“There’s no better fight over water than the one that pits Sin City against the Mormons,” said Dr. Robert Glennon.
The Teale Lecture Series continued Friday with Glennon’s lecture about America’s water crisis.
Dr. Allison MacKay introduced Glennon, the Morris K. Udall Professor of law and public policy at the University of Arizona, to a full auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd center. Glennon has been featured in The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and “The Daily Show.”
Dr. Glennon opened by talking about Las Vegas and how it has tried to solve its problems with water by paying citizens to remove their lawns, installing desalination plants in San Diego in exchange for their water from Lake Mead and getting water from sources in Utah.
Las Vegas also uses recycled water for all the features on the strip, such as the Bellagio water fountains, and holds high standards for water conservation in new buildings.
“Las Vegas gives us insight into what’s happening around the country,” Glennon said.
Glennon assured the audience that the water crisis was real by listing signs of the crisis, like California.
Lake Lanier in Georgia was the example that Glennon spent the most time illustrating. Lake Lanier experienced an extended drought in 2007.
The governor of Georgia’s idea to fix the lake’s extremely low water level was to pray for rain on the capitol steps. His other ideas included changing the borders set in 1818 between Tennessee and Georgia, putting Lake Lanier in Tennessee.
The Lake Lanier drought was an example of what Glennon called the “hydro-illogical cycle,” where nothing is done to prevent a future water crisis.
The true problem, according to Glennon, is not the cycle of drought but the fact that population growth creates worse consequences for drought.
“This is the elephant in the room for water and all environmental crises,” said Glennon.
Glennon then talked about the supply and demand of water, pointing out unadvisable uses of water such as bottled water and ethanol production for biofuels, which uses four gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol, not counting the water used for growing corn.
Glennon also touched on the link between water and electricity, saying that one incandescent light bulb turned on for one year uses 63,000 gallons of water.
“If you want to save water go home and turn off the lights,” said Glennon.
The lecture then turned to real and surreal solutions for the water crisis.
Glennon told the audience that the days of building dams and drilling wells are gone, and that cloud seeding was not scientifically viable.
Solutions that Glennon thinks are practical include reclaiming water, keeping water local and conservation. Glennon did lament that some states, such as California, have made no effort toward water conservation. Glennon talked about a regulation passed by the nayor of San Diego that only allows residents to water their lawns only three times a week.
“This is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Glennon.
Glennon subsequently outlined his approach to help control the water crisis.
“I’m taking dead aim at the American toilet,” said Glennon.
Glennon called for a national commission on waterless ways to dispose of waste, telling the audience that using water to dispose of human waste was a big part of the problem, wasting two trillion gallons of water a year.
Other parts of the new approach included paying for water, reallocating water, and readjusting crops for the best use of water.
The audience reacted positively to the lecture.
“I came for extra credit for my economics class,” said Mark Zaborowski a 6th-semester English economics double major. “I thought it was a good presentation.”
Members of the audience felt the message of the lecture was important as well.
“I’ve come to all the Teale lectures this semester and enjoyed them all,” said Todd Sanders, a 2nd-semester English major. “I think it’s important that everyone should realize how the water crisis is linked to the energy crisis.”
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