Transcript: This is Climate: Water - The Washington Post

Transcript: This is Climate: Water - The Washington Post
MS. BAIRD: Hello and welcome. I’m Kathy Baird, the chief Communications officer here at The Post and the general manager of Washington Post Live. It is great to have you all with us today. We are joined on our stage today by several individuals who are on the front lines of protecting clean water supplies and are working to improve access to this vital resource. First, my colleague, Leigh Ann Caldwell, will speak with Senator John Hickenlooper about the looming Colorado River crisis. Next, Libby Casey will be joined by Melissa Ho of the World Wildlife Fund and Julie Waechter of DigDeep for a conversation about how water security specifically impacts women and children. And then Frances Stead Sellers will be joined by environmental activist Alexia Leclercq to talk about how activists are trying to conserve clean water sources for the next generation. Before we get started, I'd like to thank today's sponsor for this event, Ecolab. We want to thank you again for coming, and after this short video, my colleague Leigh Ann Caldwell, will take the stage. [Video plays] MS. CALDWELL: Good morning. Thank you for being here. I'm Leigh Ann Caldwell. I'm an anchor at Washington Post Live and co-author of The Early 202 newsletter. Today we have a very important guest on this issue of water, Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado. Senator, thanks so much for being with us today. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: You bet, Leigh Ann. Thanks for having me. MS. CALDWELL: So I want to start really broad on water. You know, I'm also from the West. I grew up in Las Vegas. So I know the water issue very intimately because I've lived it, experienced it. But I notice on the East Coast, people don't understand the conservation component, and not a slight, but moving here, people don't turn the water off when they brush their teeth, that sort of thing. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: [Laughs] MS. CALDWELL: So can you talk about the situation regarding water in Colorado at this moment as you guys are trying to figure out how to conserve and ensure that there is enough water for the future? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Sure. And this is--you know, the West really is--what people often say is that "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting." We have a long history of fighting over water because it is so essential. There's a big mural on the State Capitol in Denver, Colorado, that says, you know, "Our history is written in water," and everything that water touches has value because of that water. And when you have less water, there's less value, and how that gets apportioned becomes very, very troubling and very, very difficult and very, very divisive. Back here in the East--and I grew up outside Philadelphia--I mean, I'll walk to work, and there will be three or four or five days of rain in a row. MS. CALDWELL: That's so much water. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Yeah, I used to hate it growing up, but, you know, "Oh, my God, it's another cloudy day." MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Now it's like, "Wow. Another day of rain. Wow. Isn't this great?" because you would just have a whole different perspective if you're in an area where there just isn't--I mean, Colorado is 11, 12, 13, 14 inches of rain a year. MS. CALDWELL: Yeah. Let me--so what's happening right now is that there are seven states who are trying to negotiate water usage and water access. Most of the water from these seven states comes from the Colorado River, and levels are depleted. So can you talk about the dynamics of the states and why it has been so hard to reach an agreement? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Well, you have to go back about a hundred years when they created the compact. You know, the "Law of the River," people refer to it. But the Colorado Compact kind of set standards for how much water would be allocated to the Upper Basin states, which is Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, and then how much would be allocated to the Lower Basin states, Arizona, Nevada, and California. And so that agreement was based on water or precipitation rates that just didn't hold up. It was a very wet period, and the science was faulty of how we measured water and flow. So now you're in a situation where the Lower Basin states--I mean, California and Arizona, between them, provide the vast majority of winter vegetables for the entire country. We can import some winter vegetables from Mexico or from other parts of Latin America, but, I mean, that's--that is our winter vegetable--I was going to say bread basket, but-- MS. CALDWELL: Uh-huh. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: --vegetable basket. MS. CALDWELL: Yeah. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: And with less and less water, you know, the Upper Basin, rough justice, was supposed to have roughly 7.5 million acre-feet. You know, an acre-foot--people don't realize this, but if you take an acre of land and you put a foot of water just enough to get above your ankles, that's a one acre-foot. MS. CALDWELL: I have been wondering what an acre-foot was, so actually, yes. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: [Laughs] Well, when you get--when you start talking about millions of acre-feet, it's just enormous amounts of water--

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: --beyond--it's like--it's like talking about billions of dollars or trillions of dollars. It's hard for the normal--for all of us working to really understand what that means. But in terms of water, 7.5 million acre-feet is enormous. We think we're probably 2- to 4 million acre-feet short of what people actually have been using and anticipate in using going forward. So you're talking about all these family farms and people growing the vegetables for America, and suddenly, the Lower Basin was supposed to have an allocation of 7.5 million acre-feet, depending on how you measure and whether you include evaporation and all the lost water, you know, through irrigation canals and just the Colorado River flowing. If you look at all of that, they are--you know, they're overallocated by a couple million acre-feet at least. MS. CALDWELL: And so that--so you mentioned California specifically. California seems to be the one who is not agreeing with the rest of the states, the other six states. So is California being unreasonable? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Well, California, you know. [Laughter] SEN. HICKENLOOPER: So California has a lot of the legal arguments on their side, which many of the agreements that were signed when we did the Central Arizona Project to take water into Arizona from the Colorado River, if there would ever be a drought or were problems, Arizona is, by most interpretations, the first place you look for water. And then they've been--they've come to the table right off the bat. But I think California's got to recognize that we've all got to share the sacrifice, and, you know, 75 or 80 percent of the water used is for agricultural or industrial purposes. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be watching, you know, when you brush your teeth, turning the water off. MS. CALDWELL: [Laughs] SEN. HICKENLOOPER: That's common in the West, not common in East. I think at least in the West, even the urban areas are going to have to be much more conscious of how they conserve water. When I first became mayor of Denver, Denver Water, our water utility, provides roughly half the water for consumers in the metro Denver area, roughly a quarter of the water for the whole state of Colorado, and they never saved it because they had senior water rights. They didn't think they had to. And we reduced per capita water consumption by about--it was a little bit over 20 percent over five years, which meant we had to raise our water, our costs, you know what we charged our consumers because we had to replace pipes and pumps. You still have to replace all that stuff, but if you're selling less water, you have to raise the per-gallon cost. Well, I got irate citizens calling me and screaming at me who had big yards, and suddenly, they're spending an extra $1,000 or $2,000 a month for watering. And I tell them, "Well, that's so we can have a sustainable source of food. That's so we can have more water for ranchers and for the suburbs that don't have senior water rights, so we can all work on this together." And once they understood that, every single person I talked to was on board, "Yes, we will conserve water. We've all got to share that sacrifice." I think California has to realize that if we don't get a seven-state solution, it's going to go to the Supreme Court pretty quickly. The Bureau of Land Reclamation will make some decisions. It will probably lead to lawsuits if the past is any prediction of the future, and that takes time, huge costs, and great uncertainty. And my sense and part of the reason we've been trying to get the--all the Republican and Democratic senators from all seven states to kind of sit at the tables, not to take away the decision-making authority of our water--our water professionals in each state and the governors and the general assemblies in each state, but we want to make sure that everyone is at the table thinking about this and really focusing on it because we're out of time. MS. CALDWELL: That was where I was going to go next. You have created a bipartisan group of--about water with the seven--the senators from the seven states who are impacted by this or part of this negotiation. What can the federal government and what can the Senate and the Congress do about this since so much of this is being handled at the state level, that this negotiation--well, the federal government is involved, but the Congress specifically? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: You know, I have an old friend in Colorado named Willie Matthews, and he is a painter, an artist. And he did a painting called "Politics." It's boxing gloves, and then around the perimeter are carrots and sticks. And the federal government has carrots and sticks, and I think the goal right now is to--at least as senators, we're facilitators. We're not trying to dictate terms to, you know, the states. The best solution will be one that all seven states agree to and that their water professionals agree to and that the general assemblies and the governors agree to, but I feel that having the senators at the table can provide maybe some of the extra carrots and, if needed, maybe some extra sticks. So the goal here is to make sure that decision is embraced by all seven states, but the federal government, you know, if you look at when we did the Inflation Reduction Act, there's $4 billion in there to try and help resolve these challenges on the Colorado River. That's a pretty big carrot. MS. CALDWELL: What are some of the answers? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Well, there's--and again, this is a time where everything has got to be on the table, so I think conservation for, you know, people's homes and how do we use less water. I mean, Las Vegas, your hometown, is a model.

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: They are way ahead of, say, even Denver with all the work we did. We still got a long way to go--Phoenix, Los Angeles. We're all going to have to conserve water domestically, even though that's a relatively small amount of the total water used. I think we have to look at the crops we grow. Rotational fallowing is something that people talk about a lot where farmers will take a small part of their land and then rotate each year which part--which small part they don't water. And so that they let it just--it's actually healthier for the soil to regenerate for a growing season and then come back. So they might--over the course of six years or five or sometimes seven years, they'll rotate that part that they let lie fallow, and that rotational fallowing suddenly, dramatically, you know, if you do it over five years, that's 20 percent of your land at any one time you're not using the water on. So literally, it could be 20 percent less water. Now, obviously, you're going to have less income for that. So how do we either find ways to conserve enough water, so limit the evaporation and the water loss that from the time it gets into the river till when it gets on to a farmer's crop, drip irrigation, making sure we cover the irrigation ditches? You look at some of the irrigation in the Southwest. It's going through some of the hottest, driest landscapes you could imagine, and we lose a lot of water that we shouldn't lose. MS. CALDWELL: You mentioned the Inflation Reduction Act and there's a lot of money in there for this. Is it clear how it's going to be spent yet? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Well, there's about $800 million that has been allocated by the Bureau of Reclamation. A lot of, I think, interesting projects that are--many of them are pilots to look at, of all the possibilities we have, where can we get the maximum benefit, the greatest water savings at the least possible cost. But there's still $3.2 billion that is unallocated, and they're in the process of establishing the process by which different farmers or ranchers or municipalities or industrial users--they are encouraged to come forward with their ideas of how can we use these resources to create pilots and models that will scale and allow us to--the ultimate savings that the Bureau of Reclamation is really expecting is 2- to 4 million acre-feet a year. That's a lot of projects. MS. CALDWELL: The West has had a fantastic snow season. There's been a lot of snow that has fallen. Is that going to help the dire situation of water there? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: So the snowpack--and I just was asking one of my staff the exact number in Colorado, and again, Colorado is one of the--we always call it the "headwater state" because all the rivers in Colorado flow out. I always used to tease my friends in Texas that if you draped a magical piece of silk over all the mountains in Colorado and then stretched it out, our land mass is actually bigger than Texas.

[Laughter]
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Anyway, as the headwater state, our snowpack has a lot to do with the health of the Colorado River, and we're about 132 percent of normal, so 32 percent beyond a normal year and over this prolonged drought. I mean, it's not even a drought. It is getting so arid, and increasingly, over the last 22 years, I call "aridification." If you go back, we can look at the sediments in the Grand Canyon, and we can say this is the driest 22 years, going back 1,200 years. So it's not just a drought. This is a prolonged period of aridification and-- MS. CALDWELL: And finding lost cities in Lake Mead that were covered for a very long time, that the water level is so low. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Yeah, exactly. MS. CALDWELL: So will the snow help? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Yes. So the snow, well, it buys us time. But if this is truly aridification, if our climate is getting more arid, almost certainly--I mean, every scientist I've talked to feels this is a consequence of climate change and global warming. Then this--we can't look at this as "Oh, we've got--the rains are back. The snow is here." We need to use--we get an extra year. Maybe we get an extra two years out of this, this precipitation.

MS. CALDWELL: Yeah.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: But it's not the solution. So all these projects that the Bureau of Reclamation is pushing forward, we've still got to have a fierce sense of urgency that--I mean, we're out of time. We've got--we humans take a long time to make our big decisions, and we're running short of time. MS. CALDWELL: Can you--there is a divide between the urban and the rural, the farmers. There's also a divide between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. Can you talk specifically about the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin and why that is important? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Sure. And again, the Upper Basin is where the water comes from.

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: And we don't use anywhere near as much of the water. Originally, the idea was that we would have 7.5 million acre-feet a year. I think our overall allocations are closer to 5- or 5.5 million acre-feet. But even that, I mean, we're not going to be--or we're stressing the system to take that much water out of it if all existing conditions continue. The Lower Basin, again, we're supposed to have roughly 7.5 million acre-feet per year, and they're more at the 9.5-, maybe 10 million acre-feet. So that's a big problem where that spigot is open too wide, and there's too much water being used out of the Colorado River. The divide between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin is clearly the situations are very different, but we all have an alignment of self-interest. And whether you're in the Lower Basin or the Upper Basin, we've got to find a solution that everybody can live with, or else we will continue to bicker and not have that continuity. And you got to--people--the same--the same problem we have in banking now, there's a loss of trust, and we have the same issues around agriculture and all the businesses surrounding agriculture. They've got to have a level of trust that they're going to have the water, not just for next year but for the next couple decades. You know, these are generational farms. They need to know what their future is going to be. So that Upper/Lower Basin divide is kind of a false one, I believe, in the same way that rural/urban. This is--whether you're in an urban area or a rural area, if you're in the Colorado River Water Basin, you've got--you know, you've got a--you've got something at risk, and you've got to be able to step up and say, "All right. Maybe I'm not going to get everything I want, but if we work at this and really hear each other clearly, we can find enough common ground to get that alignment of self-interest and reach a solution that satisfies all seven states." MS. CALDWELL: Since we only have a few minutes left and you mentioned banking, I do want to ask you about the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank situation. SEN. HICKENLOOPER: That will teach me. That will teach me to bring up an outside--

[Laughter]
MS. CALDWELL: I know. But are you--are you pleased with how the administration has handled SVB's collapse? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: I am overall. I mean, there are lots of questions that have to be asked, but I think--and another senator, actually Elizabeth Warren, when I talked to her on Saturday--and she described--I don't want to take this out of context. It was a longer conversation, but she said that people's deposits in banks is much different than the equity that a bank has, the owners of a bank own, and when banks make bad decisions on their investments, certainly that risk, you know, the people that invested in that bank, that own the stock in the bank, that run the bank, when those--when they make a terrible decision, they should suffer the consequences. So this isn't a bailout by any sense of the word. But I think that the deposits that people and businesses make in banks like SVB are of a more important nature, and Elizabeth said that you--she looked at it as part of the infrastructure of business, that deposits and the security that people believe deposits should have are what create the system of trust that allow our banking system and our economic system to function. So the fact that the White House moved so quickly and that all the different agencies of the federal government, from the Federal Reserve, the, you know, council of--I mean, go down the whole list. I won't list them, all the different players, but they all worked together, and, you know, by Sunday morning or maybe Sunday afternoon, maybe Sunday night--I don't want to get in the middle of their--of their making sausage, but the bottom line is they got to a solution that really does protect that trust that people need to believe in their deposits, in their banks so they're not constantly running and trying to pull it out and put it somewhere else. MS. CALDWELL: Does Congress need to do anything? Does it need to react, shore up those regulations? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: So the first thing that had to happen was we had to make sure that we rebuilt the trust that people have in our system, and I think this is a good start. Obviously, there's uncertainty today. The issues around Credit Suisse are concerning to everybody, that, you know, this trust, we're all interconnected around the globe now. So we've got to recognize that and make sure that we rebuild that trust. But on top of that, I think we have a real opportunity here to study what happened, once again, go back and look at this near-catastrophic failure that we've avoided, and say, all right, what are the regulations that we should have in place? Do we need to look at smaller banks and make sure that they have enough security so that they don't risk again a run on their deposits like we saw with SVB?

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: The key here is that we want a banking--banks have got to make money. They're businesses, and I don't think the federal government is going to be able to backstop every deposit in every category. But we have to look at it in those times of risk, how do we create enough security so people will use--leave their money in their banks and allow it to be part of that infrastructure that allows every small business to operate. MS. CALDWELL: And our last--my last question, because we're out of time, I want to come back to water, and that is this negotiation that's happening between the seven states. What is the timeline that--when do you think that this is going to be resolved, one way or another, whether it's through the negotiation or, like you said, through the Supreme Court? SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think the timing, we probably would get to it--we'll have a resolution yesterday. That would be the right time.

[Laughter]

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: The United States Senate has a wavelength in terms of how they approach issues that's very broad.

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: And we don't have time for that, and I think that there is a great urgency that is necessary in the Senate. And I think that's representative of the urgency that each governor has and their general assemblies have and their farmers and ranchers and citizens have. My goal, my hope is that we can get to a rough draft, you know, allocation solution in the next couple months.

MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm.
SEN. HICKENLOOPER: Sounds impossible, but it really isn't impossible. I think the people at the Bureau of Reclamation have been great. Camille Touton, who's the administrator who runs that, has had all four--all hands on deck. Everyone is moving it at warp speed to say we're going to get out ahead of this and make sure that the tools that elected officials need to make these difficult compromises are right there when they needed it as quickly as possible. MS. CALDWELL: Great. Senator Hickenlooper, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And don't go away. We'll be right back with our next guest and Libby Casey of The Washington Post. Thanks so much. [Applause]

[Video plays]
MS. CASEY: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us online, I'm Libby Casey, senior broadcast producer here at The Washington Post, and I am now joined by Melissa Ho, senior vice president for Freshwater and Food at the World Wildlife Fund--welcome--and Julie Waechter, CEO--co-CEO of DigDeep. Melissa and Julie, thank you so much for joining us here at Washington Post Live. Julie, let's start with this. What does not having clean water actually look like in America? MS. WAECHTER: Well, it's a great first question because most people don't even know that people don't have running water in America. So even the fact that you're asking that question is a question that I never get on the street, you know, walking down the street. People are shocked to hear that that's a situation that more than 2 million Americans find themselves in. There's a lot of impacts. There's physical health concerns. There's diseases that come from water-related illnesses. There's mental health impacts. And so, you know, one brief story that kind of encompasses all of these things is we met a woman named Brenda who lives on the Navajo Nation, and her husband injured his foot. Without running water at home, he was unable to clean his wound, and it became dangerously infected. So then he ended up needing to go to the hospital, which was 50 miles away, losing out on income, losing--racking up a lot of medical bills, and then you can imagine the mental health burden as well for his wife at home. So all of these things come together and are really challenging for life without water. MS. CASEY: I want to stay in the United States for one minute before we look at the global picture, Melissa. So, Julie, give us a sense of how many people this affects, and what are the causes? Are we talking about lack of infrastructure? Are we talking about remote locations? Are we talking about money? MS. WAECHTER: All the things, yeah. So there's 2.2 million Americans without running water at home. This includes--this includes unhoused populations, which requires a very specific set of solutions to work on housing crisis as well as the water crisis. It also includes almost 200,000 homes, people living in homes that just don't have piped water, and these are people who are living within an existing water utility district that could just get connected. All they need to do is be accepted into the water district, and that's some work that DigDeep is doing. It also includes people who are near a utility district, that maybe you have to have a little extra political will or funds to get connected. And then some people are living very remote, very difficult terrain, requires a little bit more complex, innovative solutions that are going to be off grid. But yeah, it's a financial issue, and unfortunately, in the U.S., race is the number one predictor of water access. So Native American households are 19 times more likely than White households to not have running water, and Black and Latino households are twice as likely. So we find that as water expanded and infrastructure was laid in the U.S. throughout the 1900s, many communities of color were not included in that expansion. And now we find ourselves in a place where federal funding for water infrastructure is 14 percent of what it was in 1977. So communities of color that are trying to catch up and get that water infrastructure are having a really hard time finding the funding to do that. MS. CASEY: Melissa, your organization is one of the most recognized conservation voices in the world, and it is stunning to realize that less than 1 percent of the world's water is fresh and accessible. So what does this look like outside of the United States? MS. HO: Yeah. Thank you so much. I think for WWF, one of our first primary goals around freshwater is just getting people exactly to recognize this fact, that though we see water all around the planet, we do not necessarily realize what a precious and finite resource it is. So with less than 1 percent available as freshwater, even a smaller faction of that is what we really see on surface water. Most of the water that is available to us is actually in the ground, hidden away, and we don't even--we don't even see it. And so right now in the world, we are seeing about 40 percent of the population living under water-scarce conditions. That's going to be exacerbated by climate change. We see that, you know, we do not have access as a result to basic things as water sanitation and hygiene, and that that then really affects disproportionately women and children for sure, because they have, then, the burden of really going to collect that water. And a story that I was thinking of when I was preparing for this was really more than 15 years ago when I had the privilege in the same year to be in two really different geographies in the world--Maharashtra in India, in rural places outside of Pune, and then also in Debre Zeyit in Ethiopia, outside of--several hundred kilometers outside of Ethiopia. I was there really to work on agriculture irrigation and trying to have small-scale technologies for pumps and water access, for irrigation. And so when we sat down with the farmers under a tree and talked about what the impact of these technologies were, did they adopt them and why, what sort of benefits did they have, you know, thinking of crop diversification, livelihoods improvement, nutrition maybe even in the household, the thing that struck me in both geographies when you speak to the farmers was that it was actually water access for the family. That was most important, that they did not have that at all. And the impacts were felt on health, nutrition, not dissimilar from what you hear in the U.S., but it was actually also in what it meant for their daughters and the girls in their households, that now they could go to school. You imagine that they would spend--women and girls are the ones disproportionately spending hours to fetch the water when there isn't piped water coming in, what it means for their safety and health and access to schooling and education and opportunities. And that was, you know, before I had kids, and my son just had his 14th birthday yesterday, so flash forward 15 years now. I think of my own daughter, where you think globally around the world, there's an average of three and a half to four miles that hundreds of millions of girls every day are still making that trek. You know, a five-gallon drum weighs 42 pounds. You know, my son and daughter--if my daughter had to do that every day before school, just think of what that would mean for our families, just for basic survival, let alone all the other things water does. So I just think about how far we have come in terms of getting piped water access but how far we have to go because we still have hundreds of millions of families that don't have access. MS. CASEY: I want to talk more about how women and children specifically are affected in the United States as well, but first, let's go to some news. Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed enforcing limits on PFAS, or "forever chemicals" as they're often known by, in drinking water, and this would basically enforce it to the lowest level that can be detected. I'd like to get a sense from you, Melissa, about this issue of water quality, because as you've told me, so often we're talking about scarcity and just access to water. What's the conversation about water quality? MS. HO: Yeah. No, this is a great question and almost, you know, second order, but it's not second order. It's prime order. We have been trying so hard as WWF, again, just to get people to elevate water in your ethos and value and consciousness of why you should care on having enough water, but what is happening now when we have discovered the impact of chemicals like PFAS, that there's a whole range of all sorts of things that are toxic in our water. Heavy metals. There are hormones and medical waste. You know, there are selenium and lead. We know so many stories in the U.S. but also abroad. I think we need to think about that so it's not just having water. It's having quality water that won't make us sick and that keeps us healthy. And so I think we think about connectivity and freshwater ecosystems health, and it has to include keeping out and prevention of some of these things from getting in the water in the first place. It's so much more cost effective on prevention than it is thinking you're going to remediate and try to address those things once they're in the system. So there's so many sources, and it's different in different parts of the world, what are the quality issues. But I think the concept is the same that we must value water and the water quality as much as we do the amount and the allocation and the use of the water. MS. CASEY: Is this a shift to be thinking about long-term water quality and health effects? Because there's, of course, short-term health effects from water quality, right? There's water that can make you sick instantly if it's not sanitized, if it's not fresh and clean. But now we're talking about health impacts that could come in years and perhaps decades. And I'm interested, Julie, to hear from you about this question of the EPA proposals would have the water providers monitor and test the water. Does this add a layer of complication? MS. WAECHTER: It does. I think what it points to is the need for America to focus more on water infrastructure. You know, I talked about the 2.2 million Americans that don't have any water. They don't have a tap. They don't have a toilet at home that's working. But there's 44 million Americans that have--that are using drinking water systems that didn't pass Safe Drinking Water Act. They had violations. So water quality is a huge concern in the U.S., and I think it demonstrates our need to focus finances, focus policies on keeping Americans safe. I think there's historically been a bit of a mindset of, you know, out of sight, out of mind, and as you pointed and as Melissa mentioned, prevention is much more cost effective. And it's something that we need to focus on because there's things in the water that we don't know that are going to be impacting us for a long time. MS. CASEY: Julie, DigDeep has done extensive work in the Appalachian region of the United States as well as with Navajo communities, something you mentioned earlier. What have you learned from working in these areas about the impact of water scarcity on families? And Melissa spoke with such a vivid description of how this affects women and girls, especially globally. What about here in the U.S.? MS. WAECHTER: Yeah. We do see globally that women and children are disproportionately impacted by the water crisis, and in the U.S. as well, marginalized communities, people of color, women and children. It's--life is already harder if you're marginalized or low income, and we find that water access and the water gap just exacerbates many of the challenges that people are facing. Many communities are spending a lot of money on bottled water, for example, using bottled water for cooking. I met a family in Texas, just outside of El Paso, that was buying bottled water for every need that they had, including cooking. And that's expensive, and that's something that no matter what your income level is, that's high, a high expense to add to your monthly bill. And if you're in a low-income situation, that's an expense that you just can't afford. MS. CASEY: Tell us about DigDeep's work on the Navajo Nation specifically. MS. WAECHTER: Yeah. On the Navajo Nation, we help households that are off grid to--we construct water systems and then have a water hauling program where we get water from a government-operated well and can fill up those so that they have piped water in their home. Again, we do see with climate change that this is making things a little bit more difficult as some of the wells that we're using, we're no longer able to access. They're running dry and being restricted. So there's a lot of challenges, but we're doing what we can. MS. CASEY: Climate change, something that we've been sort of working around the edges of. Let's hit it directly, Melissa. How is this affecting-- MS. HO: Yeah. MS. CASEY: --the quest for fresh and safe water. MS. HO: I mean, I think, status quo, we already have all these challenges, and there's so many of the statistics we know about water scarcity and the challenges of access. Climate change is just exacerbating that, and there's threefold ways of what it's doing. One, if you think of a water bank in a community or in a landscape, climate change is altering that bank with thousands of glaciers and where the stored soil water is that meters out that water over time to our river systems and lakes and streams. We have glaciers disappearing, thousands of them in some countries; in the Himalayas, for instance. So that's changing the bank and storage of that water. The second area of what it's doing, it's changing, you know, dramatically precipitation and rainfall events and precipitation events, both the amount and the reliability of that. The uncertainty is also creating challenges. And in many places, we're seeing mega droughts. These are not just seasonal shifts. These are decadal shifts. Obviously, in the West in the U.S., we are experiencing that today. Climate change is happening now. And then the third thing is it's increasing demand, right? So the hotter temperatures, the fact that there isn't as much precipitation, it's creating more and more stress and more need for more irrigation, for more water use to heat cities, to drive industry, et cetera. So it's a vicious negative downward cycle, and climate change is really driving a lot of that stress. MS. WAECHTER: Yeah. We're seeing that in the U.S. also compounding with two additional trends, which include aged infrastructure, so decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure--in our water infrastructure in particular as well as an aging workforce. The EPA estimates that a third of the water-sector technicians, water operators, et cetera, will be eligible for retirement in the next 10 years, which is really scary. So you have these water systems that are facing extreme weather events, storms and floods, without being able to find the technical capacity to maintain the lines, to operate them. And the lines are already crumbling to begin with. MS. CASEY: Melissa, you look like you wanted to jump in on that, on the question of aging infrastructure. MS. HO: Oh, go ahead. MS. CASEY: You talked about investments, Julie, and this is something that we thought at the very beginning of our program. DigDeep's assessment is that for every dollar invested in closing the water gap, the economy sees a five-to-one return. Obviously, that sounds like a pretty good investment, an effective return. Why aren't more investments being made? MS. WAECHTER: Well, that's a good question. To start with, DigDeep did that research ourselves. So there's a lot of missing data, a lot of data that just doesn't exist around the water crisis. We also did the research ourselves around how many Americans lack access. So we need to be collecting more information. We need to be sharing more information in a way that helps everyone in America understand the water gap. But the good news is that there is a five-to-one return on investment. So for every dollar that the U.S. invests in expanding water access to someone who doesn't have it, we estimate that $4.65 gets returned to the economy, which could result in up to $200 billion over the next 50 years over the life cycle of the infrastructure. MS. HO: Can I jump in on that one? MS. CASEY: Yes, please. Yes. MS. HO: We didn't publish data like that, but I think we know water is hard because it takes a system's approach, and it really requires collective action. So every sector depends on water to succeed: energy, agriculture, health. But to think of managing water sustainably, it takes collective action across sectors and across stakeholders, and that's hard. Systems change is super hard. But I think that we need to align around shared goals. It's not impossible. I think a lot of the investments that really WWF has seen have such power and are simple. They're not, you know, infrastructure innovations that need such technological innovations. They're trees. There's wetlands. There's grasslands. Nature-based solutions are even, by far, you know, the water-resilient infrastructure that we can think of, and marrying green and gray infrastructure together and then getting the incentives aligned across the sectors to think of how they benefit, you know, everyone else's self-interest, we just need to translate and talk together to create that shared vision and then to motivate what and how those investments play out for the different sectors. MS. CASEY: How do you get governments on board, and is this a leadership that's going to come from organizations like WWF? Is it going to come from the corporate sector where there are investments and perhaps opportunities, or is it governments that really have to lead, Melissa? MS. HO: It's all. It's all of the above, and at WWF, that is what our vision and we feel our superpower is, is convening. We would never and can never do anything by ourselves. I mean, I appreciate we're a recognizable brand, but we're a drop in the bucket on what needs to be brought to the table in terms of solutions. So we definitely leverage corporate power. We have and are working with four other NGOs on something called the "science-based targets for nature," freshwater methodology, to allow corporates to set water targets, very similar but very different also to climate GHG reduction targets. So there's a 1.5 degree world on the climate side. In water, it's a little bit more complicated because you can't just tally up water across the globe. Water needs local- and landscape-level solutions. So you need that global and local piece. So this methodology, which we're just piloting this year, we have some guinea pig companies that are coming along with us on looking at it, because it's hard, but they want to do it, so thinking of water sustainability and supply chains but then really landing it in landscapes. And then governments need to be part of it too. There's a role for rules of the road, for ensuring that we value and protect freshwater resources, things like environmental flows are written into legislation. Mexico is a great example of how to do that and store and protect resources before they become overallocated. And then we need civil society and local stakeholders, women and girls, for instance, Indigenous communities. All need to be at the table for really determining and designing like what kind of water solutions and water future we want to have. MS. CASEY: Can I briefly ask you about the work that's been done along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo? Of course, this is the U.S.-Mexico border. MS. HO: Of course. MS. CASEY: What have you learned from lessons there? MS. HO: Yeah. It was such a pleasure to hear Senator Hickenlooper, and then really the attention he's bringing and the solutions that he's bringing and convening on the Colorado are so powerful. And I so appreciate that is in the news, and that the Colorado River is going to lead the way. But people forget and don't realize the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, the neighbor, you know, in the South is often forgotten. It's one of the 10 most threatened rivers in the world. It has 16 million people that rely on it. It forms the border, and a lot of the awareness was around where the wall was going to be built between Texas and Mexico. It is primarily an agricultural basin, and two-thirds of the population are minority, Indigenous, Pueblos, Native communities. And so it often doesn't get the same attention, but it's as equally important in terms of really serving a biodiversity hotspot in the Big Bend, in the Chihuahuan Desert, as well as serving an economic and engine driver of agriculture. And these communities are really at risk, and so we're really trying to convene a range of solutions, learning, for instance, from what's happening in the Colorado. MS. CASEY: Briefly, Julie, what can be done now to protect water for future generations? MS. WAECHTER: Well, I think Melissa touched on it as well. We do need everyone to be involved. DigDeep is part of a UN-hosted partnership, Sanitation and Water for All, which includes more than 350 government agencies, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, and as we head into World Water Week--World Water Day next week, we are calling on governments to declare a human right to water. This is something that's been talked about for a long time. It's not a divisive issue. Everyone agrees water is very important, and we need to do something about that. And then I would also add for from the government side, we need to see a lot more funding, and in addition to just more funding, we need to see it able to access the communities, able to be accessible in the communities that need it the most. We need to reduce the barriers to access for those marginalized communities. And then for everyone, if anyone is listening and not in the water sector, I would encourage you to look in your own community and find out are there people, are there groups of people who don't have water access, and what can be done to connect them to water. MS. CASEY: Julie Waechter with DigDeep, Melissa Ho with World Wildlife Fund, we are out of time. Thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate it. MS. HO: Thank you.

[Applause]
MS. CASEY: And for the audience, please stay with us. Our program will start again in just a moment. Thank you.

[Video plays]
MS. KOCH: Good morning. I'm Kathleen Koch, a longtime Washington correspondent, and we're here today obviously talking about water, so essential to life, right? People can't thrive without it, and neither can businesses or corporations. But fortunately, some have created unique solutions, and they're teaching businesses how to really better use this precious resource. Now here to talk with me today about this is Calvin Emanuel, vice president and general manager of Sustainable Growth Solutions at Ecolab, and Glenn Prickett, president and CEO at World Environment Center. Welcome, gentlemen. MR. EMANUEL: Thank you, Kathleen. MR. PRICKETT: Thanks, Kathleen. Great to be here. MS. KOCH: Calvin, I'd like to start with you. Tell us about the state of water today and why this is such a critical juncture. MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. It's been great to hear the speakers that they talk about the challenges with water. Water is in low supply, and there's a growing demand as we have growing populations around the U.S. and around the world. And I love the way this started off today when we looked at the water scarcity challenge in the Colorado River Basin. What you see there is, over the past few years, how water availability has declined and quality, and meanwhile, when you think about the demands that are coming along with that--we as a people all use cell phones, and I think we all use a lot of these cell phones for pictures for weddings and different events. But do you ever stop and think about where all of that data gets stored? And not to pick on any one specific industry, but a lot of this data gets stored in a data warehouse, and those data warehouses use water to cool their electronics. And so we all take more and more of these pictures. There's more data salt [phonetic] used, and we've got to use water to cool it, and so you need to be thinking about how do we use less water when it's a--in low availability. MS. KOCH: But when it comes to corporations--so are you saying that every corporation, just like every individual, should also be concerned about water scarcity? MR. EMANUEL: They have to be. Water scarcity is a key portion of what companies should be thinking about as they think about their water sustainability programs and so that they can be more water resilient into the future. It has to be a part of their growth strategy and path forward. MS. KOCH: Glenn, what are the industries that are most impacted by water scarcity today, and is it safe to assume then that they're the ones of sort of leading the charge when it comes to creating change and conserving it? MR. PRICKETT: Well, we all depend on water, and every industry depends on water in some way. And I think it's important to remember that climate change is going to make the problem of water scarcity worse. MR. EMANUEL: Yes. MR. PRICKETT: So we heard already that 40 percent of the world lives in areas of water scarcity. By 2030, over half of the water basins could face water scarcity. By 2050, it could be two-thirds. So it's a moving target, and unfortunately, it's not moving in the right direction. So which industries? Agriculture, farming, and ranching is the biggest user of water by far. Seventy percent of freshwater is used in agriculture. It's also the most vulnerable to climate impacts in terms of drought or flooding. There's a lot that farmers and ranchers are doing and can do to address water scarcity. I hope we get into that a little bit later. But other industries are important too. So they may use less water, but many industries rely on water for very high-value applications. Some are obvious like, food and beverage manufacturing, but others may be less obvious but highly valuable to our economy, like fabrication of microchips or data centers for the cloud or chemical manufacturing. All use water, and if they didn't have it, it would be a big impact on their business and their profitability. So financial institutions now are assessing their investments, the companies they invest in, the prospect of water scarcity and what that might do to their future profits. MS. KOCH: I'd like you both to tell me a little bit more about what industry can do to help, you know, us achieve this water-secure future, MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. Kathleen, I think, there are solutions that are available today that can allow industry to reduce their water usage. At Ecolab, we focus on Ecolab Water for Climate, which is a program where we work with our customers that allows them to focus on reduce, reuse, and recycling of water in their own facilities, and we focus not just on a site-by-site approach, but we work with them across their enterprise. That allows us to bring in our knowledge and skill set in chemistry, in digital, in consulting, and engineering to help the companies achieve those outcomes on the ground in their premises and able to measure it and see those outcomes. MS. KOCH: And so you don't just hand them something to do. You're on the ground with them. MR. EMANUEL: We are. We want to be a partner with them to help deliver and drive those outcomes at their sites. MS. KOCH: Glenn, what are your thoughts as far as realistically what-- MR. PRICKETT: Yeah. So it's important to remember that water is a local issue, wherever you go in the world. We heard earlier that some areas are blessed with a lot of water, other areas not so much. We're sitting here in the Potomac River watershed right now. We're not--we're in better condition than many. I'd encourage everybody watching at home to learn what watershed you're in, if you don't know already. So it's important to think about water at that basin scale. I mentioned basins facing water scarcity. So for companies that are operating in water-scarce basins, the leaders in some of the industries I mentioned are trying to get ahead of the problem by aiming for what's called "net positive water impact." Now, that's a lot. I'll unpack that. Essentially, what that means is in that water-scarce basin, the company aims to work with others so that the contributions it makes to the availability of water, the quality of water, the access to water exceed the impact that the company has on those things. So what does that mean? MS. KOCH: How hard is that to achieve? MR. PRICKETT: Yeah, yeah. So what does that mean? So first, it starts within their own operations. They would work on projects like Calvin just described, where they'd apply better technology, better measurement, so they can reduce the use of water, make their operations more productive per unit of water they use, and also make sure that the water that they're putting back into the environment is clean. We heard earlier about water quality and the big problem there. But they don't stop there. They think at the basin scale, working with local governments, local citizens groups to both restore the watershed through nature-based solutions, reforestation, forest conservation, so that more water is put back into the river system, and so that erosion is reduced, and they also work on community water access projects so that communities that don't have access to water, even where the water is plentiful, can get that access. MS. KOCH: Now, I assume that these programs are not entirely altruistic. Calvin, could you talk to us about the relationship really between water and energy-- MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. MS. KOCH: --and how focusing on that can actually help a company's bottom line? MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. We definitely say that water is the path to sustainability and profitability. If you think about a beverage and brew manufacturer, a lot of hot water is used for cleaning and sanitation in their operations, and heating of that water takes a lot of energy. And we truly believe that if you optimize the heating and usage of that hot water, you can optimize energy and emissions. As an example, when we've worked with beverage and brew manufacturers in the processes, we see that we can help them reduce their water usage by 25 percent-- MS. KOCH: Wow. MR. EMANUEL: --their energy usage by 12 percent, and then greenhouse gases by 6 percent. And that's a real meaningful impact in their operations, and it helps them drive their achievement, their sustainability goals, as well as impacting their greenhouse gas and sustainability goals. MS. KOCH: I know I've--on your website, you have a really interesting monitor too that's constantly churning and shows how much water you have saved every year. MR. EMANUEL: Exactly. MS. KOCH: It's amazing. Around the world. MR. EMANUEL: Yes. And we truly feel that that's a key part of what we do. We have the opportunity to help multiple industries reduce their water usage with our basic technologies and then even with focus programs. MS. KOCH: And the Ecolab Water for Climate, so how--is there a lot of uptake around the world? Is that very popular? MR. EMANUEL: We have. We've seen a lot of interest in everything from brew and beverage manufacturing to data centers to large and heavy industrial usage as well. We bring to the table a suite of knowledge and understanding about their operations in water and water use in areas where they can save, but we also can help them plan and understand what should be the targets, what's the art of the possible today, and we work with them on solving these problems today and not saying we need to wait until some future technology is available. This is a real problem now, and we want to work with our customers to help address those problems now. MS. KOCH: Glenn, obviously these corporations, these companies are not acting in isolation. They are--they're a part of communities, and I would love for you to talk to us about the impact that these water management programs that corporations are involved in, that they can have on those surrounding communities, especially those that are already struggling with water scarcity. MR. PRICKETT: Yeah. Thank you, Kathleen. I wanted to talk a little bit more about agriculture. MS. KOCH: Okay. MR. PRICKETT: We're really excited about the concept of regenerative agriculture, farming and ranching practices that help to restore the health of the soil, things like cover crops, no till, more crop rotation, putting livestock back on farms. All of these things can help restore the soil, which helps improve the resilience of farms and ranches to extreme weather. So healthy soil holds moisture better when it when it's dry in droughts, and it helps drain. It drains faster in flooding conditions. MS. KOCH: Right. And that helps the local community, right? MR. PRICKETT: Yeah. So--and this is personal for me. We have a family farm in western Minnesota, and we practice regenerative cattle ranching. And we've seen that in times of flooding, our farm can still be producing when neighboring farms are flooded and aren't producing. So what's exciting about it is that for the farmer, it's more productivity for their acreage, but it also helps reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by pulling carbon into the soils and improve water availability and quality if done at scale in those regions. And scale really is the name of the game. I'll get back to this concept of net water positive impact. I talked about collaboration, and collaboration is essential. We did a roundtable on the topic at World Environment Center recently, and isolated projects won't cut it. You need to be working with local government, with NGOs, with community groups. And I'll give two examples of that. AB InBev, the global brewer--we're talking a lot about beer today. We'll have to share one later. MR. EMANUEL: I'd like to have one.

[Laughter]
MS. KOCH: It's a little early.

[Laughter]
MR. PRICKETT: Great company. They're partnering with WWF and also with local government and NGO organizations in South Africa, in the Cape region. You may have seen that a few years ago, Cape Town almost experienced day zero, where there would be no water. Well, they're working in an agricultural area. The native vegetation there is called fynbos, but a lot of the fynbos has been replaced by invasive species. So they're investing in community efforts to tear out the invasive species and restore the native fynbos. The invasives use about 40 percent more water. So they're saving water, and they're putting people to work. They think they've saved about 9 billion liters of water already and created about 36,000 jobs. And then the last example I'll give is from São Paulo in Brazil, another city that's running dangerously short on water, and there, a big problem is their reservoirs are silting up because there's been so much deforestation in the mountains around São Paulo. So their Coca-Cola FEMSA, the Latin American arm of Coca-Cola, brought together other companies with The Nature Conservancy, and they put a coalition together to work with the local water agency to pay landowners in the mountains to conserve and restore forests along the streams. So they call it the "Water Producers Program," and landowners there can earn up to $40 an acre per year if they're maintaining those riparian areas for water. MS. KOCH: So it sounds like what we're talking about--and, Calvin, if you would take this in conclusion--is really changing the mindset of businesses, companies, corporations around the world that when--the water, you can't just take it for granted anymore. You've really got to adopt this new sort of stewardship attitude toward it. MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. If you want to have business resiliency, you have to focus on sustainability, and we see that water's a key part of that. It's not a choice between sustainability or profitability. You can do both simultaneously, but I think the opportunity for us to make change is now. MS. KOCH: And are companies and businesses--are they receptive? MR. EMANUEL: A lot of them are. A lot of companies are signing up to work with us because they see the opportunity to make a meaningful change right now and to be able to impact the communities in which they live. Water is such a local topic, and you have to be focused on it now, because as climate change continues to evolve, it will be a bigger impact, and they have to make those changes now so they can be resilient for future growth. MS. KOCH: Final thoughts, Glenn? MR. PRICKETT: Well, like I said, if you're watching and you don't know your watershed, learn it. That's the first step toward being more thoughtful about your water use. And then back to the topic of what business can do, we're seeing the leaders move toward this vision of net positive water impact, but as I said, scale is the name of the game. We need more to join in. So there's a great group called the Water Resilience Coalition. I think Ecolab chairs it right now. MR. EMANUEL: Right. MR. PRICKETT: But it's a group of companies and organizations that are trying to promote this vision. So I'd encourage you, if you're interested, check that out and get involved. MS. KOCH: Thank you so much, Calvin Emanuel of Ecolab and Glenn Prickett of World Environment Center. Thank you very much. And now I'll pass it back to The Washington Post.

[Applause]

[Video plays]
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Good morning. Welcome back again. I'm Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post, and I'm delighted to welcome this morning Alexia Leclercq, and we're going to be talking about environmental justice and activism. Alexia, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live. MS. LECLERCQ: Thank you all for having me. MS. STEAD SELLERS: We're very pleased to have you. Let me start with a question about your decision to devote your career path to environmental activism. How did that come about? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. So I think growing up, Taiwanese and Buddhist cosmology played a huge role in my understanding of the world. My mom always talked about, you know, how we're connected to the environment, how we're connected to each other, and I remember stories about, like, tree spirits and spending a lot of time in the outdoors. And so that was always something that I was, you know, very passionate about. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Where were you then? Were you in the United States? MS. LECLERCQ: So I actually moved around quite a little bit when I was young before coming to Texas when I was eight, so having lived in Singapore, Taiwan, and in France as well. And I think that actually exposed me to seeing a lot of the differences, both having the privilege of being somewhere where there's really beautiful outdoors and forests and then also seeing the extreme pollution at my grandparents' house, or even in Singapore, I remember sometimes the air pollution would get so bad that the schools would shut down for an entire week. And so I think I always had an awareness of the inequalities, the pollution that different people experience, and that, you know, I was growing up and making sense of the world. I saw that as a very pressing issue and decided to take action. MS. STEAD SELLERS: So here you are now based in the east part of Austin, right, Austin's Colony. What made you make water such a priority at this point? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. So I started organizing with an organization named PODER in East Austin focusing on addressing environmental racism and the unequal burden of pollution in West versus East Austin. And water is so critical to life, and it's, you know, so critical to our society. And it came up in many instances in Austin, both with the floodings and then also the drought, and then more recently, access to clean drinking water has been a huge issue in this particular neighborhood. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Can you give us just a little bit of a geography lesson here? So East Austin, the Colorado River right there, so yeah. MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. So the Colorado River--the other Colorado River runs through Austin, and historically on the west side, it's been very well protected. But on the east side, there's not been many regulation or protection around it. Especially recently, there's been a lot of rise to development in that area, and so given that there's no protection efforts, we really wanted to make sure that the--you know, that people were developing sustainably on the east side and that the communities along the river, which are a lot of Latino and low-income communities, had a say in and were at the forefront of deciding what the future of the stretch of river looks like. And those communities on the east side also face other, you know, environmental issues and so from things like lack of access to drinking water, to high--really high asthma rates, to the aggregate mining operations nearby. MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you have this very international background. You land up in Austin. How common, in your view, are the problems you've seen around the world to the ones you see in Austin? And then as you're learning more and more about this area of Austin, how can--do the lessons you learn there, are they relevant to the rest of this country and elsewhere? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I mean, I think our issues are so interconnected, and sometimes we kind of frame climate change as this future problem or something that's happening in the global south. And while, you know, there's really dire impacts in the global south, I think we can look in our own backyards here in the U.S. to see the significant impact that climate has on our communities, and so everything, you know, from air pollution, water, toxic chemicals, toxic tank farms that we see happening in Austin, we also see happening in Texas, in the U.S., and on the global scale. And so I think there's a lot of collaboration that needs to be happening. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Just the next question I wanted to ask you about. So the collaboration that you're doing now, how is it working? Are you on social media with other groups? Are there other--do you travel to see how other people in local part--in areas in the United States are dealing with similar problems? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. So I think for me, everything comes from the grassroots, and so we really start with, you know, building our community, building those relationships, those networks, just so that we can really build capacity within East Austin, within Austin's Colony, within the communities we're working at, and then from there, you know, making connections with other organizations that are doing similar work with other communities. And back last December, I had the privilege of going to visit the Yaqui Tribe and talking about how we're dealing with water issues and the similarities and the differences and ways to collaborate. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Tell us a little bit more about that experience, talking to a tribe about how to bring your messages to them and learn from them about how to import their messages. MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I'm really honored to, you know, learn from some incredible elders. My boss, Susana Almanza, has long been connected to various Indigenous groups, and so thinking about how--you know, how corporations are utilizing water and dismissing the rights of, like, local communities is a huge through and through we see happening, you know, across South America, in Texas, and across the world. And so how do we build power to challenge those institutions and shift the priority away from constantly prioritizing profit over people? MS. STEAD SELLERS: You talked about interconnectedness between projects. Describe that a little bit, the importance of that a little bit more, and also, is it the same as intersectionalism in terms of organization, so your activism? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I mean, I think--so I've kind of worked on a couple different fronts. I think organizing is kind of at the base, but, you know, with organizing, there's a lot of different tactics and strategies that can be utilized from storytelling to policy work to protests, et cetera. And so I think having all those components is really important to really build, build power to create change. MS. STEAD SELLERS: And just give a backdrop for people here about what you're doing now, because you're also enrolled in Harvard Education School as well or--and co-enrolled with the law school the same time? MS. LECLERCQ: So I'm actually--I'm doing quite a few things. So I've been organizing with PODER since 2019 now, and I also have my own organization, Start: Empowerment, which I started due to the lack of access on environmental justice education and really centering Indigenous ecologies and justice in the climate movement. And then because of that, I--in grad school, focusing on, like, liberatory pedagogies and understanding the role that education plays in storytelling and in organizing and really training people to do this important work. MS. STEAD SELLERS: And the relationship between your work in the field, obviously you've been very hands on in your academic work. How does that come together? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I believe that academia and, like, research always has to be applicable, and I think, you know, having a critical analysis of the world is really important and connects with the critical actions that we take. And so I always make sure that the research that I'm doing, the things that I'm reading are, you know, applicable and are giving us information to move towards the solutions. MS. STEAD SELLERS: And so how do you convey your messages to your peers, and what are the tools you use, maybe through Start: Empowerment? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I mean, a lot of young people care so deeply about this issue, right? It is our future after all, and I think a lot of people don't have the knowledge, the education, the skills to necessarily get involved and take action. And so we really start with, you know, asking young people like, "What are the issues that are pressing in your life?" you know, whether that's at school, whether that's in the community, and then talk about how that connects to climate and how that connects to local and then global movements. And so from that hyper-local, we're really able to connect with young people in high school and colleges and get them plugged in and committed to taking--making change with us. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Let's sort of zoom out a little bit and talk about activism itself and how it's changed. How would you define it, and how do you think of the importance of activism in this movement? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I think the term "activism" is quite a broad term, which is not necessarily bad. I think there's, you know, so many different ways that people can plug in towards a cause to create change, but I really like to think about, you know, with organizing, how are we shifting power and thinking about power as being a relationship between resources and need and thinking about how can we mobilize community to build power, to create change, so not thinking about necessarily providing services or, like, saving someone but really enabling people to fight for their own liberation. MS. STEAD SELLERS: So how would you define just--so how would you define "activist" right now? What does it mean to be an activist? MS. LECLERCQ: I think the term "activist" is just, you know, taking action to create change. But I specifically, like, call myself an "organizer," and I think that's a little more specific. MS. STEAD SELLERS: And then "environmental justice," again, a term that we had bandied around, but what does it mean to you? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I think "environmental justice" means that, you know, everyone, regardless of, like, race, gender, income, et cetera, is able to have access to a healthy and clean environment. MS. STEAD SELLERS: So this morning, we've heard from a U.S. Senator giving a sense of urgency and also the challenges on a legislative level. We've heard from representative from--of two of the very big charities involved in water, again, with a sense of urgency. I have heard you talk about the need to bring imagination to how we make change. What message would you give to them and that you would like to share to this audience now about that need for imagination in the short term in the future and in the longer term? MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I think not to diminish the complexity of policy and of these solutions that we direly need, but I think that, you know, if we shift away from prioritizing profit, I think that gives us a lot of space to imagine what our future could look like and actually put our resources towards finding those solutions and working on those solutions. And I think there's so many, you know, incredible ideas, and it's really limitless what we can create. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Just the last question, give me a sense of one of those key ideas that motivates you and excites you about how we can better the future. MS. LECLERCQ: Yeah. I think one thing that I've recently been focusing on is actually mutual aid and really thinking about how do we create self-resilient and sustainable communities through local agriculture and really, you know, community helping each other and surviving and yeah. MS. STEAD SELLERS: Alexia, thank you very much for bringing that down to a very local level. Thank you for joining Washington Post Live today. MS. LECLERCQ: Thank you.

[Applause]
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you to our viewers at home and also in our audience. As you know, if you want to see anything more from Washington Post Live, please go to WashingtonPostLive.com. We have a supremely good lineup of shows for you, both online and in person. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[Applause]
[End of recorded session]