We examine water policy: functional and dysfunctional approaches. Journalist Jacques Leslie talks about DEEP WATER: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People and the Environment.
And gray water activists and editors Cleo Woelfle-Erskine and July Oskar Cole tell us how we can conserve water. The book they edited, along with Laura Allen is DAM NATION: Dispatches From The Water Underground.
Here’s a comment from listener Amy Vickers, who’s also a water expert:
“Excellent show today, as usual, though I must take issue with some of the comments and statements of your ‘DAM NATION’ guests. While I appreciate their good intentions to raise public awareness and try to encourage people to use water wisely, their notions about composting systems “purifying” home graywater and collecting rainwater as a water conservation measure are off the mark.
Those of us who work professionally in the water conservation field know that the solutions to the nation’s and the world’s growing apparent water shortages are not going to be solved by the simplistic approaches suggested by Cleo and July. Further, there are public health issues and environmental issues associated with home water reuse and rainwater collection that they give short shrift.”
And here’s the URL to an article she wrote that gives “an example of the magnitude of water ab/use in the U.S.:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/06/10/lawn_binge/