Program

All events take place in AVAYA Auditorium, ACES 2.302, unless otherwise indicated.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27

Keynote Event: “Austin’s Water Wars: Underground and On the Big Screen”
5 – 6:30 PM

Bill Bunch, Executive Director, Save Our Springs Alliance
Laura Dunn, Producer/Director, The Unforeseen

Barton Springs – fourth largest in Texas – has long been recognized as the “Soul of Austin.” The springs emerge from the karst limestone Edwards Aquifer, the sole source drinking water supply for 1.5 million people, globally recognized as perhaps the world’s most biologically diverse underground ecosystem, and recognized by the State as more vulnerable to pollution than any other major aquifer in Texas. The fight for the soul of Texas’ capital city reflects the larger struggle of who we are, as a community and as a center of globalization.

Austin documentary filmmaker, Laura Dunn, will show clips of her award winning film, “The Unforeseen,” which explores the local struggle to prevent pollution of Barton Springs from unchecked urban development. Film Comment’s Gavin Smith called Dunn’s film “the best film of the [2007 Sundance Film] festival, hands down.” Variety film reviewer Robert Koehler wrote: Observing locally and thinking globally, Laura Dunn’s astonishing debut doc feature “The Unforeseen” is the kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film. . . . As a cinematic contemplation of human activity on the planet, it far surpasses “An Inconvenient Truth” and its more lecture-like message on global warming. See the film trailer and read the reviews.

Executive Director and attorney for Austin’s Save Our Springs Alliance, Bill Bunch, will join Ms. Dunn for an update and dialogue on Austin’s water wars. (Laura and Bill will also invite everyone to see the film and go for a swim at Barton Springs.)

FRIDAY, MARCH 28

Welcome and introductions
9 – 9:30 AM

Randy Diehl, Dean of Liberal Arts

Itty Abraham, Director, South Asia Institute
Kamran Aghaie, Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, will be unable to attend the conference due to illness.   Christopher Rose, Assistant Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, will participate in the morning welcome and introductions in his place.

Thomas Garza, Director, Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies
José Limón, Director, Center for Mexican-American Studies
Bryan Roberts, Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies

Panel: Civilization, Culture, and Aesthetic Production
9:30 – 11:45 AM
(Chair: Bryan Roberts, Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies)

1. The Hydraulic Theory of Civilization
   Karl Butzer, Department of Geography

2. The Yaku Museum of Water in Quito, Ecuador
   María Mercedes Jaramillo, Parque Museo Yaku, Quito, Ecuador

   Ms. Jaramillo will lecture on the water crisis of the 21st century in Ecuador, highlighting the urgent need for corrective measures to rectify the widespread scarcity and contamination of this precious resource. She will also describe the education work that Yaku develops with the schools and community in Ecuador to raise awareness of the importance of this national resource.

3. The Making of Atash (Thirst)

   Avi Kleinberger, Israel

Panel: Conflicts over Water
1:30 – 3:45 PM
(Chair: Jonathan Brown, Associate Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies)

1. Oil and water: How the biggest lake in the world (Lake Baikal) has gotten in the way of the world’s longest oil pipeline

   Gary Cook, US Project Director, Baikal Watch/Earth Island Institute

   The Russian economy has come out of its recent economic doldrums, thanks mainly to it prodigious wealth of oil and natural gas. By expeditiously pumping oil from the ground, and then building massively long pipelines to transport it across an entire continent, Russia is doing little to develop a value-added economy. Despite the urge to send these fuel commodities abroad as quickly as possible-with little heed for either environmental or socio-economic consequences-the Russian government, and President Putin himself, have recently issued decrees against any pipeline construction within the Lake Baikal watershed. Of course, these decrees merely conform to Russian law, which prohibit any such development along this, the largest lake in the world. In this presentation, we will look at the reasoning behind this decision to circumvent Lake Baikal with these pipelines. And we will see how Baikal’s “water interests” (with its 23% store of the world’s fresh liquid water) has been able to trump the competing oil interests, here in a country where oil is now king. We will also look at the environmental threats that these pipelines still pose to the river and ocean thoroughfares, specifically to the Lena and Amur Rivers, and to the coastline of the Pacific, where the proposed pipeline will terminate.

2. The Role of Water in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
   David Eaton, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas
3. Water Resources and National Security: Aral Sea Case Study
   Deane McKinney, Department of Civil Architecture and Environmental Engineering

   Water resources and national security policies have become entwined in several international river basins. This linkage creates additional constraints for the water resources professional that might be avoided if it were possible to predict where such linkages could occur and to adopt policies to forestall that eventuality. This summarizes the situation in several river basins and presents a discussion of a Central Asian case study, suggests common factors, several additional indicators and a framework that may refine predictions of a linkage between national security and water resources.

Film Screening
7 – 9:00 PM

Atash (Thirst) Israel/Palestine 2004
Screening and discussion with producer Avi Kleinberger.

Shamed by an unnamed sin committed by his twenty-something daughter, patriarch Abu Shukri moves his family miles from their village, where they eke out a precarious existence making charcoal from stolen wood.

‘This striking debut feature from 28-year-old Palestinian director Tawfik Abu Wael relies very little upon dialogue, playing out chiefly as a succession of images underpinned by a timeless parable of force and simplicity. Assaf Sudry’s cinematography is beautiful; virtually every shot would make a ravishing still image, with lighting and composition worthy of Kieslowski. These considered visuals combined with the mythic starkness of the story and characterization make for a ponderous viewing experience; there’s little raggedy spontaneity to conjure with, despite a wholly non-professional cast, and nary a hint of leavening humor.‘ (Channel 4 (UK) — full review)

SATURDAY, MARCH 29

Panel: Water as a Human Right
9:30 – 11:45 AM (Chair: Itty Abraham, Director, South Asia Institute)

1. Water for All in Latin America
   Juan Alfaro, CEP International

   Water for All, might be an axiom in the water field. Providing Water for All involves the consideration of many variables including the achievement of the people’s well being through the increase of water and wastewater service coverage (health factor), the people’s willingness to pay (economic factor), the people’s capability to pay (financial factor), maintaining environmental quality, and minimization of cost. A primary consideration is finding the proper institutional approach to serve the poor located in the scattered areas of the large cities (Peri-Urban), and the poor located in the rural areas of Latin America. Traditionally, water has been considered a gift to all from mother nature. Furthermore, people feel it should be free å„ an assumed ïright.Í But, consistently safe, reliable drinking water, in sustainable quality and quantity to meet the demand implies a cost that someone has to pay. The criterion of quality and quantity sustainability is very important and indispensable to a satisfactory system. The acceptance of the concept "price elasticity of water demand," requires a market analysis in order to supply drinking water under economic (willingness to pay) and environmental restrictions, which have not been consistently considered in the past.

2. The Politics of Toilets in Rural India
   Katherine O’Reilly, Texas A&M

   Mainstream policy makers recognize women’s participation as a key element for the sustainability of water supply and sanitation projects. Women’s preferences about construction and siting of latrines are viewed as fundamental to improvements in public health. While there is an abundance of prescriptions for how women might be motivated to use latrines, and some evidence about the gendered impacts of latrine availability, little research takes up the politics of latrine construction and siting. Through a series of images from a Rajasthani (India) water supply and sanitation project, this paper addresses the connections between water, latrines and village women that Indian project staff sought to develop. It discusses the opportunities and contradictions that emerged over the course of the project due to latrines. Latrines played simultaneous roles in reinforcing and subverting social norms about gendered access to public and private spaces and movement within these spaces. The findings of this research apply broadly insofar as they suggest that latrine building and usage promotion are both technical and complexly gendered, political interventions.

3. Water Conflicts and Human Rights in Mexico
   Patricia Ávila, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

   The origin and history of water conflicts in Mexico can be explained by examining violations to the legal framework as well as by human rights abuses in the poorest and most vulnerable communities: peasants and indigenous areas in Mexico. Mega-development projects from the mining, real state or tourist industry, as well as from the construction of hydroelectric companies lead to limited water access, in quantity and quality, for the local population. They also contribute to the deterioration of the natural basins (rivers, springs, mangrove swamps, lagoons), which underpin the agricultural production and fisheries. Those projects help to exacerbate conditions of poverty and vulnerability of the population displacing them from their territories and creating greater exposure to risk due to water pollution and flooding.

4. Right to Water — An Idea Whose Time has Come
   Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis

   Dr. Varghese will trace the growing emergence of the idea of the right to water both in international venues such as the United Nations, as well as amongst civil society activists. She will point to the distinction between the human right to water and the broader right to water. The latter, she suggests, involves recognizing the ecosystem right to water.  In this way, it is more sensitive also to the needs of some of the most marginal sections of society.  It also involves recognizing our responsibility to the commons as the flip-side of right to water.

Panel: Water Management and Public Policy
1:00 – 3:30 PM (Chair: Thomas Garza, Director, Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies)

1. The Management of Inter-State Rivers as Demands Grow and Supplies Tighten: India, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh
   Ben Crow, University of California, Santa Cruz

   International cooperation over the major rivers in South Asia took a new turn with the signing in 1996 and 1997 of five innovative water, power and economic cooperation agreements. The innovations include four elements: (i) the transfer of some previously diplomatic questions into the sphere of the private economy, (ii) bringing third parties, other than governments, into the design and negotiation of cooperative projects, (iii) the principle of sharing costs and benefits, and (iv) taking steps toward multilateral discussion. However, political and implementation challenges have remained, and have been exacerbated by looming water shortages as economies grow and climate change occurs. This paper examines how recent innovations in diplomacy may be extended to address these challenges.

2. Water and Oasis: Social Meanings and State Administration of Water in the Egyptian Oasis of Siwa
   Tessa Farmer, Department of Anthropology

   This paper examines Egyptian state policies of water management and distribution as a central aspect of the increasing economic and administrative incorporation of Siwa Oasis into the state. To illustrate these dynamics, I will discuss three major water policy negotiations between Siwa and the state that have taken place over the last two decades: (1) the choice to temporarily solve a large agricultural drainage problem by damming the water in an expansive lake on the western edge of Siwa in the early 1990s; (2) the ongoing project to bring ’sweet’ (potable) water to houses through municipal pipe infrastructure; and (3) the future project of introducing a waste-water treatment facility to the Oasis.

3. Beyond Privatization: Urbanization and Community Efforts to Secure Clean Water in Southeast Asia
   James Spencer, University of Hawaii

   The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have set out ambitious targets for the provision of water in developing countries. This paper reviews the MDGs and suggests that an understanding of local level strategies for water provision in Southeast Asia may help policy makers and planners formulate policy and financing support mechanisms to help meet them. Moreover, these strategies are likely useful not only in Southeast Asia, but also in other regions of the developing world currently undergoing a rapid urban transition, such as sub-Saharan Africa

CLOSING REMARKS
3:30 PM

David Eaton, Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professor in Natural Resource Policy Studies, LBJ School of Public Affairs

Closing remarks followed by a reception at O’s Campus Café (adjacent to AVAYA Auditorium)