together, 80% of the renewal water supply. We've come and put the largest diversions in the State of California in the south part of the delta to tap into that system. The model that we've used for 20 years in solving natural resources problems is political decisions that have nothing to do with technical or legal reality, and that's why we keep reinventing this. We call this model, "Legislate, regulate, litigate." And we don't get the problem solved. What we think we're trying to do, in the CalFed program, is get these things together so we can find solutions that are politically acceptable, legally, economically and engineeringly sound. And the only way we do that is be getting everybody engaged. That's the essence of what CalFed is. Go ahead with the next. Let me start first with a formal CalFed coalition of state and federal agencies that used to fight over these issues, now brought together to form an institution to start moving forward. But most important, what this represents is bringing together the stakeholders that used to sponsor those pieces of legislation and litigation, to try to come up with a solution that meets everybody's needs. Simply, the Mission Statement is to restore ecological health and improve water management for all the beneficial uses of the system. Everybody needs to move forward together. The general approach is collaborative and open, almost to the point of boring people to tears. We want everybody involved in every aspect of the program; we want no surprises. We want an ecosystem-based approach, not a species du jour approach, to dealing with environment problems. No prohibited options, no preferred options. We need to solve this problem. Four problem areas: ecosystem health, water quality, water supply reliability, levy system integrity. We want to find solutions that are win-win. Not fix an ecosystem problem by simply taking water away from somebody else. Define strategies that address all four areas. We've developed five basic components: an ecosystem program that is designed to restore habitat, wetlands, and riparian corridors; water use efficiency, to make sure we're using water efficiently in a system; a system to improve levy stability and actually integrate ecosystem into it; water quality; and then a change in the way that we store water and move water around the system. That comprises the basic alternatives that we're evaluating. We currently have twelve. Let me conclude with this quick observation, by the Contra Costa Times, from the Congressman's district, if I recall. A simple straightforward observation and it is why the stakeholders are engaged. "If we don't pay to fix this problem and fix it right, we're going to pay in unintended ways -- loss of jobs, loss of farmlands, continued deterioration of the environment." So the whole program is based on getting the stakeholders at the table, coming up with strategies that make everybody move forward together. Thank you. |
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Jackson: Would any of you care to comment on any of
the presentations that you've heard thus far? And the first hand to go up we haven't heard from, Peter Moyle. Peter Moyle: Thank you. I'd just like to back up what Lester is saying and refer back to some of the other things that have been said here. First off, these things are necessary because climate change is a reality with less predictability in our water supplies. Also we do have to recognize that big water projects are just not going to happen anymore, in California, at least not on the scale that they were in the past. So this really does generate a need for really creative and long-term solutions to our water problems. And the best solutions are those that improve the situation for humans while also improving the situations for aquatic organisms. For example, one of the really large-scale kinds of solutions that people have been thinking about is the idea of recreating our flood plains in the Central Valley. This can allow more storage in the reservoirs upstream and the existing reservoirs, while providing much needed habitat for fish and wildlife. So it's big, creative solutions to these problems that are going to be needed and I think the CalFed process is one that is hopefully coming up with these solutions. Jackson: By the way, before we proceed to general discussion or any further with our general discussion, may I ask audience members to do as a couple have already done, pass your questions to the end of the aisle and we'll collect them and we'll try to get to as many of those as possible. We'll have staff members collect them. Let me ask. . . The finger went up from Thomas Graff. Thomas Graff: Quick observation. This year we celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing of the Colorado River Compact and we're just starting to figure out how we're going to allocate California's share that was provided for in that compact. It's also the fifth anniversary, as was mentioned earlier by Congressman Miller, of his bill, his and Senator Bradley's bill, and we've got a long way to go in implementing that statute, although I would argue, maybe slightly contrary to what Lester indicated earlier, that the Bay/Delta Accord and the proposition last year that we all supported cooperatively would never have happened without the incentives created by the passage of Miller-Bradley. Miller-Bradley also provided the opportunity for urban Southern California to transfer water from the Federal supply in Northern California that did not exist prior to the passage of that bill and created several different mechanisms for restoration, both financial and operational, that still have a ways to go in implementation. Jackson: Congressman Miller, any comment on that? Miller: I like that. Jackson: He likes it. Let me turn then to some of the incoming questions, at random, if any of you would care to jump in and respond. Here's one...Well actually, it's aimed at three of you -- Mr. Gleick, Mr. Natale and Mr. Snow. "To what extent is there movement away from subsidized, politicized water allocation and towards true cost market-based water allocation in all the three areas we discussed?" Gleick: Well, we get right into it, don't we? This, of course, in my opinion is one of the most difficult problems in the water area. And it's difficult in the Middle East and it's difficult here. The truth is there are certain questions that it's very difficult to address in public in the water policy debate: agricultural subsidies; pricing of water; allocations in water rights. It's a political issue, it's a personal issue, it's a very difficult one. If we don't address it we're not going to solve the water problems. In the Middle East, the Palestinians think the problem is one of water rights. The Israelis think it is one of water supply -- let's make the pie bigger rather than discuss reallocating the pie. And that perception, those perceptions, are some of the most difficult problems in the Middle East, and frankly in California: the question of water pricing in agriculture and the question of water rights and a question of ground water management. There are a certain number of issues that, if not completely taboo, have not been adequately addressed and resolved in California and make solving the long-term problems in California, I think, very difficult. Jackson: Mr. Snow. |
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Snow: I certainly would agree with Peter's last statement. These issues are very difficult and I think we are addressing them incrementally. I think we're getting into the pricing issue in two fashions within the CalFed program. One is the principle of beneficiary pays as we modify this system and if we make water supplies available from that, that water should carry its full cost to whoever is the beneficiary, which is not necessarily the way we have done it in the past. The second, though, is increased reliance on the water market. By providing those types of economic incentives we believe over the long run that water will start coming closer to its true value as it's represented in the system. So these things that are so ingrained over a hundred years period of time, it's not that you can pass one policy and make a change. We think you have to approach it incrementally in dealing with new water supplies and how they're priced and then also dealing with market incentives, we think is the way to start. Jackson: Let me repeat the question for our visitor from Argentina. To what extent is there movement away from subsidized, politicized, water allocation and towards true cost, market-based water allocation? Natale: My experience in Argentina, I think it might apply to other developing countries, is pricing is not the usual way of, let's say, dealing with the scarce resource, despite the fact that it's in some way illogical. In Argentina, water, even in areas where it is scarce for purposes of drinking water supply, is free and that criteria is always present. The only usage that has some kind of pricing system is related with agricultural use. The price I'm referring to is the price, the free price of the resource, not of course the price of providing drinking water supply. That is to say there isn't any kind of price paid by the company that is intaking water for giving the service. Jackson: Thank you. Here's another question for the entire panel or anyone thereon. Which will suffer greater from water scarcity, agriculture or public drinking supplies, and what mechanism can we use to balance the two? Anyone care to respond to this? Congressman Miller. Miller: Well I think if I might take a stab related to the other question. Historically, we have looked at these issues, certainly in California and probably most of the western United States, as a contest between drinking water supplies or city use versus agricultural use. The question that CalFed is struggling with is if you place a real value on the water, to what extent do uses change for other reasons without creating a winner or a loser? You know, there are some economists that argue that if you really had a free and open market in water in California you'd probably have a surplus of water. If the real value was placed on it and probably that real value might not be $400 an acre foot, it might $100 an acre foot or something less than that. And right now we don't know the answer to that. Part of this process is trying to see if you can minimize the so-called "losers" in this system as this particular state continues to grow and have increased demands because 10 million people move here every decade or show up as births and can you work out a mechanism for allowing some flexibility in that water supply to grow in the future without just deciding that you've got to get rid of agriculture or you've got to get rid of this use or that use. I think that's the question of whether or not the market can respond in that fashion. Jackson: Another question from the audience. Do you truly believe Third World countries would put water for plants and animals before water for food production and people? Does that happen? Moyle: I can respond to that in part. Usually not. And certainly, historically in California that has not been the case. There are some attempts to at least level the playing field a bit for the fish and wildlife. But I think the best response to that is to say that the best way we can handle our water problems is to make sure these systems are healthy because then they'll provide healthy water for people as well. Often healthy ecosystems are generally compatible with solving water supply problems. Larry Farwell: In South Africa they've actually made their two priorities basic water for human needs and a sustainable environment. Even though they have 14 million people without access to running water -- that's 40% of the country -- they have recognized a sustainable environment as the basic element of a functioning society. |
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Jackson: Which leads me to an interesting question
from the audience. It reads: Human population impacts this Earth through it's use of resources and generation of waste pollution. Since humans seemed to have circumvented the predator-prey relationship that every other living creature is subject to, should we not be addressing human population growth? Doesn't the increased availability of water simply imply continued human population growth at the expense of the environment? Gleick: Population is without a doubt a critical factor here. The more people you have the more water you have to provide. You don't solve the water problem by solving the population problem; we're not going to be able to do that. I guess what I'm arguing is we need to address both of the problems at the same time. The population is growing and it's going to continue to grow. I think there is a responsibility to meet people's basic needs for water. And their basic needs for water are well below the total amount of water people tend to use. I think we can meet basic needs for water. And one finds that when you meet basic needs for water, in fact, peoples' well being improves and population rates drop. So there is a connection. Jackson: Mr. Charrier. Charrier: Yes, just to add some on the water. Certainly water has to be considered as "goods," and not just a gift from God. And in that case we have another relationship between man and nature. And it certainly is a reason why for many, many years and destinies of people waste of water and with a poor management. Jackson: Then I think this question, this follow-up question should be for you, if I may, from the audience. Treaties, international agreements and local allocations are obviously not adequate to solve conflicts at any level. Is Green Cross International working towards creating a worldwide distribution agreement? Charrier: I think it is not in the power of an NGO, even if it is an important NGO. We have to use tools, international tools, international laws, as the one adopted this year by the United Nations, and to implement and to help to solve problems at the local level and regional level. What we have to keep in mind is that one way to solve water conflict is that through the reduction in sovereignty between the countries. As international law moves countries to decrease the sovereignty, that's the wave of the future, and also a really important orientation. The problems of water management will be solved at the regional level. Jackson: I know a question that I would love to conjure up and I'd love a reaction from each member of the panel. And that is you know all the problems, you study the problems from different perspectives. Are you optimists or pessimists about the future of water and the world's population. Mr. Moyle, can we start with you sir? |
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Moyle: It depends on which morning you're talking
about. I'm fundamentally an optimist, I have to be, but sometimes it gets very depressing when you think of the way human populations are increasing and the way we're handling water supplies, in general, around the world. But, on the other hand, the CalFed process is certainly an optimistic scenario, right now. There is no guarantee it's going to work, but at least we're doing the right things. And we heard a presentation this morning by Aaron Wolf of the University of Alabama that really indicated that treaties over water are surprisingly common and surprisingly resilient, so it indicates that, at least, when it comes to water conflicts, humans do want to get out there and really solve the problems before going to war. |
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Jackson: Oscar Natale. Natale: Well in fact, in our region, I think we have to be quite optimistic. Since, for example, the 60s or 70s, in the La Plata River Basin, there were conflicts over, for example, the development of hydropower generation with dams in the Paru (sic) River in Brazil and also some in the Uruguay River, creating quite a stress among these countries. At this time, let's say, the action of exchange of information, related with the uses of water and, of course, for example, in the case of flooding, being related with the El Nino event -- at this time there is a continuous flow of information from the upper basin to the lower basin. So, I'm possibly in favor of saying that we can be optimists. Jackson: Let me jump around if I may. You've been rather quiet, Larry Farwell. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Farwell: I have two responses. One is that when you ask the new government in South Africa what their attitude is on solving the problems which are enormous, they are optimistic. They say, "We'll solve them because we have to." And in the sort term I think that's probably true. In the long-term I'm just hoping that this problem isn't like the frog in the cold water with the temperature slowing rising. And as I think Bertrand has pointed out, the pot we're in is already fairly warm with billions of people without adequate water and millions of children a year dying, so it's an interesting question, Michael. |
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Jackson: David Kennedy, do you have an interesting
answer? David Kennedy: I would characterize myself as hopeful. I'm involved in various water conflicts, I have been for a long time. In fact, I'm going to make a comment now that I didn't get an opportunity when we met with President Gorbachev earlier and he came in with Congressman Miller. I thought it would have been interesting for the President to know that not only the Congressman has been involved in these issues for a long time, but his father before him for a very long time was a very well known and active state senator who was involved in some of these very issues. So, I think it is an indication that one thing you need here is a lot of patience and hanging in there. But as I see these issues I see some that are getting resolved. I think the most significant thing is the number of people who are working in good faith to try and bring them to resolution. I think there's growing recognition is that the problems generally won't be solved unilaterally but by bringing all of the interests that have a reason to be there together. To bring them into the discussion and try to resolve them in a comprehensive manner. So overall I'm hopeful. Jackson: And to your left, Attorney Graff, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Graff: Well, I think with President Gorbachev on the panel you can't not be an optimist. On the other hand, you know, he did an amazing thing and changed the world but at least some of the problems that he and others addressed just a decade ago will reemerge in different forms and different people are going to have to tackle them all over again, so I guess I'm both. |
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Jackson: Otherwise you'd feel you were wasting your
time. John Wodraska. Wodraska: Well I'll pick up on a comment that Tom just made. I'm optimistic that on a case-by-case basis we're applying resources and one way or another making progress. I'm discouraged that the institutional structures we have in place to solve these problems were not as creative in that sense. I think what President Gorbachev did in the Soviet Union, thinking outside the box, really changed the way we approach the problems. Perhaps in resource management, particularly water resource management, we're getting pretty effective at asking the right questions. The questions that came from the audience are all the ones we've debated, but we don't seem to have a new approach about how we're going to come to grips with some of these really fundamental issues. Is water a commodity or is there a public trust, a stewardship responsibility? Are we going to rely on just pricing to deal with it? How does the environment fare in that kind of world and how are we going to come to grips with population growth and are we going to use that?. And we don't have any institutional mechanism in our society even to have these debates to bring something to closure. Jackson: Let me take the same question but change it very slightly, Lester Snow. Ten years from now, will things be worse or better? Snow: No, they will be better, particularly -- I guess I have a California perspective, since I'm immersed in that, so I guess I'm responding more with optimism from the California standpoint. But the reason that I'm confident about that is twofold, or maybe more than that, maybe multifaceted here in a sense that we have a lot of people engaged in this have not been involved in the water issues previously. We have the business community in the State of California involved. We have politicians willingly getting involved and in the past they begrudgingly got involved in water issues. We actually know what a lot of the solutions are. And I guess the other thing, and maybe this is a negative way to put it, but again, California has a trillion-dollar-a-year economy. If we aren't willing to invest to solve these problems when we know the solutions, then we deserve to have what we get out of that. But I'm optimistic that the solutions are there. We have the commitment. We simply need to move forward and try to dodge the bullets from the minor skirmishes we have along the way. Ten years from now I think we're going to have a significantly different system, a different way of doing business. |
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Jackson: Let me pick up on those two words, "minor skirmishes." And as we are running out of time I do want to get to the final, three, minor or major skirmishes in the Middle East. Peter. Gleick: Minor, in the Middle East. Jackson: So that means they can be resolved. Gleick: I'm optimistic. I think California is going to be fine. I think we have the resources broadly speaking. I'm encouraged by the level of cooperation in the Middle East over water. Jackson: Really. Gleick: And I think mechanisms will be developed to really reduce the risk of conflict there. I'm encouraged by what is going on in South Africa. I'm encouraged by, as someone said, the number of people involved internationally, on water. I'm not encouraged, however, for much of the rest of the world, in the developing world. I mean, the truth is there are three billion people who don't have a water system comparable to that that we found in ancient Rome. And that population is growing; it's not shrinking. And we're falling behind with those people. The 250 million cases of water-related diseases and the five to ten million water-related deaths worldwide -- those are preventable, but we're not doing a good job in that part of the world and I'm not optimistic -- not that optimistic about that. |
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Jackson: Then let me turn to our Congressman and our
visitor from Geneva and ask them to sort of sum it up. Are you optimistic, are you pessimistic. Do you like what you've heard and where do we go from here? Let's start with Congressman Miller. Miller: Well, I'm optimistic. Certainly about California I'm optimistic because I think Lester said it right. It's already better because there are people who are sitting at the table where decisions are being made that 25 years ago and 50 years ago either didn't exist or they certainly wouldn't have been allowed in the room. A lot of these decisions were made in my father's front room, many, many years ago and it was a very small group of people that were cutting up the water pie. And the decisions that called those decisions into play were made in Los Angeles by even a smaller group of people; that was a reaction. Today, you can't have that kind of meeting and today you can't bolt from CalFed and say, "Well, I'm just going to go it on my own." That's a real difference. I think I'm optimistic, too, because hopefully, this process unlocks our thinking from the past. Because most of the decisions and the direction we were going are very old decisions that still have effect today. And I think part of the problem that you have in other parts of the world is that treaties reflected a different period of time. One of the things that Mr. Natale said was that this is about applying knowledge. You have to show people that have water and are using it in a certain way that they may be able to get the same result but use that water and maybe less of it, in some cases, in a different way. But they can get the same result. That's what we've learned from our friends in Israel, and certainly the Mexican tomato farmers in Baja have learned that as they've sent their foremen to Israel to learn about irrigation. So there is a huge amount of opportunity out there, but we have to let go of the past. But in the past you made the decision sort of at ten paces with six-shooters. Or you went and you figured out how you could influence the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee to get the same result. Today, you've got to do it in a cooperative forum and you cannot lock people out of the room, which then immediately changes how you think about the problem. Because somebody said, "What about this point of view?" Well, before, that point of view was never in the room. And I think that's the optimism. |
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I think that, when you look at what President Gorbachev
is Jackson: Congressman, thank you. Final word sir,
it's yours. |
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Biographies of Participants LARRY FARWELL is a psychologist who has been professionally |
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CONGRESSMAN GEORGE MILLER has represented the seventh
district of California, which rings the San Francisco Bay/Delta, since 1975. He is the senior Democratic member of the House Committee on Resources, which he formerly chaired, and is the leading environmentalist in Congress. PETER MOYLE is a Professor of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at the University of California at Davis. Dr. Moyle is widely recognized as the foremost authority on California fish species, particularly those in the San Francisco Bay/Delta estuary. OSCAR NATALE is the Coordinator of the Toxic Substances and Water Quality Program at the National Institute of Water and the Environment, Government of Argentina, Buenos Aries. LESTER SNOW is the Executive Director of the CalFed Bay/Delta Program, which is seeking long-term solutions to water problems associated with the San Francisco Bay/Delta. He formerly was General Manager of the San Diego Water Authority. JOHN "WOODY" WODRASKA is the General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the world's largest water purveyors. Prior to joining MWD, he spent 19 years with the South Florida Water Management District, the last seven as Executive Director. |
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