Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Elena Harkness, Executive Director of Current and CEO and Principal Investigator for Great Lakes. Renew and you're listening to the Water Values Podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: The Water Values Podcast is sponsored by the following market leading companies and organizations by Black and Veatch Building a World of Difference by Advanced Drainage Systems Our Reason is water by 1898 Co. Possibilities Powered by Experience 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 and by the American Waterworks Association, Dedicated to the world's most important resource. This is session 293.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: Welcome to the Water Values Podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to water utilities, resources, treatment, reuse and all things water. Now here's your host, Dave McGimpsey.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another session of the Water Values Podcast. As my daughter Sarah said, my name is Dave McGinsey and thank you for joining me and thank you for your support over the last 12 plus years. And boy do we have a terrific show for you this month with Gulliver Shepherd, a landscape architect out of Brooklyn, New York. Gulliver presents a compelling case for leading with landscape using nature based solutions, sometimes in harmony with smart systems to achieve efficient urban water use and optimal design. It's really interesting and important stuff, so stay tuned for that. Also, Reece Tisdale is back for another Bluefield on Tap segment addressing the US Water sector. Matt but before we get to today's conversations, we always say thank you to our awesome sponsors at the top of every show.
And we have fantastic sponsors in 2026. We have Black Veatch, Advanced Drainage Systems 1898 Co, Woodard Curran, Entera Xylem and the American Waterworks Association. That is a terrific collection of impactful companies that have affirmatively decided to support water industry thought leadership and education.
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Well, before we head on to the interview with Gulliver, we've got a Bluefield on Tap segment with Bluefield Research's Reese Tisdale. So take it away, guys.
Reese, welcome to another Bluefield on Tap. How we doing? Falls here. What's going on?
[00:03:11] Speaker D: Things are good. I. For all the listeners out there. I saw you last week. Yeah. So that was good. In New York at the Rethinking Water event.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Good to catch up in person.
[00:03:21] Speaker D: Yeah. So things are generally pretty good. You know, I can't complain.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Amen. Amen.
Bluefield has some, some new M and A market research out there with your, your M and A quarterly. What's.
Give us a. Give us the scoop on what's going on in the M and A market.
[00:03:40] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean this sort of relates to what we were talking a little bit last week at least about and that is M and A. It's, it's the economy seems to be booming. There's a lot of craziness in the world. But the water sector seems to be churning along in some respects. I mean I would say, you know, compared to last year, M and A seems to be a little bit down. I think at least as far as the first three quarters of the year. It looks like we're probably going to hit where we were last year, which is a bit of a rebound after like several years of a downturn.
A big part of this actually and we've talked about this is utility acquisitions are down and it's really the investor owns while the American essential deal sort of looms large out there and everybody talks about it, just the small systems. There's not a lot of activity seems to have slowed.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Right, right. So that's in the utility sector. What about. You know we've talked about like last last month we talked about the pipe market and then we've, we've talked about other various seg of the water utility or the water sector.
Are there any sectors that kind of jump out in the M and A research you've done that are really hopping or is it.
[00:05:02] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean. Well for one over the past 12 to 18 months obviously data centers and anything sort of AI related is big. So we're seeing companies like AECOM buying consigly. I think was aecom and then that's one ecolab buying tea or cool it that's on the cooling side. So but then I think industrials as a whole we're seeing activities. Islem had recently acquired the Cornell pump and Roper pump But they also acquired Water fleet out of Texas, which is more industrial. And then Pentair is acquired Taco, which is really more focused on sort of H vac and data centers as well. So that seems to be the focus. The muni space is what it is. And I think, you know, and I don't know how much of this is the concern of federal funding. Cliff, federal funding slowing down over the next, whether it be this year with arpa, over the next five years with iij. So is industrial and, and data, I mean high tech as a whole, that's sort of taking the air out of the room in any sector.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
You know, there was a lot of talk, you know, you mentioned rethinking water earlier about consolidation in the water sector. I think one of the, one of the things holding it back if you ask me, is the predominantly municipal nature of it because the, a lot of the munis that own these utilities might get a quote, a cut or use, use revenues from the water utility to help fund municipal operations.
And so there's a disincentive to actually consolidate and gain those efficiencies that we might otherwise see.
[00:07:01] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a bit of a, I don't want to call it a shell game. That's not fair. That's not fair to the munis, but.
Exactly. I mean the municipal water utility, I mean it's projected revenues, it's a volume based business. You sell it. You know, the divestments we're seeing in the muni space, more often than not it's driven by ongoing violations. Could be one or just a looming bill like oh good grief, we're going to have to invest in a new wastewater treatment plant or a new drinking water treatment plant or pipes. Right. And so these are heavy costs, particularly if you're a small one. And I think is, is the listeners hopefully know at this point that about 70%, maybe more now this year. I should look at the numbers. 70% of the utility acquisitions are small. Right. These are less than 3,300 people. We're not talking large cities being acquired. And so I think that's really one of the challenges and no one likes to give it up. Water holds this unique space within, within the municipality or the town and, and utilities and cities want to control what's happening. They don't. They're fearful of their water supplies or fearful of something happening to their, to their water. And so that's part of the reason they like to control it.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of fear of the unknown out there, it's almost like the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.
[00:08:34] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think. I don't know if we've talked about this here, but, you know, we're going to. And hopefully in the next month or two, we can talk in greater detail. We've done some analysis on just consolidation and. Or the need for consolidation across the water sector. And one number. Well, I'll give you two numbers that jump out at me. One is 65% of utilities are within three miles of one another. Right. And they're 49. That's just drinking water systems. So we're talking. That's 49,000 drinking water systems that are just basically right next to one another.
So are they getting the benefits of scale? And then the other number, this is a AWWA number that is a little bit tired, but I'm still a believer in it. And that is 85% of utilities have less than three employees. Right. It shows you how many small systems and utilities are out there. And do they need.
Is it to the benefit of everybody that they're operating independently or can there be some scale through consolidation and benefits? That's one of the challenges.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: We got to figure. We got to figure out what. What carrot can get folks thinking about how to give up their fiefdom.
[00:09:51] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a real challenge. And I think the other. And you know as well as I do, sometimes the neighboring system or town who would be the acquiring entity, they don't want anything to do with it because then they may have to take on the liabilities that come with that system. And it could be system replacement or rehabilitation or, you know, installing PFAS treatment systems and so on and so forth. So that's another challenge that makes it even more complicated.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, more to come on this, I'm sure. So thanks again for your time.
Appreciate you bringing, you know, highlighting these issues for us. And we'll talk to you again next month.
[00:10:34] Speaker D: All right, Dave, enjoy the last game of the World Series. I think it's. Is it tonight or tomorrow night?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker D: Take care.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yep. Thanks, Reece. You too. Bye.
As always, great information from Bluefield Research and Reese Tisdale. Now it's time for the main event, our interview with Gulliver Shepherd. So let's get that water flowing.
Well, Gulliver, welcome to the Water Values Podcast. Great to have you on. How are you today?
[00:10:57] Speaker E: Great, thank you, David.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm excited to speak with you because we don't. We don't normally have guests in. In your field in and so with that as an intro, could you give a little background about who you are and where you fit within the water universe?
[00:11:17] Speaker E: Yeah, no, it's important distinction here.
We're landscape architects, and I think people normally associate that industry with the consumption of water resources. Right.
I came into the field 25 years ago, actually, from architecture and thinking about how cities are made.
And it's been a really interesting period of time where the industry has changed from kind of all those preconceptions of making landscapes to consume resources for human enjoyment and recreation, to becoming more and more involved with the decisions that are happening at the scale of settlement in cities and the consumption of resources and becoming quite an advocate for water resource conservation projects.
Because if you think about it, all our cities, our major settlements, are squatting on top of the most important landscape types relative to water interfaces and water quality improvements. You know, all the marshes and swamps and estuaries that typically sit at river mouths and creeks are kind of heavily impacted by urbanization. And so we've taken on kind of organically over the decades, last couple decades, looking carefully at the geography and geology and water that undergirds our cities and thinking about how to, you know, develop the city. Yes. But also drawback in natural function.
And that's different from conservation and preservation because I think it's a growing perspective. That's not enough.
Right. We. We as a.
As a kind of, as a human race, are obsessed with adopting or manipulating our environment to our liking and comfort. And so just having places of conservation isn't dealing with our larger footprint on the planet.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, it's interesting you talk about it in the way you did because, you know, cities have grown up, have obviously gotten larger as time has gone on, and that has required the manipulation of the landscape and shaping the Earth's features to how we want it.
And my sense is that in the early days, there really wasn't a whole lot of thought given to the impact of what does this mean? Just kind of, let's get it done and make it convenient for us, and then those of us living today have to deal with the consequences. So can you talk a little more about kind of what you've seen as the continuum in terms of when did we turn the corner in terms of thinking about landscape architecture and how we can bring projects to bear that are more holistic with the Earth's natural environment?
[00:14:42] Speaker E: Yeah, Well, I think there's no better place than looking at our most intense cities to see these I'll call egregious decisions about water I'll give you an example here in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
We were thrilled, of course, as landscape architects, to get a job at the look and botanic Garden to show people the joy of plants and all these species, variety. But what we learned was that when it was established over a hundred years ago, they put a potable water source at one end of the grounds, turned it on, filled a pond, a Japanese pond, and a whole water course, if you will, and then it went right into the drain. And so when we looked at the project at the beginning, there was about 22 million gallons of potable water just going into the drain for our enjoyment.
So we developed a recirculation system and a. What we call a smart pond because it's a pond at the end of that sequence that would monitor the Internet for a weather event. And if it detected a weather event coming up, it would drain the water that was sitting in that reservoir into the drain, because the whole system is based on that, but only in that circumstance. And then when the storm came, it would flush through the system and be held on site.
And then what that. And then allow for that to be recirculated. And we reduced about 21 million gallons of that annual dump into the drainage system to keep it on site and create a whole bunch of other features for people to enjoy because it just, it created a whole. The recirculation and the dynamic dynamism of that feature created a whole new platform for inventing than the conceit of a botanic art. So I know I'm just using that example to start to articulate it, but like, that was an egregious thing. I've never seen a permit approved so fast from the DEP removing 21 million gallons of water being dumped into the system.
So that was great, but that's kind of just. If you hold onto that story. We enter the scene, we look at a piece of land, and we usually find some bad story that involves the abuses of water, whether it's huge erosion problems, just immense runoff and water quality problems. And it's really increasingly just become the beginning of almost every product we start to look at. And historically, I guess I just, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's also a cultural problem. So we have the physical archeology, if you will, and infrastructure of the city that's just unfortunately biased to make it go away kind of thinking,
[00:17:55] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:17:56] Speaker E: water is a great device for making things go away, but unfortunately, that archeology has also reinforced a culture for you know, 100, 200 years or more where, you know, people feel that that's easy to do. It does make things go away. It cleans things off. It, you know, washes out, you know, our dirty messes, and it also conveys things out of the way. And I'm really interested always to think about stormwater in cities because, you know, you have on one end a perfectly functioning natural creek, and then on the other end you have something like the LA river, which is. You can only see as infrastructure at that point. And like, where is that moment where it stops being a landscape, a functioning landscape feature, and becomes infrastructure? And I feel like that's kind of an interesting moment to track in our history of cities and a lot of our products.
That's a big narrative we talk about because it's not just the site that we're hired to do, but you look more broadly about that site and how it is both a part of a system throughout the city, but also a culture in the city. And it's amazing how when you go into each city, there's these little subcultures of how municipalities think about water and how water rights, state by state, vary. And so it's each time an adventure.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
You know, I want to go back to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens example you provided, because so initially they were using potable water to put into that.
And so now then stormwater comes in.
There's. It seems to me that stormwater obviously has unique characteristics that are different from potable water.
And were there any kind of, you know, for example, stormwater can collect grease and dirt and grit and everything from urban streets.
Were there any kind of unexpected impacts in that project from using stormwater rather than the potable water?
[00:20:20] Speaker E: Well, actually, no, because not really, because luckily we were in the middle of a. It was running through the middle of a botanic garden. So all the street sources were kind of isolated by the normal street drains. And
[00:20:33] Speaker B: we
[00:20:33] Speaker E: had landscapes. So we were able to develop the landscapes to any kind of residual runoff from paths. And there's really aren't a lot of roads, per se, in a botanic garden were able to be filtered through the landscapes we were building at the water's edge anyway, so that wasn't so much a problem.
And but one thing I should say is on all these projects, we also work very closely with how a landscape project is maintained, because, yes, please don't just salt the walks like crazy. Right. Because all that goes in there. Right. And so that's another thing we've developed over the last couple decades. Is we're starting the design conversation in kind of like discussing this culture of water, the history of this site, its role within the landscape that sits below the city, but also what institution, A botanic garden, a developer, municipal entity, a conservancy.
We think about what we're allowed to talk to them about and work with them on for a maintenance strategy that also mitigates those water quality impacts.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
So in terms of going down that road, when you meet with clients, like what?
Because we alluded to it, or you alluded to it earlier about landscape has typically been viewed from a consumptive perspective. You know, I'm thinking golf courses, things like that. And, and, and you're kind of casting it in a different perspective. And so when, when you speak with a, you know, initially with the client, how, how are they viewing it? Are they viewing it the way you're viewing it? Are you, are you needing to, to open their eyes, so to speak to how landscape architecture can, can be more than just consumptive use and can, can actually fit into the natural landscape better?
[00:22:42] Speaker E: Yeah, now that's a really important question because unfortunately it is a. We need to open their eyes more often than not. It is. Like I said, the culture of how water works is just kind of like. Well, that I've heard about irrigation, we just do that. We, I've heard about, you know, drains, we just do that. It's just so business as usual that we're pushing against and people that have no, often have no idea. You know, every project starts off with more of a what I'd call like a single purpose. Objective often.
Right.
Like I'll say there's a great project in Toronto where we had the opportunity to reclaim 300 acres out of the floodplain. Actually more than that, but the site was 300 acres and it was from channelizing and making a 90 degree turn and filling in what was historically a drowned river mouth.
And what.
And then it, you know, once they did that to, to build this port facility, of course, filling in North America's largest natural marsh, which is kind of devastating to imagine, and it just floods the city. And the single purpose that we started with there was, that was a flood protection project.
And, and this is, this went on these often these projects at that scale go on for a long time. We worked for about 17 years on this one.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Oh wow.
[00:24:25] Speaker E: Lots of up and downs. But it was a $1.4 billion landscape project, so. And it had gas soaked peat and soils. So it was a major, major reforming of, of ground improvements and and then what came along was we're not just trying to convey the water out so we can now develop more of the. The city. It became more and more meaningful about what are we doing with the water. We recreated pieces of marshland.
We did a lot of thinking about accelerating, inviting nature back into this with all sorts of habitat creations for animal life to come in. Very importantly, in Canada, fish habitat is highly, highly valued. In fact, if you destroy fish habitat, you can get arrested.
And so we built and we have to protect from carp. There were all sorts of incredible, like hundreds of side stories about what else could we do to improve this water course at the last moment. I mean, it runs through the whole city and then it empties into the harbor there. And we had the only the river mouth there. What could we do to kind of show people what this river could be again?
And that was super exciting.
But yeah, it, it. And then, you know, just to keep going, if I may, this was also coincident with the Reparations act for the Indigenous peoples in Canada. And there was a huge engagement and lo and behold, the kind of Indigenous college culture and knowledge brought to the table a whole idea of water walkers that, that, that people are, you know, are drawn to water and they walk the edges of the water because they're such. Bring such incredible value to us and to the land. And so Indigenous cultures recognize that value. And that brought in a whole new layer of cultural interactions with this new watercourse. So I'm just trying to give you a flavor for the fact that this was just kind of a more cut and dry idea of like flood protection. And we get to develop and yes, you could do some park, but it's becoming more and more resonant. And that opened last year.
And you can see how well it's being received from all sorts of different demographics of the city. And I think that's really one of the things I most enjoy about these projects is that they're all incredibly strange hybrids of what they're aiming to do.
And that for some reason, landscape architecture, which is normally kind of not one of the silos of city building, has kind of come into this program of coordinating all these infrastructure works. That Rivermouth project I was just talking about, we developed the development envelopes, we rethought the utilities, we organized the strategy for geocontaminant management, how we isolated ground waters from the new.
And our client called Waterfront Toronto, had kind of developed this ethos called leading with landscape.
And they're out there trying to spread the word As a client that landscape architecture has actually turned out, and all other projects, not just our project, they're redeveloping the entire waterfront.
Make the better urban designers and urban planners. Because we are kind of one foot in the world of just extreme pragmatism of thinking about what does a utility line need?
Where is this water going? How do we grade this surface to change the nature of that land and one aspirationally about what the city, what the human side of it needs to be. And I feel like that kind of hybridization of ecology without sort of a priori assumption about what nature means, you know, that we just go to restoration. We have to invent novel ways to bring ecology back into the city. And I feel like that's a really powerful message. And we've used that tagline quite a bit just to try to accelerate that conversation with our clients about the water story of their project.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so I just had a flashback to my college philosophy class when you were talking about a priori. But let me ask you this. Waterfront Toronto, public or private entity.
[00:29:30] Speaker E: Interesting agency that was invented to. They recognized that in some ways there was not a efficacy to take on the waterfront at a city level, a provincial level, or a federal level. So they created a separate entity that would take funding from all three and be master developer for real estate and master developer for all public space and kind of natural resources.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Okay,
[00:29:59] Speaker E: so it's definitely public, but it's kind of a unique one because it is governmental. Quasi governmental.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, Right. And so the governments had to know that there was a problem when they first came to you. What, what was the problem they were trying to solve and why. Why did they even pick up the phone and call you?
[00:30:25] Speaker E: Well, a lot of these projects, by the way, are. Are actually the results of competition.
And so I guess what, what we find that the competitions, and I could point to a lot of them around the North America is they just. They have more than one problem. They just are like, it's flooding. We can't develop anything. We, you know, we're growing at. We're recognizing that in the city of Toronto, they're growing like, like, like gangbusters. And they need to think, you know, cohesively about what that means, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like, they just, they, they, like, they have. We have 10 goals, lots of problems. What do we do? And that's another thing that I think has been a lot of fun is my prior life as an architect. One of the first questions you would ask is, what's the program. In other words, what do you need? Well, I need a, you know, 10,000 square feet of this and this many feet of residential. Like there's a program that you're given and then you just work out a building.
What we're handed with is kind of a mess and, and that open ended mess is how do we get in there, you know, be really curious about environment as an outsider and start to put pick up stones, look under them and find a story that can be the most synthetic, the most sort of like how do we achieve all these multi headed goals, multi headed client objectives.
And so I think they didn't just pick up the phone and call us, but I think people are starting to because we're starting to develop that reputation and we're getting invited to bid on projects not through competition because of that reputation. And we're excited about that because I think there is still a lot of the industry that's, you know, what do you have a yard or I have a frontage landscape or I have a, a little park. Can you just do park things or frontage landscape things? Right. And we're kind of trying to grow the industry more and more into this industry that's about city building and thinking through a more cohesive story. Because I think everyone probably can understand that governmental structures create silos, right? That's kind of like, you know, a roadway department's kind of like that saying, like if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.
So we're with a roadway department, everything's a local road, a collector road or an interstate, right. And, and you're like, well wait, no, there's other things going on here. And so we, we've, we've found ourselves. We, we get, we, we aim ourselves at the hybrid clients, the conservancies that are, have a joint development agreement with the city or people that are kind of openly saying yeah, we have a, we have a problem here, we have these Gordian knots and we need help to sort this out. And we're coming to you as a multi headed client because that you can leverage if you are just within the silo of road building. If you don't have an enlightened client within that thing, you're probably, your role is very siloed. And so we're really seeking out places where we can find agency with our clients which by, you know, given 8, 10, 20 years in length, you're partners with them and you're kind of pairing with them to find the best solution and the best story, the Most cohesive kind of way forward in these messy situations.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah. What about financing the improvements? I mean these, these are public dollars being spent.
Are the benefits commensurate with the money they're outlaying to, to redo the, the landscape as, as you've laid out here?
[00:34:40] Speaker E: Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's a cool question because it is.
Well, from a real estate perspective, the landscape, putting landscape out there is always a powerful agent, sometimes too powerful. Like we have to be careful that we're not like sort of creating these like uber gentrifying things. Right. And it's not totally in our control, but we have to work with our client on that because you know, having park frontage or waterfront views, that kind of thing certainly creates incredible value, which increases, you know, the kind of tax revenue that cities can get. Right. But for funding the actual project. So the money in is, is always incredibly complicated topic and it's not just like here's a big slug of money, please like do this job. Is like I said, we're partnered with these clients, we are helping with grant writing, we are helping with donor development constantly. And some have more governmental resources like the waterfront Toronto example. But another one, say our project in Austin, Texas called the Waterloo Greenway is super interesting. It's a conservancy paired with two departments of the city, the Parks Department and a Watershed Protection Department, which not every city has something like that.
And that is a great and challenging multi headed client where the city does have monies that they've dedicated to the project.
But the conservancy has abilities to develop a donor base which we work constantly on to bring in money to, to do the kind of, especially the kind of the human interface story, in other words, that everyone can support a restoration and conservation. But it's like talking about the experience of living in a city like Austin and kind of pairing that with this new invented natural system running through the city. And in this case it's a completely blighted creek, just devastated like raw earth embankments that are constantly eroding, transformed into a functioning linear creek again, but very in size. We were not able to do the kind of restoration thing where we lay back the slopes because around it were billions of dollars of development and utilities that would have had to like been sacrificed.
And so this, this, this, this project is, we're always talking about new grants.
It's actually the recipient, this is kind of crazy to, to acknowledge. It's the recipient of the 1st Army Corps of Engineer environmental funding source in Texas. Which and that we're only talking about, you know, four years ago getting that grant.
And I guess I see there's a lot of opportunity for that funding to be used in Texas as, as the state that has about five of the top 10 fastest growing cities in the country.
Anyway, so I, I, along the way it's just saying the, the funding in is always a complex story and, and really is a big part of forming the partnership with our clients and, and it's all about being able to tell a story, being able to line up the right facts and showing what I often call the win, win, win situate circumstance of what the project's doing. Because it's not my, I'm like truly an enemy of the single purpose plan. Right. It just, and I, I, we have great collaborations with some engineers that get that but there's a lot of engineering that kind of is about the elegant solution, technical solution to a single problem. It's just a little bit how that industry is that education that sits there. And so we like to challenge our engineers that we collaborate with about the balancing act of multiple wins in a project.
And also I would say that more often than not gray infrastructure development is, is, is very easy to get into that business as usual like the roads, the tunnels, the, you know, and just make it a single purpose investment. But you don't see the, during that development and design process the collateral impacts and that often if not involved ahead of time, landscape architecture is coming in after the fact that to try to make something out of all the impact that's and, and so I think what's great is if we can get in front of that and work collaborative, collaboratively with, excuse me, collaboratively with the infrastructure development. It's a better use, can be a better use of money.
We can have that dialogue with engineers allows us to actually think about well maybe that doesn't need to be a giant concrete structure. Maybe we can do this with landscape.
And more and more we're just finding the benefits of nature based systems which is all about also you know, fueled by water always to do work for the city instead of a system, an engineered system. And I think, I think there's a kind of, you know, a great show actually called Earth a New Wild, which is, is painting a picture of optimism about this, you know, collaboration of intensely impacted or urban systems, water systems almost always and, and people and it's, it's kind of, it's, it's hosted by an ecologist who kind of admits, you know, I don't really have A job that makes a lot of sense anymore, because ecology, it was the study of nature, natural systems and animals and biota without the presence of humans. And now, um, everything is impacted by the presence of humans. So he, he was looking at documenting all these incredible anecdotes of how.
Just doing a little bit of hybrid thinking of what, what does kind of the, like animals and other human living things need, ecologies that might be native to this area need, and what do humans need? And that was a really inspiring thing for me to see because instead of just conservation or, you know, a nature show that was like, this is the last, you know, 25 animals of this species on the planet, kind of, you should help us. And I feel like this story of how hybridity and novel ecologies in cities is an incredibly powerful story of optimism. And I think people really like to hang on that. But it is not a story that people often think about when they're getting these jobs or starting these projects.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a good point. I'm glad you brought up Austin, Texas, because we had talked about projects in New York and Toronto and kind of the Northeast, the northern regions.
And so these projects also have applicability in more, let's just say more arid, more warmer climates.
And so how do you approach a project differently in one of those more arid climates than you would where water is generally plentiful?
[00:43:17] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, and that's, that's certainly true in Toronto. Canada has a greater deal of water wealth. What I'd call.
And, and what's, what's, what's so interesting, at least relative to the Texas experience. But also, I think it's becoming to a lot of the south is there is incredible a history of incredible investments to create water wealth where there just, you know, in all frankness, there wasn't.
So, you know, Texas is one of the only states that's still building more dams than anyone else.
Where other states are maybe like taking some out and thinking because. And then. And, and Texas had. This. Has impounded all its. These large rivers which were basically washes from Central Texas out to the Gulf.
They've impounded them. So they're basically now these little chains of lakes. Once you put a dam up that's now called a lake, which I always find sadly perverse.
But.
And you find the. Such manipulation of the water systems based on the water wealth. Like, I don't think Texas would have the cities it has without water impoundment. It's created the, the, the, the potential of cities because of the impounding of water. And that's Couldn't be a more didactic example in the world in. In some ways, right?
And they have.
It's kind of a thing there. It's like a. There's no going back. Right. Like, they have cities now. They're. They're dependent on that. But the initial kind of culture of water wealth that impounding these rivers created.
And there are these great images of what they called aqua festivals back in the 60s where they would celebrate with, like, a float and have, you know, women in bathing suits with sashes that would say Ms. Recreation, Ms. Power, Ms. Soil Conservation, Ms. Recreation. And it kind of told you, like, the story of what this. This culture of finding water wealth and building cities.
Now, we can't go back and redo all that. And often the soil conservation story, the power story, all of this has kind of like, you know, fallen in retrograde, and they've had to revisit all those topics. The only one that really has truly succeeded was misrepreation that the culture of being around water is so powerful in the culture of urban living, especially a place like Austin, honestly.
But that whole region just reveres the expressions of water in the Texas landscape, which can be pretty, you know, you know, dry, arid feeling. And then you have these incredible expressions that. And they're like the sacred waters of the state, if you will. And so they. They're kind of leveraging that for, you know, just what a city could be by being close to water and having that kind of resource of.
At your. At your. To. To enjoy. But it is shocking how much all those cities in Texas are digging a hole like the water is. The easy water's gone. It is, you know, now a juggling act that all these cities the whole region faces where, you know, the. The pines landscapes outside of Houston, they've drawn down the aquifer so much that those are settling like crazy.
You know, the Austin areas really had to put up a whole set of protections to springs and aquifers.
You know, so the Saint. The Edwards Aquifer is kind of not a battleground per se, but there is. It's such an attractive place to live around.
You know, everything between San Antonio and Austin, and it's one of the most important landscapes for feeding the aquifer at the Balconies escarpment. So it's a very interesting world right now in the South, I would say.
And it's not just Texas. I mean, you've probably heard of the kind of desperation in the. More of the Southwest, where they're, they're contemplating desalination plants on, in Mexico that can pipe it to Tucson. Right. You know, because to allow more suburban development and that's, that's scary like some of that stuff.
But I feel like that at least the rivers in Texas are, it's both feeding the development, you know, the, the proximity water, but also because people care so deeply about it, you can leverage that as how to do the right thing and how to bring back kind of a functionality for water systems back into this picture.
So it is, it's, it's desperate. It's a kind of a really hard conversation because I'll just be honest. Often, you know, development down there is, is more like the Wild west, right? It's the, like you don't have, that's like really having to draw lines and really try to use a carrot, not the stick, to get developers to play ball with this kind of project because there just aren't the, there aren't any legislative ways to kind of mandate and enforce people's hand to do better work relative to the resources of water that they're developing next to.
And so in that context, to kind of circling back finally to your question is we have to work very differently. We have to talk to the adjacent developers and kind of listen like, what kind of problems are you having with your project?
You know, and it's surprising. It takes a while to establish trust. But it's been great. We've had a lot of success and being able to solve problems, save them, even money on utility development and start to develop a quid pro quo kind of relationship. Like, well, if we could do this, could you help us with this? And it's, it's kind of crazy that we have to work this way, but we don't have the tools that we have in New York or in Toronto to have mandated directives for water conservation and improvements.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, ultimately it all boils down to trust.
You know, that's kind of my thought.
Glover, I think I feel like we could talk all day. You've been absolutely phenomenal. I've learned so much.
Before we say goodbye, do you have a leave behind message you'd like to leave with the listeners?
[00:50:55] Speaker E: Well, I, I kind of, I kind of love this, this phrase that comes from a book written by Elizabeth Colbert.
And it's just this idea of, you know, reimagining the planet because if there's going to be a, a solution to the control of nature, which has been so much the culture of human beings, if there's gonna be a solution to this.
It's really not imagining the world that was, but a world remade.
And she phrases it as kind of it's not the control of nature, but rather the control of the control of nature. And I just feel like that kind of hones like, just like, put your head down. What is the work ahead of us that's we can do. And instead of just making drawing a battleground of black and white between, you know, restoring nature and developing and you just have to find a way, and I truly believe there are ways to find optimistic, invented ways to rethink how we grow and settle on this planet that can also benefit ecological function.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Very well stated. Very well stated. Gulliver, thanks again for coming on. You've been again, phenomenal. For those who want to find out more about you and your work over at mvva, where can they go to get that information?
[00:52:25] Speaker E: Well, start with the website mvva inc.com and we love hearing from people. We love hearing stories about people's communities and cities. And I think that's where it starts. People tell us stories about their world and it's. It's kind of wonderful to hear these things because the more we learn from all the. Just, you know, all these places are the same, but very different. Right. And I just, I think we really enjoy hearing about these and it starts with a conversation and then we see what we can do.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Cool. Well, Gulliver, thanks again and we'll talk again soon. Thanks so much.
[00:53:11] Speaker E: All right. Thank you, David.
[00:53:13] Speaker B: Absolutely tremendous interview by Gulliver. We haven't hit on that topic in a long time, so it was great to get a fresh perspective on things. And, oh, if you want to see some cool stuff, go to MVVA's website that Gulliver mentioned to see what they've been working on. And pay close attention to how many of the images and videos you see involve water. Pretty important stuff. Well, I'd love to know what you thought about the interview. Please check out the Show Notes page for information and links on this episode. Just Google the Water Values podcast. Click the first link that comes up. That's our home on the web on Bluefield Research's website. As longtime listeners know, Bluefield Research and the Water Values LLC are not affiliates. We just have a joint marketing arrangement. And as part of that, Bluefield Research gives us a home on the web. Well, you can email me at david.mcgimpseydentins.com and you can sign up for the newsletter at that aforementioned landing page as well.
Thank you again for tuning in and I hope you make it a great day. Plus, I want to give a huge thank you to our sponsors again. Sponsors of the Water Values Podcast include Black and Veatch, Advanced Drainage Systems, 1898 and Company, Woodard and Curran, Entera Xylem, and the American Waterworks Association. This show would not be possible without those great companies and industry leaders.
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In closing, please remember to keep the core message of the Water Values Podcast in mind as you go about your daily business. Water is our most valuable resource, so please join me by going out into the world and after acting like it,
[00:55:20] Speaker C: You've been listening to the Water Values Podcast. Thank you for spending some of your day with my dad and me.
[00:55:25] Speaker F: Well, thank you for tuning in to the disclaimer. I'm a lawyer licensed in Indiana and Colorado and nothing in this podcast should be taken as providing legal advice or as establishing an attorney client relationship with you or with anyone else. Additionally, nothing in this podcast should be considered a solicitation for professional employment. I'm just a lawyer that finds water issues interesting
[00:55:46] Speaker B: and that believes greater public education is needed about water issues. And that includes enhancing my own education about water issues because no one knows everything about water.
