Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, this is Art Umbel with Stantec Consulting and I'm the Senior Vice President with our company and Director of the Stantec Institute for Applied Science, Technology and Policy and you are listening to the Water Values Podcast.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: The Water Values Podcast is sponsored by the following market leading companies and organizations by Woodard and Curran High Quality Consulting Engineering Science and Operations Services by Entera Innovation and Stewardship for a Sustainable Tomorrow by Xylem Let's Solve Water by the American Waterworks Association Dedicated to the World's Most Important Resource by Black and Veatch Building a World of difference by 120 water new rules need New Tools by Suez Digital Solutions Optimizing Water by IDE Water Technologies, your partner in water treatment and sustainable desalination for six decades by Advanced Drainage Systems Our Reason Is water and by 1898 and company possibilities powered by experience. This is session 272.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: Welcome to the Water Values Podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to water.
[00:01:23] Speaker D: Utilities, resources, treatment, reuse and all things water.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Now here's your host, Dave McGimcie.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another session of the Water Values Podcast. As my daughter Sarah said, my name is Dave McGimcie and thank you so much for joining me and thank you for for your support over now almost 11 years. I hope everyone has had a phenomenal start to 2025 and for those of you celebrating the Lunar New Year, welcome to the Year of the Snake. Well, we have a phenomenal show for you today. We've got two experts on water conflict here today. We have Dr. Frank Galgano, Associate professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at Villanova University, and Dr. David Stuckenberg, the president and COO at Genesis Systems, an Adjunct professor at the University of Tampa, and the Deputy Director of Strategy for the Air National Guard. They're going to take a broad look at water conflict and then pan in and focus on just a couple of the many hotspots around the world and provide some histor perspective on water conflict and do a little prognostication on what the future might hold.
Frank and David are absolutely terrific and you'll really enjoy their perspectives. One note is that I did have to edit the conversation down to fit our standard interview time, but I left as much in as I possibly could for you, the listener to benefit from.
We also have Reece Tisdale who joins us for another Bluefield on Tap segment that delves into some of the big financial sector news in the waterfront, which is that Aquarian is being sold by Eversource. So that is going to be Reese's subject on the Bluefield on Tap segment we have in just a few minutes. But before we get to today's conversations, we always say thank you to our awesome sponsors at the top of the show. And we have fantastic sponsors in 2025, Woodard & Curran, Entera Xylem, the American Waterworks Association, Black and Veatch 120 Water, Suez Digital Solutions, IDE Water Technologies, Advanced Drainage Systems, and 1898 Company. And that, as I'm sure you are all aware, is a terrific collection of impactful companies that have affirmatively decided to support water industry thought leadership and education. And I thank you all and I'd like for you, the listener, to please do me a favor. If you work for or with any of those sponsors, please thank your boss or thank your contact of the sponsor firm and tell them that you appreciate their leadership in the industry through the sponsorship. You'd be surprised how far that simple little note of thanks will go.
And as long as you're letting sponsors know that you appreciate their support of water industry, education, thought leadership, hey, why not leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever other podcast directory you're accessing the podcast on? It'd be greatly appreciated and, and of course helps others find out about the podcast. So please don't also forget to subscribe to the podcast. Yes, the all important subscription.
Well, before we get on to the interview with Dr. Galgano and Dr. Steckenberg, we've got a Bluefield on Tap segment with Bluefield Research's Reece Tisdale. So take it away, guys.
Greece, welcome to 2025 and welcome to our first Bluefield on Tap session this year. How you doing? How'd the year start off?
[00:04:39] Speaker E: It's hard to believe it's the first of the year. It's kind of amazing. But things are good. Things are good. So, you know, snowy, a little bit of travel and there's some activity in the water sector.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we've, we've had more snow and colder temperatures than I can remember in the last 10 years. It feels like here, at least here in the Midwest, so feels like real.
[00:05:01] Speaker E: Winter maybe for once in a while.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
So you kind of alluded to it. Huge news in the water sector. What's going on?
[00:05:10] Speaker E: Well, you know, as we were discussing beforehand, you know, one of the things I was, you know, end of last week, earlier this week, I was thinking, oh, all this stuff about California wildfires, the water system, what it all means. But lo and behold, just over the past Couple of days. Eversource has finally sold off its regulated water utility business in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts. So that deal, the long awaited deal, has finally gone through.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Long awaited deals, finally. So what, what do you think it means for you? Why did Eversource spin off the regulated utilities?
[00:05:48] Speaker E: Yeah, I think we, I feel like we did a podcast a while back when the announcement was made, and it was, the question was whether there was a divergence between water and energy or water and power. I think in this case, Eversource had a lot of debt. It's also been caught up in the offshore wind business, which has had a lot of problems. And the headwinds, no pun intended, are even stronger now with the Trump administration coming in. So offshore wind is tough. So it's been. It announced about a year ago that it was going to sell off assets, including its offshore wind positions, but also its water business, which was Aquarian, which it acquired in about 2017 for about 1.6 and a half billion dollars.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
What, what's the deal price and who's the acquirer?
[00:06:39] Speaker E: So it's a little bit unique, I'm not going to lie. I thought it would be another IOU or private equity or someone coming in, but the reading between the tea leaves over the course of the year. So it's, it's really a quasi government, state of Connecticut government owned authority where Aquarian water will maintain sort of operations of the system, but it will be alongside and it'll be affiliated with South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority. The deal price is 2.4, 2.4 billion. That is, the deal includes about 1.6 billion in cash and about 800 million in debt. And quite honestly, at least according to Eversource, they're taking about a $300 million loss on it. So they're obviously trying to get out from under the debt and move on as quickly as possible.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: That's fascinating.
I share your surprise that this is a quasi governmental entity that's acquiring rather than IOU or private equity.
What do you think the implications of that are? What's that signal send to the water sector?
[00:07:53] Speaker E: Well, I think in Connecticut in particular, it's a pretty tough regulatory environment. I know Eversource or Aquarium, the water utility. Subsidiary. Subsidiary was having difficulties with rates. I think that was probably an underlying frustration. But South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority is a quasi public institution as well in Connecticut, so I think they're used to that. The state basically was getting pushback, saying, hey, we can't have rates going up. As much as they are. Let's just sort of keep it within the quote, unquote, quasi public sector, public private sector.
I don't think. I think it was a big ask to have someone come in, particularly in Connecticut, like I said, where the utility was facing some difficulties with the regulator. I may it was probably a less of an attractive position. There have been, obviously. But that being said, the utility, regulated water, utility sector as a whole, M and A this past year, 2024, we're rounding out our numbers right now. It's been down, I mean, significantly down. As far as like deal count goes. There haven't been a lot of big deals and it's mostly small deals, which is, you know, closer to 100 than the traditional average of about 135. So I think, you know, public pushback is getting stronger in certain states and it's a tough business to get into. That being said, I know there's some activity happening just behind the scenes.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you touched on something that's pretty important. Right. Because affordability is such a big issue. But the systems need investment and those two forces are pushing against each other and it just makes the regulator's job that much tougher because the systems need the investment in order to provide safe and, you know, clean water service. But there's a, there's an affordability issue. I think there's got to be some new structure or new way to, new way to establish rates that, that allows lower income families or lower income customers to, to get a little bit of a break.
[00:10:05] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, we put out some analysis just about a week or two ago. We do a benchmark analysis on water rates across the country, sort of looking at about 50 to 60 water wastewater utilities every year just to get an idea what's happening and how things are changing. And one of the pieces of analysis was looking at affordability state by state. So how long does it take to pay a water bill within a respective state? As you can imagine, the southern states in particular rely on the federal minimum wage of, you know, seven, 25 an hour, I think, is what it is. And so how long, you know, and if you're in a city of Atlanta where you have really high rates, how long does it take to pay those bills back? How many hours of someone's salary does it take? And while it ranges a lot from state to state and city to city, it is a problem for utilities because, you know, regulated or public, it takes a lot of work to shut people on, shut them off, to track down the billing to get people to pay. At the same time, they're just looking for predictability and if they can figure out what percentage is really unable to pay those bills, it's a problem. And it's coming into the news more and more, as you can imagine.
And social media is strong, so the voices, while may not actually in aggregate be more or greater, the voices may be stronger and louder because they have more channels to the market.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Interesting times.
Well, you've given us a lot to chew on. Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. I'm sure we're going to watch it pretty closely as the deal moves forward and see how the post acquisition, you know, service quality continues and how investment continues in that. In that service area.
[00:11:55] Speaker E: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out there in three states. So it's got to be approved in each of those. And then maybe there's some activity beyond Connecticut and Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Maybe they spend those off. We'll see.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, good deal.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: Well, Reese, take care.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Have a great one and we'll talk.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: To you again soon.
[00:12:12] Speaker E: All right, Dave, thanks, man.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: All right, bye.
As always. Great information from Bluefield Research in Reese Sisdale. And we'll be monitoring the eversource disposition of Aquarian as it proceeds through the regulatory framework. And now it's time for the main event, our interview with Dr. Frank Galgano and Dr. David Stuckenberg. So let's get that water flowing.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: Well, welcome to the Water Values Podcast, Frank Galgano and David Stuckenberg. Really terrific to have you two experts on water conflict with us today. So let's start with. Let's start with you, Frank. Could you give us a little background on who you are and how you became interested in. In water conflict issues?
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:12:55] Speaker D: I'm, I'm a veteran. I served in the United States army for just about 28 years, and I served two tours at the United States Military Academy. My second, I received a doctorate at the University of Maryland and I was a geography program director there. And from about 1998 until 2007 when I retired.
And then I came here to Villanova and I was the founding department chair of this department, the Department of Geography and the Environment. And, you know, my connection with water and conflict came while I was working at the United States Military Academy. It was shortly after 9 11, we began working on some projects with the Defense Intelligence Agency. And one of the ones that we were investigating with them was environmental security, which of course, water plays an intricate role in security issues generated by the environment.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Terrific.
[00:13:58] Speaker C: Well, thanks for that background, Frank. I really look forward to our conversation today.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: David, how about you?
[00:14:02] Speaker C: How did you, how did you come to the water sector in multiple roles?
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Thanks for the question. And Frank, thank you for your service to the United States as a military veteran in much the same way as Frank.
In 2011, I found myself stationed with Air Force Special Operations in eastern New Mexico. I was getting a haircut in a barbershop and heard some farmers talking about water scarcity. And the rate at which the wells for each of the pivot arm irrigators were drying up daily was 30 to 50 a day. And I did some quick back of the napkin math and realized that 7,000 to 8,000 acres of arable land we lose every day to grow on in the United States. It stuck in my mind. And then Fast forward to 2016. I was deployed to Ayudid Air Base in Qatar, which is in the, in the Middle East.
During that deployment, I watched one of the Emirates run its last native water supply out. It pumped the, one of the last aquifers out of the ground to fresh water. And I realized that at that point the nation had what we call a just in time water source, which was desalinization that could be easily interrupted, putting about 3 million lives in jeopardy within as little as three days. And to me, it, you know, immediately moved everything to the forefront in terms of security concerns.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah, so great backgrounds. And I think you're really going to provide a lot of value today as we kind of walk through water conflict and explore a couple of basins that are hotbeds right now. But before we get on to like basin specific issues, David, I'll start with you. Can you talk about just water conflict? Basics, you know, are conflicts, you know, is each situation unique? What is your perspective on the basics of water conflict?
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Well, thanks for the question. It's a good one. You know, you can drive a lot of detail into that, but let me just answer it at a high level.
It's been around for probably as long as civilization.
I personally believe and state it succinctly that water is the economic potential energy of a nation. Wherever you see settlement, wherever you see civilization is generally on or near a body of water. You know, we can only last 30 days without a water supply and then we cease as human beings. And so from the standpoint of conflict surrounding this, there's always been immense competition in the area of who owns water, who has the rights to it, and so forth.
And we're seeing a great uptick in friction surrounding the availability of water, because this is a supply and demand issue. As humanity reaches for a better standard of living, and there's nothing wrong with it, we are placing a greater demand on a limited supply. And the truth is, you know, one quarter of a single percent of all of Earth's water available to us is fresh.
And that's not a lot, even though we're on a blue planet. So we're seeing conflict increase in, in this competitiveness. I think we're going to talk about some examples, specific examples later, but the, the fear is that nations will go to war over this and it certainly has occurred in the past.
And I have a very interesting colleague who serves at George Washington University.
And, and he, he, it is Dr. Eric Klein. He wrote the Fall of Civilization 1177. It's a new York Times bestseller. And I was having lunch with him one time and I asked him, you know, what is the common thread in the collapse of all civilizations? You, you've studied them all, you know, you're known for this. What, what, what is the common thread? And, and he's stated it in one word, is water. So when we look at the history and totality of all water conflict and we train the AI models to try to forecast what that's going to look forward or look like in the future, the AI forecasts the machine learning forecast based on past history that we will see in the next decade. 70% increase in water conflict.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: Wow, that's a 75 increase. That is significant. Well, I thought you had some really good perspectives on that, Frank. Could you, could you weigh in on that question as well? Like what, what do you see as the water conflict basics out there?
[00:19:19] Speaker D: Yeah, thank you, thank you for your comments, David. I, I agree with David. And you know, David and I would be on one side of the water conflict debate. You know, it is, it's a matter of some polemic in the literature. There are those who say that there will seldom be water conflict because it'll always be resolved either through economic or technological or diplomatic solutions.
And if you look at the last hundred years, they may be right. Except that in the last 30 years the number of water conflicts has increased dramatically. And all, all data, when you look at conflict data, you look at number of casualties, you look at anything like that, everything's pointing upwards. And I, and I agree, I think 70% is a, is a pretty good number.
You know, I know you're the, under. Some of the underlying problems with that are that there's no international water law. We have international agreements for the law of the sea, we have international agreements for space or the management of airspace over the oceans, but we have zero international agreements about the management of water and transboundary basins.
And the conflicts in those basins are as varied as the basins themselves. So again, there's no sort of, there's no rubric necessarily for solving transboundary water issues.
So it makes it very difficult. And you know, my experience when I was in, in the army and looked at this from a strategic perspective when I was working on this at West Point is the west and our Department of Defense and the U.N.
we tend to be in reaction mode.
We're generally not in let's get out ahead of the problem mode.
And then we're off from trying to close the gate, as my old first arm used to say, closing the gate after the horse has been stolen and the conflict has begun. If you look at places like Darfur and Rwanda and other places like that.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective and I'd like to follow up because, you know, you mentioned that some people say it's going to be, it's going to be worked out through diplomacy.
And that just tells me a lot of this has to do with the stability perhaps of the government.
If you have a stable government or well governed institution, maybe that's where the diplomacy will prevail. But if you have poor governance in a region, that's when diplomacy will fail and the armed conflict will appear. Is that a fair assessment?
[00:22:28] Speaker A: If you don't mind, I'd like to weigh in on that.
I think we put too much burden on diplomacy because diplomacy is a soft power much of the time. And it's the big levers, hard power such as economics and military, that tend to have the greater weight or dictate the contours and outcomes. So, for example, if we look at climate change, something's changing. When I was a child, you know, the weather was different. It certainly has changed till now. There's no denying it. I'm in my 40s.
Things have changed. Obviously we have deniers and we have a lot of different theories out there what's causing that change. But if you look at the, the world, we, we are driving change. Just look at, you know, looking down from an aircraft, you can see that almost none of the earth is untouched by human hands. We've completely contoured. Most of the surface change is here. And so, you know, climate change is driven economically predominantly. You know, there are pledges certainly, and many parties to those pledges. But when you look at the Implementation, it's all about the loans, the technologies, the programs and the economics and whether or not we can get that to work. And if you look at it, the G20 is to a great extent bearing the burden of trying to get these initiatives done because they have a greater economic ability. And so I think while everybody would certainly say, let's work this out diplomatically, these realities and again, that I framed out as the fact that water is the economic potential energy of a nation, these weigh in heavily. And you can see this, I think, in a great example with Egypt and Ethiopia. If you are speaking to an Egyptian general, they will be able to tell you to the centimeter for each sector of Egypt how much the Nile Valley recycles water to the centimeter, how much water is being shed in a given region. They're absolute experts on it. And when you see projects go in, such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam up the Nile river at the source waters beginning to jeopardize that flow, there is a stated interest in war.
Egypt is willing to defend its interests. And the issue here is that, you know, Egypt, the United States and other Western nations are close allies. And yet this project that is, you know, obviously in the furtherance of economic interest for Ethiopia, hence the name an Ethiopian Renaissance, is to.
Is obviously backed by China. I mean, the whole infrastructure project, right? So if, if Egypt was to essentially take away that dam, that's non technical jargon for blow it up immediately, both would lean into their respective relationships to bring weight to bear and it could throw the entire region into chaos. So I think those are the kinds of real politic, if you will, issues right now at stake worldwide. And some of them are a little more creeping, such as around the Arabian Gulf, where you have 1480 estimated diesel plants exchanging massive amounts of salt water and, you know, rejecting toxic brine back into that body, raising the salinity overall, how long will that body of water last until it becomes non viable? We don't know. But everybody's taking water and getting to a Global framework, as Dr. Galgano mentioned, is probably an imperative. And I, I think if I had to forecast that water will become, at least in statement, a global commons, where there is a greater effort to manage it kind of unilaterally around the globe. But the question then becomes again, how does everyone get their fair share and how is that negotiated? And that won't be the subject of any small controversy.
[00:27:27] Speaker D: Yeah, to me, the matter of governance is one of the seminal issues in the water conflict, conflict resolution milieu.
You know, you're looking at adaptive capacity. You're talking about effective institutions within states and then between states. I always like to, when I talk to audiences about this, I talk, I like to talk about the 1934 Parker Dam War in the United States. You know, the United States concluded the Colorado river path in the 1920s, and a portion of the Colorado river among the states of the, of the Southwest basin and Arizona objected to the, to the apportionment of the water because they thought it didn't match their potential population growth. And as it turns out, they were exactly correct in the 1920s. Looking forward to where they are today.
California, of course, was the big winner. And in 1934, California began working on the Colorado river at Parker, Arizona to build what was now what is today the Parker Dam in Lake Havasu. And Governor B.B. moore of Arizona, part of this is theater, keep in mind, decides he sends the National Guard, make things quite simple out to Parker, Arizona and you know, report back to me what's going on. And of course they report back that they're building the dam. And he sends a machine gun battalion and some more folks to Parker. And there was never going to be a war. It was mostly demonstration. But things got tense between California and Arizona at that flashpoint for water. Now the difference is the United States sent Secretary Ickes of the Department of the Interior and he gave a cease and desist order on behalf of the president and they stopped working on the dam. And eventually this went to the Supreme Court very quickly and it got resolved and Arizona was given more water from the Gila river and the parties were more or less satisfied. And I make this point because we had in the United States government institutions that had credibility and could act and sort of, this wasn't going to ever be a shooting conflict, but they could put the conflict to rest and use David's point about the Nile Basin.
Those government institutions are not even that strong within Egypt and within Ethiopia. And when you're dealing with failing or failed states or poorly governed states, it becomes even more difficult to negotiate and properly try to apportion water between them. You know, the number of failing or failed states have, is increased since 1954% since the 1990s according to the World Bank. You know, and so when I, when you look at, you know, your ability to resolve a conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia or between Turkey, Iraq and Syria on these water basins, the problem becomes even more complicated because of the lack of effective government institutions within those states.
So governance to me is one of the central components that we're dealing with.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: And interestingly, Dave, this is not isolated to unique pockets of the world. The ubiquity with which water scarcity is manifesting is really alarming. I remember, you know, truly professionally starting into the water industry in mid-2016 and being aware of, you know, kind of the data at that time and where things were headed. But this was an incredible year, 2024 in terms of global water scarcity, where, you know, peer reviewed literature in Nature estimates now that 4.4 billion in the world have passed into absolute water scarcity, which is more than half of the world's population. And so, having been one of the planners for the 2023 water conference at the UN, which was the first water conference in 43 years, I can tell you still that there were not a lot of original ideas about how to move forward and actually begin the action steps to do anything about the challenges that are emerging. It was mostly, you know, a huddle of chaos and many, many different stakeholders all vying to have their voice heard, but nobody really bringing new ideas to the table. And if I had to give one critique to the overall water industry today, and I've done this with Deloitte and I've done this all over the world and I'm, you know, I'm vocal about it because I see the lives that are at stake and I see the challenges that will come from the security picture if this is unmitigated. And that is simply to say that water scarcity is probably the most understated national security risk on the globe. That, you know, I'm read into a lot of programs, I see a lot of things, but this is almost entirely unaddressed from an action standpoint. And more talk and more of the same behavior is not going to take us forward of where we are.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: This is fascinating.
Let's talk about. So all the geopolitical ramifications, the unstable governments there's been unfolding in Syria.
I think we all are aware of the Assad regime has fallen and right now it's unclear what's going to happen in terms of how the new government's going to be set up.
But there are major rivers, I think Frank referenced one earlier, the Jordan river as well as the Tigris and Euphrates that run through Syria.
So, Frank, let me turn to you and just ask your perspective on the water conflict that's going on that relates to Syria and how is that going to play out? Do you have any prognostications in terms of how that'll play out?
[00:34:03] Speaker D: The Jordan river in particular, the Syrians really are no longer, their border is no longer contiguous with the Jordan River. And this is the work I've done on the Jordan river case study.
You know, the, the headwaters the Jordan river from the Golan Heights. And if you think about hydrogeopolitics, you know, you go all the way back to the 1950s and 1960s as the Eisenhower administration and the UN and others are trying to apportion the waters of the Jordan river between Lebanon, which is not necessarily in water crisis, Syria, Jordan and the new state of Israel. And we're having all, all sorts of difficulties to the point that eventually the Arab League votes on the diversion program in 1964 to divert the waters from the Gasbani and Dan rivers away from the Jordan, take it down to the Yarmouk in Jordan and deprive Israel of about 34% of its available water resources.
And when you think of the geopolitical implications, the Jordanian sorry, the Israelis told the Arab League, don't do this. It's a violation of our sovereignty. We won't have did it anyway. And in the months leading up to the Six Day War, the June of 1967, the Israelis began bombing the diversion project.
Now there's many causes for the Six Day War and one of the underlying causes could have been hydro geopolitics. And I'm not the only one who seems to think that because the Israelis take and seize the Golan Heights, they have since officially annexed it. And if you look carefully at their documentation throughout the years is they will never allow the Arab the Arab League doesn't really exist as it used to, but they will never allow the Arab states to divert the waters of the Jordan river away from Israel again. So they've taken, they've seized a piece of strategic land and now they've annexed it to secure the river basin. And by taking the west bank, they've controlled much of the banks of the Jordan River. Now they've reached an agreement with, with Jordan several years ago on the apportionment of the water between them. And they both seem to be relatively happy with that. But you can look at a major war that almost kicked off World War Three that may have had water as one of its important root causes. So it, to me, it's a classic example of what can happen. You've got riparians in the, in the basin. In this case, they're already in conflict and the water may have been one of the sparks that trigger a major war.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: David, do you have any thoughts on the Syrian issue and the Jordan river that Frank was talking about.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: I do, but I'd like to kind of take it in a different direction. You know, the water rights of the region have always been issue, you know, since it was the Fertile Crescent. And obviously the climatology of the region has greatly changed. When we look at how fertile that region used to be and some of the desperation that is emerging to get water onto crops, it should give us pause, because the very same thing is beginning to happen in the United States. But when we look at the United States and the world, we have these bread baskets, and we know these areas as growing areas that support not just their region, but also many other regions. America has been often called the breadbasket of the world because we export so much grain and we. We help feed the world. Well, we have a bread basket in Eastern Europe right now, in Ukraine, that is being absolutely annihilated. Right. And when you look at that breadbasket, all of the conflict is in the most fertile growing regions of Ukraine. And the areas, you know, the kind of the grand strategy there is to move the growing away from those frontline areas into more of the western side of the country. But there's no water infrastructure in the western side of the country, so that becomes difficult. So let's go back to 2011, when the farmers in the barbershop started talking about crops going dry. Why is that interesting for the United States? Well, some of these areas have between 10 and 15 years left of growing ability on them now. Why is that interesting for the United States? Well, it's the very reason I started out with we're the breadbasket of the world. So it's going to become increasingly difficult to feed ourselves and the rest of the world if we continue the water management practices as they are. And so as a. As a result, you know, having watched these trends over the last decade and seeing them speed up and the urgency of what this means, you know, I think, you know, kind of back to the idea of governance. We're probably going to see is water established as a global commons, where this water that flows under multiple regions, under borders, is established as a centralized framework. And then what I think will happen is that is what you're already seeing in the desert southwest United States, where a lot of the various press precedents are being kind of waved away by big government, by federal government. And I think ultimately the idea kind of boils down to imminent domain. So what happens when eminent domain occurs and all the folks who've been rushing in and buying up water rights suddenly find themselves with no rights because government has come in and swept it out from under them.
[00:40:04] Speaker C: One other thing I'd like to add, referencing China's funding of Ethiopia's Gerd Dam in the Nile Basin. That's, I assume that's part of China's Belt and Roads program, and that's correct. That's coming under stress. And so I am curious about how these kind of surrogate actors and what are the geopolitical ramifications of all this? I mean, Frank, do you have some thoughts on how the geopolitics play into this in terms of international actors?
[00:40:34] Speaker D: One of the issues is removing water from one basin and sending it to another.
At the geopolitical level, we see that at the local level in the United States, you know, water bottlers taking water from one place, bottling it up and shipping the water someplace else. And now we're beginning to scratch our heads saying this is not really a very good idea.
But, you know, we, we've seen large sort of global actors do this in the past. You know, famously, the Russians helped the Egyptians build the Aswan Dam. And there are other examples throughout history where these things happen.
But the problem still remains that, you know, the dealing with the water distribution in a basin and when somebody comes in and is funding, for example, a dam that is disrupting the distribution of that water in the basin. And in the case of the Nile river basin, you know, historically we can go to 3,000 B.C. you know, the Egyptians will, as, as David pointed out, they're very cognizant of this. This has been the, the, the water of the Nile is part of the fabric of their culture.
And if you're going to disrupt that water flow, and as Egypt has said numerous times, we will go to war over this water flow.
And so by funding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, they are stoking a problem that, that may be resolved in warfare.
There's other components of, you know, some people will point out that the water storage behind the dam will make up for the amount of evapotranspiration of the, of the Nile that flows through the. You know, in any event, the Egyptians don't really care about any of that. All they understand is they're going to have reduction in water flow and they will go to war over it.
[00:42:46] Speaker C: Interesting. David, your thoughts on that?
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Well, let me just say first and foremost that the world underestimates China and its ambition.
There's an acronym that is used presently in defense circles called gpc. It stands for Great Power Competition. China has stated that. Well, I should be more specific. The Communist Party of China has stated that by 2049 it will reestablish the dominance of China on the world stage, not just as a peer, but as a power that eclipses U.S. power.
The belt and Road initiative that you alluded to earlier, Dave, is a concerted effort to use what we would call the instruments of national power, diplomatic, informational, military, economic and social to activate every area of China in competition.
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Well, thanks guys. You have been absolutely great today. I've learned so much and the water conflict landscape is so much more complicated than it seems at first scratch, as Frank and David have so eloquently stated today. So guys, really appreciate your time today and your insights. So thanks so much and we'll talk to you again soon.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Thank you Dave. Thank you Frank.
[00:44:06] Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you gentlemen. Have a nice day.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: Thanks.
[00:44:09] Speaker D: Happy holidays.
[00:44:09] Speaker C: Yeah, Happy holidays.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Bye guys.
Thanks Frank. And thanks David for a terrific discussion about water conflict and for sharing your perspectives on this increasingly front and center threat to nations around the world.
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[00:46:14] Speaker D: You'Ve been listening to the Water Values Podcast. Thank you for spending some of your.
[00:46:18] Speaker C: Day with my dad and me. Well, thank you for tuning in to the disclaimer I'm a lawyer licensed in Indiana and Colorado, and nothing in this.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Podcast should be taken as providing legal advice or as establishing an attorney client.
[00:46:31] Speaker C: Relationship with you or with anyone else. Additionally, nothing in this podcast should be considered a solicitation for professional employment.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: I'm just a lawyer that finds water.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: Issues interesting and that believes greater public.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Education is needed about water issues. And that includes enhancing my own education about water issues. Because no one knows everything about water.
