We’ve had plenty of rain in the Valley lately. More importantly for our water supply, there’s been above-average snowpack in northern Arizona. But water is still a big concern in our state. Last week, a water conservation leadership forum was held to talk about our water problems. It was sponsored by “The Arizona Republic” and Think AZ. We’ll talk to the president of Think AZ.
>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," we've had lots of rain recently but that doesn't mean Arizona's water problems are over. That was the subject of a recent water conservation leadership forum. And Martin Luther King day is coming up. We'll discuss whether his dream is a reality in Arizona. That's next on "Horizon."
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>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, and welcome to "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. We've had plenty of rain in the Valley lately. More importantly for our water supply, there's been above-average snowpack in northern Arizona. But water is still a big concern in our state. Last week, a water conservation leadership forum was held to talk about our water problems. It was sponsored by "The Arizona Republic" and Think AZ. We'll talk to the president of Think AZ, but first, here are some comments from the forum.
>> Mike Sauceda:
The conference was held at the desert botanical gardens in Phoenix and featured speakers such as Senator John McCain, who told his fellow senator John Kyl can be a dry topic.
>> John McCain:
Jon would brief me up and I find myself quite often nodding off.
>> Mike Sauceda:
On a more serious note, McCain took a global perspective on our water problems.
>> John McCain:
Climate changes are taking place and it's real, not just in my view. I stood 5th from the bottom of his class at the Naval academy, but the preponderance of scientific opinion in the world. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of England, who is now chairing the G8 has made it the number one priority issue. Because -- and as you know, the Europeans are already enacting and taking steps, but it's going to affect us here in the State of Arizona, and I believe we'll exacerbate our problems with water in the future.
>> Mike Sauceda:
Senator Jon Kyl spoke to the conference by videotape. He was unable to make the conference because he was in Israel as a monitor for the election. The recently improved water policy settlement has been hailed as a victory, but challenges continue, like the fact that Arizona is last in Palestine when it comes to Colorado River water. He says a deadline on negotiations between states using that river water is fast approaching.
>> Jon Kyl:
The secretary of interior has indicated to the various states that we're going to have to work out some new arrangements that she can put into place and she wants us to work those out by April 1st. Tough time schedule, but we've got the people here in the State of Arizona and in Nevada and California and also in the upper basin, states, the people who can put these management techniques together to ensure that we will minimize the degree of shortage. I'm told that just in the last five years, we've lost the equivalent of the entire storage capacity of Lake Powell and that when you combine Lake Powell and Lake Meade together. That in the last five years, from over 90% capacity in those two lakes, we've gone to under 50%.
>> Mike Sauceda:
From the global to the regional, Governor Janet Napolitano brought water issues down to a state level.
>> Janet Napolitano:
We have a statewide cookie-cutter approach is not the right approach. I mean, I think it is desirable for the state to have a statewide goal, be it called a culture of conservation or what have you. But the water demands and the water usage's and the structures in the state demand knew once, and they demand local flexibility, depending on what the source of water for a particular area is.
>> Mike Sauceda:
Those at the conference also heard what cities are doing about our water shortage like efforts made by the City of Phoenix.
>> Tom Buschatzke: The city departments as a whole have been asked to cut back on a mandatory basis by 5%. We've actually exceeded that cutback.
>> Mike Sauceda: Charles Redman, the director of the international institute of sustainability at Arizona State University told the audience that we must look back to the Hohokam as a model of water usage.
>> Charles Redman:
If the Hohokam were here, largely reliant on surface water flow and that's the reason they came and succeeded and developed what many of us to be among the very most populace and sophisticated prehistoric society in North America. That's a good model. We like it. The other good model is that they were here for probably close to a thousand years in the Phoenix valley and that's another good model. That gives us about 850 more years to go.
>> Michael Grant:
Here now to tell us about the water conference is Rita MaGuire, president of Think AZ, an independent nonpartisan research institute. And obviously a person quite familiar with water issues. Rita, good to see you again.
>> Rita MaGuire:
Always nice to see you again, Michael.
>> Michael Grant:
Why was the conference held?
>> Rita MaGuire:
When we started to talk about the conference it was 110 degrees outside and dry as a bone. Clearly it was the culmination of a recognition that we were in a long-term drought. Of course, we've had a very wet month, but nevertheless the drought has been with us for 9 years both on the Verde and salt system as well as on the Colorado.
>> Michael Grant:
The timing actually couldn't have been better, because I assume that some people actually had to swim from their cars to the site of the conference.
>> Rita MaGuire:
Exactly, just about that, yeah.
>> Michael Grant:
What were the goals? I mean, what was the conference ultimately trying to get to?
>> Rita MaGuire:
A really straightforward goal. That was bring to together decision leaders in the communities and that could be a business person. It could be a government staff person. It could be an elected official. People who, though, would be impacted in some way in their occupations or in their daily lives with the management of water. But may not know as much as they should know about water. So the idea was bring them together, cram a morning full of experts to talk about all of the different aspects of water. And at the end of the session, hopefully have enlightened people and made them a little more aware of the critical nature of water to our economy and to our quality of life.
>> Michael Grant:
It sounds to me like this could have run the gamut from I don't know if these people attended but people who managed large commercial building complexes, golf courses, obviously agribusiness? Just a variety of different --
>> Rita MaGuire:
It was a statewide invitation list. We had mayors, city council members, CEOs of businesses. We had schoolteachers. It was a diverse group, predominantly who they are decision leaders in their particular occupation.
>> Michael Grant:
Let me go to a point that Senator Kyl made because I was not -- I knew that something was going on, but I didn't know about an April 1 deadline. What actually is it that we are trying to work out at this moment with Nevada and California that the interior secretary has said check in with me on April fool's day in relation to --
>> Rita MaGuire:
Exactly. The last leg of sort of a series of agreements that the states have been working on throughout the last 10 years is an agreement to determine how we're going to manage Lake Meade in particular. But Lake Powell as well during a drought condition. We've always had sufficient water to meet the demands, but now we're beginning to recognize that when a drought hits the system, we actually have direct demand for the full supply of the Colorado River system. So if we have less than a normal allocation year, somebody is going to go short. In the lower basin, it's the Central Arizona Project supplies. We understand that the C.A.P. in particular will be shorted but we don't know what the operating criteria will be. No one has said well, we're five years into a drought, we'll cut back by a half a million acre-feet or we'll cut back for five years 100,000 acre-feet. We've never had that agreement. That's what the secretary of interior was talking about. Is you states I'm going to let you take the lead and reach an agreement as to how I'm supposed to manage the system when we've declared that there is inadequate supplies to meet all of the direct demand for Colorado River water.
>> Michael Grant:
Would one of the other issues that that would address would be maybe roughly when that call or should be made? In other words, I assume you don't want the lakes bone dry.
>> Rita MaGuire:
Right.
>> Michael Grant:
On other hand, I suppose -- I mean, do you do that at 15%? Or 25%? Or whatever?
>> Rita MaGuire:
There are trigger elevations in Lake Powell and Lake Meade initially driven by hydropower generation in Lake Meade, for example at elevation 1050, 1,050 feet above sea level is where the power head is anticipated to be affected if we drop the level of Lake Meade below that. We actually have additional supplies in the lake for water delivery, but you are going to impact the generation of power, so there is a concern there. Below that, Nevada's intakes are impacted. It becomes a water issue as well.
>> Michael Grant:
Right, the Governor touched on not a one-size-fits-all solution for various areas of the state. Here in the valley and also down in Tucson to a more limited extent, once the C.A.P. arrived, we, of course, have the surface water delivery systems and the system of reservoirs and the Central Arizona Project. Out in many areas of the state, though, I mean, it's basically rainfall and lakes and obviously drilling wells.
>> Rita MaGuire:
Right. In Maricopa Pinal and Pima County in particular, you've got the surface water supplies from the C.A.P. system and the SRP system and you can pump ground water. And that's looked up as the backup supply when the surface water supply is subject to drought. If you are in Payson, Pine, Strawberry, Flagstaff, Sierra Vista, you don't have a backup supply. You have ground water and some surface water. When you are hit guy bye a drought, you are pumping ground water and in lots of cases you have very limited ground water supplies. We have fractured bedrock and you are seeing ground water tables dropping. You move from normal to crisis. There is no opportunity for a plan B.
>> Michael Grant:
And Flagstaff, I know, has been hit particularly hard. I think Lake Mormon has been virtually nonexistent. Lake Mary as well. Although, the recent rains have helped quite a bit. Are there any supply options for those kinds of areas of Arizona?
>> Rita MaGuire:
Yes. One of the discussions that came up was how do you find alternate supplies? The first idea is let's get a better sense of what supplies are available in rural Arizona. We haven't done as good of a job of gathering data. So now in terms of additional supply, one of the options we know is available is transferring water from one ground water basin to another. That's illegal under the current state law, but the discussion has been wait a minute, there are some basins where we don't have any development and we could move some supplies out of one ground water basin to another where there is immediate demand. That's something the legislature would have to address, but it is an available supply that we could contemplate if the law were changed.
>> Michael Grant:
Okay. Rita, if people want to find out more about the conference, can they go someplace for information?
>> Rita MaGuire:
Absolutely. Calling Think AZ and our web site WWW.thinkaz.org will have more information.
>> Michael Grant:
Thank you very much.
>> Rita MaGuire:
Thank you.
>> Michael Grant:
African Americans make up about 3% of Arizona's population. At one time, they faced many of the same forms of discrimination faced by other Blacks across the country. But there were also some gains made in Arizona that preceded national trends, like the desegregation of schools. With Martin Luther King day coming, I'll talk to three local African American community leaders about whether Dr. King's dream has become reality in Arizona. But first, we'll hear what Dr. King's son thinks about that. He was recently in town and was interviewed by KNXV TV.
>> Martin Luther King III:
I would have to say it depends really on how you look at it. We have made great strides in this nation since his death, but 40 years, certainly when we talk about 40 years ago. But in a real sense we are at a -- to some degree we've been at a standstill. The final campaign he was working on prior to his death was something called the poor people's campaign. Where he was going to bring together poor Blacks, poor whites, poor Native Americans, poor Americans from all walks of life to say to the nation's policy makers that we demand the right to decent jobs with decent pay. It was an economic empowerment agenda. The real tragedy is 37 years later, we still have not achieved that mark, when you look at the fact that 36 million people live in poverty, 45 million people have no health insurance. So some of what he envisioned has not come to fruition. When you look at the triple evils that he talked about, poverty, racism and violence. Violence, obviously has escalated in our nation and throughout our world. Poverty as I already stated, what those numbers are. It's growing as opposed to being reduced. Racism is probably where we made some greatest strides in 40 years, but we still have some things to overcome and even in that regard. So I like to say that we're still making progress but we have not yet achieved the mark of that vision that he had for our nation, and really our world.
>> Michael Grant:
Here now to talk about whether Dr. King's dream has been realized in Arizona is former Phoenix City Councilman Calvin Goode who has lived in Arizona for almost his entire life. Also here is Denise Meredith of the Leadership Consortium, which seeks to develop leaders of color. Also joining us is Alonzo Jones, the Associate Dean of Student Life at Arizona State University.
>> Michael Grant:
Our thanks for joining us this evening. Councilman Goode, good to see you.
>> All:
Good to see you.
>> Michael Grant:
Martin Luther King Jr. said it's a mixed bag. How do you see that?
>> Calvin Goode:
I would concur with that, we've made progress from the time I went to grade school in Gila Bend and that gave me a diploma that said I could go to any high school in the state but not at Gila Bend. Since that time, we've had a couple. De-seg cases in Arizona. Phoenix, Wilson school district and the Phoenix Union High School District, we've integrated the schools, but we still have a lot of de facto segregation and a lot of other problems that Dr. King talked about.
>> Michael Grant:
How so? Give me a couple of examples of de facto segregation.
>> Calvin Goode:
I have been president of the Phoenix Elementary School District. At one time we had an integrated student body, but presently about 85 or 90% is Hispanic now. Many of the white families moved out. And then there has been the economic issues involved, too. But across this nation, we still have a lot of segregated schools.
>> Michael Grant:
Denise, what's your take on the basic premise as to whether or not Dr. King's dream has been realized?
>> Denise Meredith:
Again, I have to agree with Calvin. We've made lots of progress, but I have major concerns with the economic progress that's been made. Socially, I think we've made a lot of progress. The fact that I was the director of the Bureau of Land Management here in the state of a traditionally male-run organization for seven years is pretty incredible. But at the same time, now that I'm in the business world and look at some of the small businesses some of the minority owned businesses trying to get started here. I understand there is a long way to go economically.
>> Michael Grant:
Alonzo, what do you think? Obviously all of us are familiar with the most famous line from the speech, which was to judge not by the color of the skin, but by the content of the character. What's the state of the dream in your opinion?
>> Alonzo Jones:
Well, as a person born in 1968 about three months into life when Dr. King was assassinated, I don't have a lived experience of personal Jim Crow segregation, separate but equal, but as a person bone into a post civil rights era. I personally and individually have had opportunities for success, both educationally and even in employment, but that's an individual statement. I would also echo in the words of Denise and Calvin that collectively as cultural communities whether you be Native American, Latino, African American, when you measure cultural lines, we see a major inequity across all statuses that impact the life of existence in America. Whether it be economic, employment, whether it be healthcare, education and a number of issues. When you examine the numbers consistently, people of color fall below the average mark compared to the total population within a nation.
>> Michael Grant:
Is that active discrimination or is that attributable to something else?
>> Alonzo Jones:
I think it's complex. One of the issues that Dr. King took on with his life was a very real. Legal practice socialized discrimination based upon skin color and this was practiced obviously for 200 years in the form of slavery and then another 100 years or so years in the form of Jim Crow. You had very tangible visible forms of discrimination. Following the success of the civil rights work and the work efforts of local leaders like Mr. Goode, we were able to dismantle that both legally and gradually as a social construct. But still in a covert kind of way, we have the inherited legacy of 360-some years of oppression. That cannot be wiped out in 40 years. So we see the lingering evidence. A briefcase in point, my father was raised in Gary, Indiana, a black city. It takes him joining a military to create a life in which his son can begin the journey of formal higher education. We have that going on today in war times when many people of color are leaving their communities, going to a military experience and perhaps their children will have access to issues that comes from the environment of military.
>> Michael Grant:
Calvin, how many generations does that take? I guess we're what, probably two generations beyond Brown v. Board of Education, maybe a generation and a half or so beyond the 1964 civil rights act. How long does it take?
>> Calvin Goode:
Well that's a good question. It's been 50 years since the Brown V. Board of Education decision and we still have, as I indicated earlier a de facto segregation. I would hope it would end -- it should have ended before now, but we still are facing that problem. How many more years it will take? Well, I don't know, but I certainly hope that we will become a nation with all citizens entitled to all of the rights and privileges. I feel why do we have to have laws for me to get my civil rights? That bothers me as an American citizen, born here. I should be entitled to it. So it takes all of us to continue to work and not think that because of what Dr. Martin Luther King did, it certainly helped push us in the right direction, but at the same time we still have miles to go.
>> Michael Grant:
Well, to a certain extent, it seems to me that you are echoing the comments that were made 30-35 years ago. It's a relatively -- I don't want to minimize this -- it's a relatively simple matter to change laws, but it's a much more difficult matter to change minds.
>> Calvin Goode:
But we can regulate behavior, and that's what some of the laws did do, and I've indicated that we have made progress, but we certainly haven't arrived yet. And I think it takes all of us to continue to work toward -- when we say the pledge of allegiance, freedom, justice and so forth, we don't have that yet.
>> Michael Grant:
Denise let me go back to a point you were making. Has the progress been more marked in the governmental sector? I mean, for example, a black Secretary of State, Hispanic soon to be attorney general, a black woman soon to become Secretary of State? Those are very visible changes.
>> Denise Meredith:
Yeah, and I think due to regulations and all of the rules that are in government, again, you can change the behavior a lot more easily in government than you can in the private sector where people make their own hiring and do their own rules. So I think that progress has been made in government. Government still has a lot of problems with discrimination there, but it has progressed a lot more, particularly in the military, than in a lot of other sectors. I think private sectors where a lot more is relied on voluntary compliance, interpretation of what Affirmative Action is, there is a lot more room for people to not practice what they preach.
>> Michael Grant:
Is it active discrimination or more a product of, well, cultural patterns, the old boy boys' club or however you translate this?
>> Denise Meredith:
It's a combination of all of that. One is basic -- when you talk about discrimination of women versus men. There is the sexual discrimination issue that goes across all races to a certain extent, but I think it's very inherent almost in America, and I don't know how long it will take to get beyond that, but people not even consciously will discriminate. They have biases, and biases --
>> Michael Grant:
How so?
>> Denise Meredith:
Well, biases and sometimes they are positive biases but they are still biases, like all Indo-Americans are great engineers, okay? That's a positive bias, but it leads to problems with kids and pressure on them and what they should do and if they can't, then what's wrong with them.
>> Michael Grant:
African Americans, women, the image has been just a real problem over the years, what people expect or don't expect of African American women to be able to do. It's, you know, look at the media. It's the image in the media, African American women is pretty much at the bottom. They are supposed to be prostitutes, you know, very attractive, there is always a sexual connotation there. But as far as intelligence or being doctors or being professional people, that's not an image that's portrayed in the media, and as a result, in real life, a lot of times African American women aren't taking seriously.
>> Michael Grant:
Alonzo, one of your main missions is the attraction and the retention of students of color on the university campus.
>> Alonzo Jones:
Right.
>> Michael Grant:
Progress in those areas?
>> Alonzo Jones:
Absolutely. In fact, that's one thing I'm real proud of. Arizona State University has institutional response to both invite and support students of color when they are here at the university. Consistently Arizona State University is about 3% African American, 3% in the state. In fact, with all cultural communities, we're about average in terms of state representation with the exception of Latino.
>> Michael Grant:
Okay.
>> Alonzo Jones:
When you examine retention numbers which is a first year matriculation rate and then examine 6-year graduation rates, we see the discrepancy that I talked about earlier. You talk about is this intentional discrimination, I don't think so, but I do think you will have people still alive today that were very active in the segregated era and they are still contributing to the social tone of America, and that is still playing itself out. Many students that come are still first generation, economic factors to deal with. And that plays itself out in the retention factor.
>>Michael Grant:
Calvin, good to see you, Denise Meredith, our thanks to you as well. There are numerous King-day events upcoming in the Valley. Here's a list of some of them.
>> Michael Grant:
You can visit our web site at www.azpbs.org. Once you get to our home page, click on the word "Horizon" to see transcripts or information about upcoming shows.
>> Merry Lucero:
Governor Napolitano gives her third state of the state address, this time to a more conservative legislature. The Governor called for business tax breaks and an expansion of all-day kindergarten. We'll check the early reaction to the speech, plus the latest estimates on the state's budget, Friday at 7:00 on the Journalists' Roundtable on "Horizon."
>> Michael Grant:
That's it for a Thursday. Thanks for being here. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.
Calvin Goode:former Phoenix City Councilman;Denise Meredith:Leadership Consortium;