Kicking Off CAAS Week
The College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences is kicking off CAAS week with one of the most well-known water policy speakers in the world, Sandra Postel. Postel is the director of the Global Water Policy Project, co-creator of the Change the Course program and a widely recognized expert on world water systems and policy.
“Since I was a little kid I’ve known I wanted to do something on behalf of the earth, and I just found water to be my niche,” said Postel. “It was where I felt like I could make a contribution.”
And she has make a huge contribution. In her Change the Course program alone, Postel has gotten over 130,000 people to pledge to do more to leave a smaller water footprint. With every one of those pledges, the Change the Course program puts 1,000 gallons of water back into water-stressed rivers.
Water stress is when there is less water available than what is being used by humans. A lot of these areas can be found in the western United States. In fact, the average American uses 2,000 gallons of water per day, which includes personal hygiene, food consumption, food preparation and growing and landscaping, something Postel covered in the speech.
“We need to get a lot more creative in how we use the water we have,” Postel said. For Kelly Cope, Professor of Plant Soils and Climate at Utah State University and Extension’s Water Conservation Specialist, getting Postel to speak was just the way to do that.
“I think she had a number of things to say to get students thinking about how they live their lives and what they can do to reduce their water foot print,” Cope said.
Sandra Postel has done more than just talk about water and get people make pledges, though. Continuing her Change the Course program, Postel has gotten 12 corporate sponsors to help fund 12 different water restoration projects. In total they have restored more than 4 billion gallons of water to dried-up rivers, lakes and streams. One of these projects included restoring the Colorado River, in which 2.8 billion gallons of water was released from the San Clemente dam back into the river, which hadn’t had that much water for almost 10 years.
“What’s important to me is maximizing the value of water,” Postel said. “There is just such a huge opportunity to manage and conserve water that if the mindset around water could be changed, young people really make a difference.”
For any students looking for the opportunity, there will be several other events during CASS week they can attend.
shaniehoward214@gmail.com