 "Photo: Matt Andrew/ The Quad News")
Dr. Robert Glennon, author of “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do about It,” gave a keynote address in Alumni Hall on March 2.
Glennon, the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, has written several books on water conservation including “Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters.”
Glennon talked about the Las Vegas strip, which has all sorts of seemingly wasteful water attractions. However, he said the strip uses only 3 percent of the city’s water.
“All of the water features you see on the strip, it’s all re-used water,” Glennon said. “Even though they have a slogan ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ when it comes to water that is the furthest thing from the truth.”
He began the lecture by talking about Las Vegas in general. A major metropolis with all sorts of attractions that use huge amounts of water, Las Vegas has had issues with its water supply in the past. However, Glennon said the city is taking various measures to curb its water use.
“[The head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority Patricia Mulroy] has moved aggressively to bring about water conservation in an area that before could have cared less about conserving water,” he said. “She has offered to pay people to rip out lawns $2 per square foot. This program has already saved 18 million gallons of water.”
According to Glennon, most Americans don’t pay at all for their water. Even those that receive a bill from a water company are usually paying for service fees and not the water itself.
“We Americans are spoiled,” Glennon said. “We turn on that tap and out comes as much water as we want for less than we pay for cell phone service or cable television.”
Still, Glennon said that a different household regularity trumps the others as the biggest waster of water.
“I want to take dead aim at the American toilet as the biggest waster of water in the country,” he said.
Members of the Quinnipiac University Book Club have been reading Glennon’s “Unquenchable,” (which was published in 2009) in keeping with their theme of having adequate and clean water for all.
I wanted to do something to support this idea [of having a theme],” Director for the Faculty Collaborative Dr. Deborah Clark said. “Glennon was chosen [as a speaker] and so we chose [Unquenchable]. It was very successful.”
The book club, which was started by the Faculty Collaborative for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, is playing a part in Quinnipiac’s New Synthesis Project for Undergraduate Education. The club is open to both faculty and students and will have a different theme each year.
”What we’ll do for the summer is try to read something that QU 101 students are reading,” Clark said. “We thought of that as a way to try to stay connected to the university. There’s a whole lot of people reading something and that way we can be engaged in discussions that lots of people are engaged in.”
After Glennon’s lecture, this year’s book club selection has been put into perspective for Clark.
“Most of the things he brought up we discussed [at the book club].” Clark said. “It brought home the importance of using the legal system and using an economic lens to think about how to get the public to not use as much water.”
Clark also said that the book and the lecture helped to re shape the views of the other book club members on how they use water.
“We really had read [Unquenchable] thoroughly and discussed it thoroughly,” she said. “All of us felt that it has changed the way we think and changed the way we act.”
Clark said that she hoped that students would take something away from Glennon’s lecture. She believes that students can work together to change the culture of conservation on campus.
“There were certainly examples of things that different people were doing. Hopefully some of those resonated [with students],” Clark said. “I think students have power. I think if students band together and pick a few things, students could do a lot more.”
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