McCain just lost Colorado

[tannybogus]

Some of you may remember I got the chance to see John McCain back in March of '05, when he opened for President Bush at a Social Security privatization "town hall" (which lives in infamy, but I digress).

McCain got started with a hilarious deadpan, something to the effect of "Hello, I'm John McCain of Arizona and I've come for your water." Got great laughs, and he's kept using variations of the line ever since when he visits us in Colorado. It's on tape all over the place.

Just one little problem: it's not a joke.
Water experts of all stripes were left questioning the prudence of Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain after he told a newspaper the critical 1922 water compact between seven Western states should be revisited.

"I don't think there's any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties," McCain told The Pueblo Chieftain. "I think that there's a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource."

The Colorado River Compact governs how seven Western states, including Colorado and Arizona, share the Colorado River.

"Conditions have changed dramatically," McCain said...

John Redifer, a member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and political science professor at Mesa State College, said McCain's position makes sense in light of Arizona's needs, but not as a national policy.

"I wonder if he is running for president of the United States or for something in Arizona when he makes those statements," Redifer said. "I'm really kind of surprised that someone running for president … that needs to carry the state of Colorado would make a statement like that."

Colorado's statesmen also questioned McCain's plan, with Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo., saying he is "totally disappointed in McCain."

Salazar, via his spokesman, Eric Wortman, pledged to fight McCain's plan.

"Over my cold, dead, political carcass," Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said...

http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/al/Cq4H

People everywhere are going to be fighting over water. Georgia and Tennessee already have a case before the Supreme Court.

I would say use this in a commercial, but then Obama would have to have some plan about water. Somebody would be mad

no matter what. I'd stay away from this and let McNuts drown.:popcorn:

[skepticscott]

1. One of my biggest gripes about Obama

is that he has not addressed this issue in any substantial way. Shrubbie has pretty much ignored it, and it has only gotten worse in the last 8 years (and will get no better in the foreseeable future). McCain is right when he says that disputes over water will be as important as those over oil, and in this case, the internal disputes will be much worse than the transnational ones. The next president simply MUST deal with this issue in a serious way, despite it being a political third rail...it cannot wait another decade. Unfortunately, this is not an issue that can be solved just by throwing money at it. It requires cooperation and sacrifice among everyone who wants a unified country, and we need a leader who can encourage and motivate that kind of behavior.

[tannybogus]

3. I agree!

I have article after article about water problems. The next president better do something!

I just think it would be foolish now to cobble something together and just to try to make

it play. The candidates are too busy worrying about oil. They ain't seen nothing yet.

Wait for the water fights!!:hide:

[seasat]

5. I agree but it's a very dangerous issue for a politician

Gov Richardson was the only one that addressed it in detail during the primaries. I liked his ideas. He wanted to streamline the tangled bureaucracy that surrounds water rights. He was planning on elevating water issues in his cabinet. His plan was very heavy on conservation. As a Floridian, when a politician starts suggesting stuff like tertiary water treatment, they're speaking to issues important to me.

Unfortunately, he made one comment that was jumped on by Granholm of Michigan and blown out of proportion. He was addressing a crowd in Nevada and said:

"I believe the Western states and Eastern states have not been talking to each other when it comes to proper use of our water resources," he told the Las Vegas Sun.

"I want a national water policy. We need a dialogue between states to deal with issues like water conservation, water reuse technology, water delivery and water production. States like Wisconsin are awash in water."

They took that last line and accused him of proposing pumping water from the Great Lakes to Nevada. It was clear from Richardson's campaign statements and reading his proposals that he was not proposing anything of the sort. He even immediately issued a clarifying statement that stated:

Richardson believes firmly in keeping water in its basin of origin and of the rights of states to oversee water distribution.

Anyone that even looked at the cost of doing something ridiculous like pumping water from the Great Lakes to a Western state realizes that it's not in any way feasible. However, it did provide an opportunity for some politicians to demagogue on the issue at Richardson's expense. The reaction to that simple statement scared off the other candidates from discussing water issues. That is why we, unfortunately, don't hear anything about water issues in this campaign.

[tannybogus]

6. I hope somebody can get something going.

They need to find a way ASAP to look at the situation. It won't be a one size fits all solution, but right

now, nobody is looking at it as a whole.

[seasat]

14. The issue of climate change vs water really needs adressing

I'm not just referring to the issue of drought but the issue of mitigating the need for fossil fuel transportation. As the cost of fossil fuel along with green house gas emissions increase, one solution is to increase urban density. More densely populated cities results in lower energy costs due to transportation. However, higher densities result in greater demand for scarce water resources such as what happened in Atlanta recently. A solution for one problem exacerbates the other problem.

One of the real solutions to the problem is tertiary water treatment. It's more expensive but really the only answer in the long run. It'll slow some of the coastal eutrophication we have here in Florida by pulling out the nutrients before they make it into the marine systems. It would really help the reefs in the Florida Keys since many residences there still have septic tanks and the waste leaks out fueling nuisance hair algae growth on the reefs. The only reason reason we don't have it now is because of it's cost and folks are scared of drinking water that they once flushed down their toilets. They'd rather flush it to the rivers then suck it back up and drink it without a huge level of water treatment.

Every time there's a debate where you can send in questions, I send one in about water issue but I've yet to see a moderator mention it. They're more concerned with tabloid level discourse than real policy.

[skepticscott]

16. Yep, that's the third rail

He was a sun belt governor casting a covetous eye on Great Lakes water. And his "clarifying statement" looks more to me like a typical politician trying to substitute what he realized he should have said for what he said in the first place (which was how he really felt, and which he only "clarified" after getting a strongly negative reaction). Feasibility aside, if he wasn't thinking about diverting Great Lakes water to the Southwest, then why even mention that "States like Wisconsin are awash in water"? If he really felt that shipping water from Wisconsin to New Mexico was taboo, why does it matter how how much excess water Wisconsin has? He knows perfectly well that the reason Wisconsin is awash in water has everything to do with their proximity to the Great Lakes and nothing particularly to do with any conservation and reuse practices that other states could emulate.

But when times get tough, the question will be whether Americans in individual states will say "this is ours and we're not sharing" or "we're all Americans, we support each other, and what belongs to one state belongs to the whole country" (or where exactly along that spectrum attitudes will fall). I've read threads on other sites about water issues and right now, people are much more of the former attitude. It will take exceptional leadership to move them towards the latter.

[seasat]

20. He was speaking in Nevada on water issues during the primary.

Not New Mexico. He was talking about the need for a national water policy because of the disagreements between states over basin rights. Water rights are locked in a tangled bureaucracy that involves federal, regional, state, and local organizations. Corporations are able to game the system to their advantage while average folks are left with little recourse. I don't know why he used Wisconsin as an example. I can guess that it was because it is a wet state far enough from Nevada that he didn't think folks would think he was coveting their water.

A closer location from Las Vegas to the Great Lakes would be Illinois. However, that is a 1300 mile trek across populated areas that you'd have to purchase right of ways from to get an aquifer or pipe line to Vegas. That's double the distance of the Alaskan pipeline. Besides the obvious environmental costs, the price of construction would be in the 10's of billions and would only benefit a small portion of the Nevada population. While Richardson can fumble his speech at times, he's not a stupid man and diverting water from the Great Lakes to Nevada or New Mexico would not be something any rational person would consider. It would be cheaper to build a desalinization plant on the coast and pump water to Las Vegas than tapping into the Great Lakes.

I researched Richardson's environmental record before the primaries. I supported him before he dropped out, in part, because he has the best credentials of any of the candidates. He fought for such issues as protecting reintroduced wolf populations and protecting pristine forests from mining. He did work on water issues with a major focus on conservation. I've never seen a proposal from him that in any way indicated that he agreed with a massive government project to divert water from other basins to New Mexico. I was excited to actually hear a politician with good environmental credibility address the touchy issue of water and pissed when he was falsely attacked over by Granholm and others to promote an regional agreement on Great Lakes water usage. That episode pretty much killed discussion of it in the race.

[skepticscott]

22. Well, he's still governor of New Mexico

and presumably he has that state's interests uppermost, regardless of what state he was speaking in. And presumably one of the possibilities to be considered (whether eventually adopted or not) in any national water policy would be the diversion of water from states that appear to have more than they need to states that have a shortage, so it's not surprising that Great Lakes state governors like Granholm would immediately go on the defensive whenever something like that is even hinted at, regardless of its feasibility at this point (and who knows what circumstances may be in the future-when you have no water and need it, availability will trump cost in a heartbeat). As far as desalination plants, they might be cheaper than pipelines to the Great Lakes, but that won't help New Mexico if the water needs of Texas and California come to be so great (much greater than those of Illinois or Wisconsin) that they will want to use all the water that can be generated along their own coastlines.

Maybe Richardson wasn't hiding a detailed plan to divert Great Lakes water, but as you say, he's a smart guy. He didn't just pull Wisconsin out of thin air (why did he need an example of a wet state at all?) and it isn't credible that he's never even contemplated the possible uses of all that H2O. Sometimes people's inner thoughts are inadvertently revealed in unguarded moments.

[skepticscott]

23. And plans to divert Great Lakes water are not that unusual, btw

One company even contemplated shipping it overseas, for pity's sake..

http://www.glmtf.org/position_paper9.html

Would they have thought about doing that if it were cost-prohibitive and unprofitable?

[yardwork]

10. I trust Obama's judgement. I trust that he'll handle the issue when he's elected.

Distributing water equitably is going to require great compromise and sacrifice on everyone's part. That's not a winning campaign sound bit. Obama's campaign is wise not to wade into this issue (bad pun I know) during the campaign. However, I trust Obama to show leadership when he's elected.

McCain I trust to sell all the water to the highest bidder and divvy up the profits with this buddies while the rest of us die of thirst.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. "he has not addressed this issue in any substantial way"

If Obama has made a statement about privatization, then he's said something about water.

If he's made a statement about taking corporate interests out of the public sphere, then he's said something about water.

The problem is that the GOP-controlled media already have their scripts for this performance. The GOP corporate donors want to Enron/Exxon water making the laws that regulate water rights a target for their special brand of reform. The only reason why the GOP makes any statements regarding water is because water regulation doesn't tilt in their favor.

If Obama has to respond to the GOP's desire to "talk about water" all he has to do is remind people about what Enron did to the price of electricity in California and what Exxon is doing to the price of gas for everyone.

People aren't that stupid. They are easily manipulated and if the GOP can't "reform" water laws using their "charm" or talking points, then they'll drag out the fear.

I honestly expect an incident in the west somewhere (likely Los Angeles), which will be exploited by the GOP, for the benefit of the GOP.

I just hope enough voices reminding everyone about the GOP's other market shenanigans can be heard over the fear-mongering.

[skepticscott]

15. That's still not very substantial

It's all very well for him to be against the privatization of water resources, but preventing that still does not solve the problem of dwindling supplies and their allocation. That next president still needs a specific plan to begin dealing with that, well beyond just keeping corporate hooks out.

[ColbertWatcher]

18. The biggest problem the next president has is fixing the mess created by the GOP ...

... which starts with privatization.

A "specific plan" beyond what he has already stated falls directly into the GOP game of chase the moving goal posts.

Obama has nothing to explain; the GOP do. Only the GOP needs to explain in detail how they're going to fix the messes they've made.

In detail and without their "give away public property to private interests" solutions bullshit.

[opihimoimoi]

2. I wonder who is on his Team....they seem fucked...could it be McCane is too much of a BULLY?

their efforts thus far sucks...he mighta won the primaries because of weaker opponents but this Obama guy is posied to win with Logic, Reason, Truth and the Common Good....Things not known to Pubs in General much less McClumsy

[bemildred]

9. Good point.

He seems to have trouble attracting the right sort of minions. Or maybe they are still fighting the last war.

[opihimoimoi]

11. If he can't attract...then what is he? A lonely LOSER

[Beregond2]

4. The main problem with water is that people insist on moving to

areas where there isn't any, and then expecting the states who have it to give it up to them. The solution: when an area has reached it's natural water limit, no more development. It isn't that hard.

[WindRiverMan]

24. Agreed!

I have lived out west for my entire life. I have lived in most of the western states including t Alaska. Arizona and Nevada (mostly just Las Vegas) make me sick to my stomach. This whole "oasis in the desert" shit is ridiculous. The desert has a low carrying capacity, and limited resorces. The fact that people want to turn it into these wonderful cities where every citizen has their own pool to "cool off" and a freaking golf course in every suburb, is just a reminder of the gluttony and lack of common sense that pervades this country.

[XOKCowboy]

7. Please read Cadillac Desert

It's a must read about water. It said 20 yrs ago that water would be a bigger issue than oil one day and explains why.

[likesmountains 52]

21. You're correct..

[XOKCowboy]

25. Finally someone who's read it...

I first saw it as a documentary on PBS. It started with a low-flying helicopter filming mile after mile of the barren desert when suddenly everything turns green with golf courses, palm trees, lakes, fountains and then thousands of homes. The books cover art is a palm tree that hasn't been watered and has died and fallen over.

Even though the book covers the TVA and the Corps of Engineers/Bureau of Reclamation's rampant dam building in the 30s to the 60s, it's main focus is the Colorado River and the use/misuse of it's water. It details Mullholland's desecration of the Owen's Valley to provide water to LA, the Central Arizona Project, how irrigation in the Central Valley is killing the soil due to salinization and how LA, Las Vegas, Phoenix and most cities in the lower Colorado Basin are precariously close to running out of water.

It's an eye-opener for anyone living in the west. Now with the water war between Georgia and Florida a lot of what the book predicted is already coming true.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. The GOP's plan has always been to reverse...

... every step forward this country has enjoyed and provided by liberal ideas.

Also, I have to disagree with you, Obama's plan for water: keep it out of GOP's hands.

I think that's a good plan.

[isentropic]

12. It probably is but he can't afford to articulate it at this time.

However he is going to -have- to come up with some specifics...the "change" meme is fine and dandy but it wears thin awfully quick without a predicate.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. Meme? The GOP are masters of memeing ideas to death.

The meme they're using here is the "reform" meme.

This is how it works: the GOP sees a situation where they don't control everything completely, and set out to "reform" it so that they can.

Water regulations have been working fine, but the GOP is not satisfied because they aren't controlling every drop.

So, the national conversation must be manipulated so everyone believes the current situation must be "rectified". Once enough people repeat the GOP talking point that "reform is needed", the GOP-approved (pre-manufactured) solution is offered as "the only solution".

As far as I'm concerned the only change that would be acceptable for me in regards to the water situation is one that protects it from the GOP.

[tannybogus]

17. I also say watch the GOP!

If it doesn't make money for business, they won't agree. If you control water, you really have some power. I wonder what

is going on now in statehouses and with local laws. We'll turn around and find it has been jerked right out from under us.

People don't listen until there's a crisis as was mentioned possibly in Los Angeles. I trust Obama to do a lot better

job than BushCo. I'm just not sure anybody is really paying attention either to what shenanigans are being done or to

what the solutions should be. This can't wait.