After Breakout / Intro of Survey

Brett: I heard some people in the Nebraska, Pennsylvania, in California with people working on Sacramento, San Joaquin, delta issues talking about the connections between surface waters and ground water and how…there’s 2 resources have been manage separately in most of the country for many years but there’s been a recent move lately among river base in the West and elsewhere to connect those resources as do. Since one of that, you know, several conversations we had looking at the California’s problem is not just a California problem but more as a national or international problem.

Carl: Excellent and if Bob is still with us, I believe he is. Bob I’d love to hear what popped-up in your conversations? What you were hearing?

Bob: Oh boy, interesting conversations all the way around the role of building trust and opening communication sharing values, it’s very much a process and human can mention __. The interesting geographic spread from folks from a Germany and other parts of Europe to various parts of the United States, feeling a little bit guilty because we in California often focused so much in California with that so many problems we’ve created… we’d forget that it’s a much bigger sense and Circle of Blue is good in covering the broader spectrum as well, so apologies for the California’s centricity on some of the conversation.

Carl: No, I really appreciate that and, you know, it’s really a systemic thinking too. I know it’s not just the Colorado River Base and it’s not just Ogallala, it’s not just California is what coming out in case group, you know, global situation. Nadine, I, you know, hope you enjoyed your visits, you know, what were some of the things popping up that you were hearing?

Nadine: Okay. So just to kind of tie everything together, it was really good to hear some of the perspective from the Tulare Basin, you know, the issues people that are just now hitting that wall and I’ve been there, I started out in resources of a logger’s life, so I’ve been through the spotted out worst and I know what it’s like to see your community disappear and the values that you hold dear be called in the question, so I guess, I’d just like to encourage people that are out there working on these issues. Find some people that don’t think like you or agree with you and sit down with them and good to know them and find out what their concerns are because it’s that type of learning about a place and learning about an issue that will give you a greater perspective and you may never agree with that person but you will become richer in knowledge specially in the resource called for by learning from people whose values are different than yours are. And just never forget that as Margarett Meads said, what committed groups of people can accomplish and they can accomplish much. You’ve look at what we’ve done here in the Sacramento Valley and the bird habitat and the healthy fisheries and we work together, we may not agree with each other but we try to work together so that what the place that we live, our grandchildren will be even better than the one that we have. And will El Niño solve our problems? No, I think El Niño may exacerbate our problems assure of it, if we get a heavy rain fall, so and that should remind all of us that don’t keep so caught up on the issues that you forget to look up to the hillside for the rain was falling and just keep on trying. I applaud all of you that are working on these issues because they’re not easy and I’m available with any help that I give for your groups that are just starting out to try to solve some of these problems. Thank you for doing this.

Carl: Really appreciate that, thank you. And just also a quick reminder somebody who will be up probably all night waiting for the official El Niño report, is Steven. Steven what were you hearing in your groups?

Steven: What I was hearing was…and it was a great variety of different voices and different perspectives with different takes on the water issue because I think Bob said it correctly that, you know, in California we’ve gotten so tunnel visioned I guess, about our own crisis unfolding which certainly is dyer but it’s not the only thing that’s happening in the world and the Circle of Blue that you guys cast a spotlight on, so it was particularly gratifying to hear from Rochelle in Nebraska and John in Pennsylvania about your places, you know, that I think of as certainly Pennsylvania has more water than California typically does. In Nebraska, you know, I mean nothing can go on both ways but it was interesting to hear how, you know, different states are trying some different things to manage their water in a better way and I feel like there are some lessons certainly for California as we grow in population and as we become probably warmer and dryer, giving planet models and, you know, and I think that this drought has really been a really sharp wake up call for the state and I think the hope is that, you know, we as a state can move forward and put in place some policies, some thinking, some attitude, adjustments that will kind of curious forward in the drought of flood cycle that we’re like to experience moving forward. So, I was really gratified to hear folks offering, you know, different perspectives on how to achieve that.

Brett: This is Brett here of Circle of Blue, site one wrap up question for Bob and Nadine, California is still in an emergency situation. We’ve talk about some changes that can be made but I’m wondering, for Bob and Nadine what will be you’re be looking at here in the next month or 2 months as summer comes to an end and the end of the dry season wraps up and the beginning of might hope to be a wet season comes a promise. So, what are you most concern about here at the end of summer in 2015?

Bob: Let’s see, you know, there’s very relief into about long term major problems in just a couple of months, I think to the extent people can build a better understanding of the systems from the upper water sheds as makings all the way down through the flood points, how we use water, how we try to store, that includes really got to do a lot of rethink in terms of our logic on ground water management, on surface water management, on watershed management, water efficiency and so forth. So, I think part of this is continuing the process. People understands the system better so whatever happens in the fall, recycled water still dry. We have a better sense of our options and what we need to do to move forward.

Brett: Nadine, what are you looking at here at the end of the summer season, things that people should be paying attention to?

Nadine: Well, we’ve had thousands of acres burn and so, you know, one of the things I’m going to be doing is encouraging people specially local communities to get out there and do what they can for settlement control, you know, don’t wait for government to get a grant. Send people out there but, you know, if you’ve got ways to monitor that and make sure that some of the damaged can be averted, go ahead specially on private land because of, you know, watching what happen on the Calamus River was frightening and once set soil is gone, it’s gone forever. So, were going to have to have people as soon as the fire’s are out looking at how do we ensure that watershed if the rain start in November that we have some way to protect them.

Brett: And by that, what you’re referring to that?

Nadine: Well, you know, huge rain storm on areas that are burnt specially were the soil has gotten so hot with some of these fires that it’s turned it into a almost to ceramic sheet, so the water heats that and instead of going in gently or having trees to break the fall it heats that and starts running at the rapid pace downhill and then it finds the weakness and that end will start new channels and holds thousands of tons of soil off the hillside and put it right then in the creek which is our drinking water and our salmon habitat and that’s what happen on the Calamus River this summer. So with that just one rain event. So if this is an El Niño year, like and we get a pineapple express that comes in we’ve got literally right now thousands of acres burning in Northern California, so it is going to be a tremendous job to ensure that slope stability of some of this mountain sides.

Brett: Excellent, we’ll certainly pay attention to fire itself, the flames [Inaudible 02:46:08.23] but we will follow up with what happen in the aftermath, the sedimentation in reservoirs and rivers can affect drinking water systems downstream. So thank you Nadine.

Nadine: Yeah.

Brett: And thank you Bob. After now we’re going to turn it over to Ben Roberts, who’s going to guide us to the next section.

Ben: Thank you very much, Brett and Carl. So we’d love to get some input from participants as well as our experts here on your take aways on today’s call. If you’re on social webinar you’ll now see that there is a form that you can complete right there in your social webinar browser. So we’re going to pause for about 5 minutes to let you do this. Intro sounds will turn on the guitar music then we’ll come back and hear some spoken highlights from a few of you as well in the time that we have remaining and then a few closing words from our host. So we’re looking on this form and if you’re not on the social webinar form that’s fine, you can write this down on some other place and just email it to catalyst@circleofblue.org, but if you’re on the form that’s great, you can go ahead and start filling that in right now. We’re looking for what some of your key take aways are from today’s Town Hall. If you live in California or if you live elsewhere, either way. And also, what key questions do you think need to be answered in order to adapt to the new normals and that’s going to be feeding to our conversations next week on that subject. And then as an optional addition here, if there’s a story, an important story that you know of, that is not being told, tell us a little bit about that and perhaps leave your name and some contact information and there is a possibility that we will then be following up with you on that story, if it seems like it something that is worthy of reporting. So, here’s your chance to help break important news in the context of this urgent situation as well. So we’re just going to pause for just a few minutes and much you go ahead and complete the surveys. You’ll notice in the upper left of social webinar, it says open link in new tab that’s just to the right of MaestroConference and underneath the words Catalyst California, if you click that it’ll open up into a new browser window and that will stay open even after the call is over. Otherwise when you hang up this form will disappear. We’ll just give you a little bit of silence now to work on this. We’d love to hear from everybody on the call, just some of your key takeaways and key questions and then we’ll hear some spoken shares will come back in just a couple of minutes for that.

Carl: And it’s Carl here for just a second and this is really important particularly as we setting up the rest of the conversations and as we’re going into World Water Week in Stockholm and the One Water Leadership Summit in San Francisco, we do need your feedback here and stay with us too for more details about the upcoming events.

Comments

comments