Original subtitles

>> Water is everything.

The single most necessary element for any of us to sustain

and live and thrive is water.

>> I grew up in the Mid-West

and I have a father who'd actually worked for industry

and he used to sing me songs all the time.

Sometimes we'd be at the creeks and he just make up little songs

about see that lovely water, you know, trickling down the spring,

don't take it for granted, someday it might not be seen.

He promised me, in my lifetime

that we would see water become more valuable than oil.

He said because there will be so little of it.

I think that time is here.

>> It's the third week in a row without any water.

The army has been called

in to protect the capital's water pumps.

>> There's been a lot of talk about peak oil

when the production of oil reaches a peak

and then inevitably starts to decline.

Like peak oil, there is peak water.

We're reaching the limits of what we can use.

>> Once the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world,

the Aral Sea has been diminished

to about one tenth its original size.

>> The levels in Brazil's Amazon region reach record lows.

>> Spain is the grip of drought.

>> The drought ravaging China's southwest is being called the

worst --

>> -- the worst in 40 years.

>> Worst drought in 70 years.

>> -- The worst in the century.

>> Every region of the world is facing water problems

from China to the Middle East.

>> Half the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients

with water-borne diseases.

>> By 2025, half of the world's population will not have

adequate access to water.

I mean, it could not be more serious.

>> We've seen what happens in other parts of the world

and we just always think that never can be me.

It already is you.

>> Why so serious.

So raise your glass if you are wrong,

in all the right ways, all my underdogs

we will never, never be anything but loud.

>> I know it's a surprise to some people

that there is a crisis.

But the reality is in the United States,

we Americans are spoiled.

We have the biggest water footprint in the world.

>> Raise your glass.

Won't you come on and come on, and raise your glass.

Just come on and come on and raise your glass.

Won't you come on and come on and raise your glass.

>> When there's a water problem, the ripple effect is enormous.

Downstream, the water finds its way to you

and it definitely rocks the boat.

>> Oh shit, my glass is empty,

that sucks.

>> People love water, especially

when it's 118 degrees outside in the summer.

We sell virtual reality.

People come to Las Vegas to escape their reality.

And part of that is the cooling sensation of fountains,

it looks like prolific waste.

What they don't understand is

that the entire Las Vegas strip uses 3 percent

of this community's water supply

and is the single largest contributor this state's

economic product.

>> We see growth every time it snows in Buffalo

and water consumption all of a sudden began skyrocketing.

>> The amazing thing about Vegas is that it refuses

to let the lack of water constrain its growth.

Las Vegas has built housing developments

as large as San Francisco.

They never worried about water because right next door

to Vegas is Hoover Dam and behind Hoover Dam is Lake Mead,

the largest reservoir in the country.

>> Hoover Dam and its power plant serve water

and power needs in California, Nevada and Arizona.

>> When it was built, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were going

to save the west forever.

>> Colorado River waters that once destroyed man

and his property now serve him.

>> You don't have to be a scientist to understand

that if you take more water out of the bathtub than you put

in to the bathtub, the bathtub will eventually go empty.

The elevation has been dropping 10 feet every year.

Today, it's only about 40 percent full.

We're measuring 1086.

>> Las Vegas will lose our upper intake at elevation 1050.

1050 will be a wakeup call because at 1050,

Hoover Dam stops generating electricity.

>> You've only got 36 feet to go.

That's four years.

>> No one ever imagined that that was possible.

In my mind, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when.

>> In our original work, we looked at the situation

where the lakes go dry, actually dead pool.

By 2025, we could've reached that with the probability

about 50 percent and we were shocked.

>> When I think of water, I think of it

as giant milkshake glass.

And I think of each demand for water as a straw in a glass.

>> With the amount of water being taken

out of the Colorado system is maxed out right now,

and yet there's going to be less.

>> If we don't do anything,

Las Vegas is a dead city, period, full stop.

>> They are proposing to build a 3 billion dollar pipeline,

250 miles long to draw water out of one

of the last oases in Nevada.

>> This is a project out of sheer desperation

because there's nothing else available.

>> If I get the water line in here,

it'll just turn into a dust bowl.

>> If you haven't got any water, you're done.

If they take that, where do I go?

I'm done. And my kids are done.

>> This is Goliath Water.

He's from Southern Nevada and he wants your water.

>> The very people you wouldn't hurt

if they were your neighbors, you'll fight to the death

over a glass of water.

>> This project may succeed over my dead body.

>> Can you afford not to build it.

Are you willing to put your family at risk?

That's what it gets down to.

>> This pipeline.

It's going to be built, isn't it?

>> There is no option.

So am I supposed to sit here and say,

"The fate of 2 million people doesn't matter to me,

they're just going to have to live

with whatever Mother Nature decides to dole out."

That is about as irresponsible a statement

as I've ever heard someone come up with.

>> The way the city was developed,

the way it was planned,

politicians just let people build whatever the heck

they wanted.

>> If you want to say it should never have happened, well,

the cows have left the barn.

>> If Las Vegas is going to keep growing, they'll take this water

and then they'll still run out of water.

>> It's easy to point the finger at Vegas.

But when you look at the future of growth

in water, we are all Vegas.

>> When we get hit, Phoenix gets hit, and Los Angeles gets hit.

>> The mighty Rio Grande, now nothing more than a dirt road.

>> People in Atlanta are actually praying for rain.

>> Lake Superior is said to be disappearing.

>> Thirty-six US states face water shortages

in the next three years.

>> Junior, it's time for you to visit your mother earth.

>> Oh pop, let me stay here with you.

>> When we think of water, we think of it as the air.

Infinite and inexhaustible.

>> This is the cycle of water by which all life survives.

>> All the water there ever was still is.

We are drinking the same water that the dinosaurs drank.

So how can it possibly be a problem with the water supply?

>> Turn the faucet and there is water

at any hour of the day or night.

>> The resource is renewable.

That's the beauty of the hydrologic cycle.

But when you use such quantities that it exceeds the capacity

of the system to renew itself, then you have a problem.

>> You know, I used to think

that it might be impossible to run out of water.

There's a lot of water on the earth.

But less than 1 percent is freshwater that's available

to drink.

There are places that could actually run out of water

and California is one of them.

When I would drive through the Central Valley,

I'd see all these signs about water.

That's actually how I get interested

in studying the valley was by seeing those signs

and then trying to understand what was going on.

I really had no idea that I was opening such a Pandora's Box.

>> For California's valley, a good supply of water all

through the year has changed a worthless desert

into productive farmland.

>> Back in the '30s, the government turned

on the tap for the farmers.

The Central Valley produces about 25 percent

of the food consumed in the United States.

We now have about 7 million irrigated acres.

We're stretching a limited resource to its limits.

It really is a giant can of worms.

>> These almonds are being removed

because of the lack of water.

I had to walk away, yeah.

I knew it was coming,

but I couldn't take the hardship to watch, yeah.

Certainly, it's heartbreaking.

When I was out here putting the trees in the ground 23 years ago

and now we've had the rug pulled up from under us.

>> Some people say, "This is the first instance of people

in the United States turning on the tap and not getting water."

>> West Valley farmers will not get any federal water

this season.

>> That decision is a result of less water pumping

to protect fish populations in Northern California.

>> The Central Valley

of California was once considered the bread basket

of America.

But now, farms all over that region have been allowed

to dry up.

Now why? Because of a two-inch minnow

on the endangered species list.

>> Where I come from, we call that bait.

>> Somebody has got to turn the water back on --

>> Either that or put us on the endangered species list.

You're going to get your vegetables from China

and I understand they made great baby milk formula.

>> By the way, be sure to check

out Sean Hannity's new children's book, One Fish,

Two Fish, Red Fish, boo!

Boo fish.

>> It's been convenient for certain politicians to say,

"Look, we're hurting people.

Why should we protect this little fish

at the expense of people?"

But that's wrong.

The Delta smelt is a small insignificant little fish.

But it's not insignificant

if you realize the delta smelt is just a symbol

of a much bigger problem.

It's a symbol of an ecosystem that's collapsing.

>> The water for the Central Valley comes from the Sierras.

It ends up in the Bay Delta.

>> This is the greatest estuary on the West Coast

and we've allowed it to crash.

All of the fish, it's not only the salmon,

it's not only the Delta smelt, it's going to impact everything.

It's going to impact the people.

The last two seasons, we didn't have any salmon

fishing whatsoever.

You know, we still sell fish but we bring it

in from someplace else.

We could see the absolute demise of salmon here in California.

We fishermen have to speak up.

We've become politicians and activists.

>> No water for the farmers because of this fish.

>> Boo!

>> Yeah, that fish.

>> California in many ways is the epitome

of the global water problem.

>> We need water!

We need water!

>> We love water!

>> The truth is there's not enough water

to do everything everybody wants.

>> Farmers use most of the water.

That's about 80 percent in most states.

In some western states, it's as high as 90 percent.

So when we want to talk about the future of water,

we have to talk about farm use.

>> The people that have taken the water away

from us have told us, "Well, your solution is

to turn to groundwater."

So I ask them, "Is it going to be on your watch that we now dry

up all the groundwater source in the San Joaquin Valley?"

Hard decisions, aren't they?

>> The water that gets deep into the ground stores

up as a subterranean treasure.

>> Farmers have had their surface water cut way, way back.

And so, the logical thing to do then is to pump groundwater.

>> All around the United Sates, the water table

in the aquifers is going down and it took in many places,

thousands of years for this water to accumulate

in the aquifers and yet,

we're going through it in mere decades.

>> For many years, I've been working

with a satellite called GRACE.

If you are looking at an area that's had a big mass change,

say from groundwater depletion, GRACE can see

that because the mass change is so big

that it's actually sensed by the satellites.

We can see a significant depletion in California.

We've been keeping a close eye on the Central Valley.

If we go back to 1998, the aquifer has lost about one

and a half times the volume of Lake Mead.

That's a huge amount of water.

>> How much is left in the aquifer?

>> Let me see how I can sugarcoat this.

You know, I ran some back of the envelop numbers looking

at how long it would take at those pumping rates

for the aquifer to be depleted.

And I got a number between say, 60 and 100 years.

So at the low end, 60 years, that's frightening.

I think California is in trouble.

The combination of climate change growth

and groundwater depletion spells a train wreck.

>> Well, if you had to pick one place in the United States,

it's really right in the crosshairs,

it's got to be Southern California.

What would happen if we suddenly didn't have the water?

That's when people will finally say, "Oh my god,

we have a water problem.

Build new dams, do this, do that."

Too late.

>> We need to start planning for the future and it's a future

in which we're not going to have a huge snow pack in the Sierras

or the Rocky Mountains.

It's just -- it's not going to be there.

>> If you told your parents that by the end of the 21st century,

there would be no snow in California,

do you think they'd believe you?

This is the future.

Okay, this is the water --

>> They'll see it happen.

They'll experience it.

That's a very difficult thing for people to grasp.

It's been like watching a Polaroid develop truly.

It's like an, "oh my god moment" and you realize,

I can't believe this is happening and I need

to tell somebody about it.

California faces a water crisis of potentially epic proportions.

You know, how we respond today will define who we are tomorrow.

>> Need additional storage.

I mean, they've built reservoirs for a reason.

Shasta, Hoover.

>> You owe the bank and the county taxes.

You're going to try to farm as much as you can.

>> They're not going to make more water.

The only solution to this thing is conservation.

>> I agree.

We should look into conservation,

but that's not going to yield or have any effect

on our groundwater shortage.

>> I didn't want to give into this.

But your arguments about conservation

and efficiency are just wrong.

And if you're right, the conservation

and efficiency isn't going to get us anything.

And if I'm right, there's not a lot of new supply out there.

Then what are we left with?

Take land out of production,

I don't know anyone who wants that.

>> Your arguments just don't make any sense.

You have to live in the valley,

you have to understand the management of water here.

>> Well, that's a bad management.

And you're one of the managers.

I'm sorry.

>> What I'm telling you is 1.2

>> That whole system --

>> And they wanted to make clearly the statement

that we do face a crisis now of epic proportions.

And I said that.

And I'm not sure that it really resonated

which to me is a little startling.

>> Whether we talk about water --

>> We need a plan and we don't have one.

And it is complex.

We're screwed, yeah.

>> Australia is much like California in many ways.

It has a very large agricultural community that uses most

of the water that humans in Australia use.

The one thing that Australia has had

that California has not had is nearly a decade

of incredibly severe drought.

>> We're seeing it as a whole host

of bizarre problems that are cropping up.

>> Australians in Sydney woke up this morning

to find the skies glowing red.

>> The inland parts are so dry.

It picked up vast quantities of topsoil.

>> There is a plague ravaging the Australian outback.

Drought is driving the animals into towns.

>> Crews in Australia battling the deadliest wildfires

in the country's history right now.

>> The California of tomorrow was the Australia of today.

They're having to dramatically

and radically rethink agriculture.

>> There was actually nothing that grew.

You put the crop in, and you had nothing but dust.

I was at a guy's house once,

the stock was the worst they've ever seen.

In my opinion, some of these cattle might have

to be put down.

How would you cope with that?

He said, he will kill himself.

He told me straight out, "I'll kill myself."

>> I go to farms in a couple of shires

and ask them how they're going.

Well over here where are you going today,

they haven't hit any water allocation for five years.

>> So we'll have to buy in a lot of food

because we can't grow it ourselves with no water.

So the milk price doesn't cover the cost of production.

>> You must have had enormous stress on your families

and yourself going through all this

with no water and --

>> That's an understatement.

>> That would be an understatement.

>> Yeah. That's an understatement.

>> It's our cows.

They're my babies.

There is no future here because of the control of the water.

They are taking it away from the farmers.

>> When you go to two or three houses

and you hear the same story about stress, anxiety, debt.

>> I would never know what I was coming home to.

>> You had a fear of that?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Be wondering about it the whole time.

>> Yeah.

>> I'd better just make sure he was still alive

and that sort of thing.

>> Yeah. In the area that I work,

there has been eight people that have taken their own life.

One was fairly recent where I've done all the referrals

that I could and he had his medication, there's nothing

that I know or that anybody that I work with could have put

in place more than what it was.

And he took his own life last September.

And the way that I cope with that is

through my family and my horses.

All day I face the barren waste

without the taste of water.

Cool clear water.

>> Here's the burning question, do you believe what's going

on in the last few years is climate change?

>> Look. I think the climate has constantly changed.

I don't think there's been any short-term thing that's made

a difference.

>> Personal opinion, climates change all the time don't they,

Ivan?

>> We're hoping that's a severely dry cycle in Australia

and not climate change, because if it is climate change,

this part of Australia is in deep shit.

>> In the scientific community, we're starting

to think it's not drought, it's really part of climate change.

Australia is way past what many people consider

to be the carrying capacity in terms

of how much water there is.

They're way past it.

>> We're having an auction which we're selling

around about 170 head of their cows that's starting

to wind the farm down.

>> We're seeing good friends go through the same issues.

So we know what -- got a bit of an inkling

of what we're headed for.

>> What would be the hardest thing for you two to see today?

>> I suppose a farm with no black and white cows on it.

Anyway --

>> All day I face a barren waste

without the taste of water.

Cool, water.

Old Dan and I, with throats burnt dry

and souls that cry for water.

Cool, clear water.

>> The whole nature of the water cycle is changing driven

by changing climate.

In our new study, we found that the water cycle is intensified.

That truly means a much more stormy future

in many parts of the world.

And then other regions will have more extreme droughts.

These are first of their kind observations.

There have been many studies that suggested

that this may be happening in the future

and our research has shown this is actually happening right now.

Will the water cycle spin out of control?

It's hard in the United States to fathom the scope

of the potential change.

And the scope is huge.

>> These current findings as this is going

to get people's attention.

>> I don't think so.

We think that we have this right to use as much water

as we can get our hands on.

There aren't many things that my neighbors do

that drive me crazy.

And one of the biggest is over-watering the yard.

In arid and sub-arid regions, watering the lawn may account

for 50 to 75 percent of household water use.

We're talking about three times the volume of Lake Mead just

to water the grass every year.

>> The biggest mistake in thinking

about water has always been thinking about it

as disconnected from everything else.

>> There are hidden costs of water

in almost every product we use.

>> In most households, the single largest user

of water is the toilet.

Now, this is a high efficiency toilet.

It uses 1.2 gallons every time you flush it.

There I've just wasted 1.2 gallons.

The toilets in many people's homes still use 6 gallons.

That's 6 billion gallons a day that we use merely

to flush away human waste.

>> The plan itself is an amazing process

where you can actually take dirty, filthy, disgusting water

and make it clean so it's fishable and swimmable

in the area around New York.

Understanding waste water is just one step

in understanding everything about your environment.

>> All this is like pretty Egyptian technology.

This is just the wheel moving up and down

with a simple rake embedding the tides in between the spaces

and clearing the debris away.

The debris that comes in is the debris that comes

from our toilets, our sinks, our bathrooms,

and also from the street.

As emerging things change, they wind up in the waste stream

that we see it here up until maybe eight years ago or so,

we very rarely saw a bottled water, it's very prevalent now,

the spirit of the times.

I'm about to open up one of the four doors that allow you

to see what goes on here.

You can see the condoms floating on the top of the surface.

It is what it is.

If 100 pounds of waste product comes in with all that water,

I have to remove 85 pounds of it

and the 15 pounds remaining is legally allowed to go

into the receiving water.

>> The treatment sewage is a very simple biological process

in which we're just speeding up nature.

There's a lot of talk nowadays about chemicals coming

in to the systems and antibiotics

that are coming in to the systems.

And those things were not --

never meant to be treated

in a domestic waste water treatment plant.

Right now, they cannot possibly deal with the myriad

of chemicals that are out there.

>> The traditional pollution scenario was a large industrial

pipe sticking out of the side of a factory spewing brown gunk

into the pristine waters

and seeing the fish and the ducks die.

Then there were a few astonishing examples

of water pollution.

The Cuyahoga River in Ohio burst into flames in 1969.

>> It was just so bizarre.

How can water catch fire?

>> This case made national headlines

and galvanized the environmental movement.

>> People start pollution.

People can stop it.

>> The net result of that was the foundation

of the Environmental Protection Agency,

the signing of the Clean Water Act

and the Safe Drinking Water Act in the early '70s.

It was originally a very strong law.

But times have changed.

Pollution in America is increasing rather

than decreasing.

In the five years between 2004 and 2009,

the Clean Water Act was violated a half a million times.

The old pollution was a river on fire.

The new pollution is something you can't even see.

>> Whether it's birth control pills,

erectile dysfunction medicines, hormone supplements,

our bodies absorb some of them.

We excrete the rest of the chemicals, we flush them away,

they go to the treatment plant and they are not removed.

>> Consider vast Lake Mead.

Tests have found trace levels of birth control,

steroids, narcotics, and more.

>> The U.S. is the leading producer

of these new contaminants.

We don't know how harmful these chemicals are.

And there are more added all the time.

The EPA approves 1 to 2,000 chemicals a year.

>> The more difficult

and dangerous ones are industrial contaminants.

These are the chemicals

that were the subject of Erin Brockovich.

>> Counselors.

>> The scene where -- you know, so funny to say Ed Masry and I,

but Albert Finney and Julia, are on one side of the table

and PG&E's defense attorneys were

on the other and Julia says --

>> "By the way, we had that water brought

in special for you folks.

It came from a well in Hinkley."

>> Why would you pick up and knowingly drink a glass

of contaminated water?

You wouldn't.

I just think that said so much.

That was my wakeup call in Hinkley.

I would see the absence of wildlife, I would listen

to these people's accounts

of what was happening to their health.

And I thought, what is happening here?

What's the common denominator that is affecting all of this?

And I was like, "Uh, water."

And remember way back when I began my work out there in 1991

that it was an isolated incident.

And it is far from anything isolated.

For 20 years, I'm down on the ground.

And we've got these communities,

maybe they've noted too many children with cancer,

the animals that are dying with tumors

and we don't know what it is, you ask for their people here

in this room that may have cancer or leukemias.

>> Can I see a show of hands?

Oh my, can you keep your hands up?

>> People started looking around the room

and I'm like, you have cancer.

I didn't know you have that cancer.

Your child has that cancer?

Well, my child has that cancer.

So that is what's starting to really rattle me.

>> A developing story out of Midland this evening,

high profile environmental activist, Erin Brockovich is

in town tonight with a toxic contaminated water problem.

>> Concerned residents called in Brockovich, who was a consultant

for two environmental law firms to investigate.

>> A year ago, one of the community members came to me.

Her granddaughter was having these very strange skin rashes

and sent me a picture of a swimming pool that was green.

Oh yeah. Definitely greener.

And I was just immediately -- I'm like, "Uh-oh,

I have a feeling I know what this is,

the hexavalent chromium."

The reason I had to contact her is because we went

through our local government.

I bet I wrote over a thousand letters to all

of our congressmen and legisla -- everybody.

They've just failed us.

>> I emailed Erin Brockovich

and she emailed me back in 30 minutes.

I hadn't even seen the movie Erin Brockovich.

I had never seen it until after I met Erin,

then I watched the movie.

>> Hexavalent chromium.

It's poisonous.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh my gosh, the biggest scene was when she's talking

to the lady and she looks out there

and her kids are playing in the pool.

>> Ashley, Jenna, get out of the pool.

>> How come?

>> That's how I felt when I realized

that I had been putting my grandkids in toxic water

in that swimming pool.

It was very, very emotional for me.

My grandkids all said, "The pool hurts us."

And I didn't even put it together.

>> Here is Janet now and --

>> There were very high numbers of hexavalent chromium.

Higher than anything I've ever seen in Hinkley.

>> You can't go on city water?

>> Well, if they're telling us there's no water for us.

>> No water for you.

>> Yeah.

>> And -- just drink the poisons.

>> "Not my problem."

>> This is part of the 40 million Americans are still

on their own well water.

>> Forty million?

>> Yeah.

>> People just fall off the grid.

>> One of the big loopholes in American water law is

for so-called domestic wells.

Many of these are never tested for chemicals.

>> The state acted pretty quickly,

they got filtration systems on there.

But then that's kind of where it ends.

>> Honestly, when I got the letter from the state,

I really thought, you know, it said my water was safe

for drinking so we haven't really stopped.

I mean, we bathe, we take showers,

we -- I mean, we have to.

This is where we live.

>> Our tests showed dangerously high levels

of hexavalent chromium.

That poor guy could have gone years.

It could have been years that he'd consume this water.

The chemical concentration of chromium-6 here

in Midland is the largest I've ever seen anywhere.

The concentrations are just extreme.

>> My house is right here where it's 319.

Right now, we're at 818.

But right here, where Angie died, it was 1,100 last year.

Angie lives right next door to ground zero.

She passed away three weeks ago from lupus

which I've got the forerunner to lupus now.

>> Are you feeling okay?

>> That's my -- my fear is not living long enough to take care

of everybody out here and especially my grandkids.

>> So what their last resort is some litigation.

How long is that going to take?

Fifteen, 20 years?

>> You know, I just get so aggravated

because they're not listening, they're not caring,

and they're not even trying to find who did it.

>> There was this out here that you've got --

>> This is the pits.

We believe all the oil field companies dumped in that pit.

>> Through our investigative work,

we actually believe it's a company,

Schlumberger just up the road here.

>> This particular Schlumberger facility is the mother ship.

Schlumberger's official statement is

that they never used hexavalent chromium

and the EPA's initial report never identified the source.

Through further investigation, we will get to the bottom of it.

What makes it so frustrating is that you can't find out what any

of the chemicals are that are being deployed

out into the environment under something referred

to as the Halliburton Loophole.

The Halliburton Loophole was pushed

through by then Vice President Cheney.

Cheney exempted all of the oil and gas fracking companies

from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

It's insanity.

>> Whoa, it's good to be in Midland, Texas.

I'm calling to George W. Bush is thinking

right now,

is the Texas airspace.

>> Midland, Texas is one of North America's most aggressive

in oil and gas field development.

And it is the childhood home of George Bush.

People don't usually poison their own neighborhoods.

What's the old saying is, "You don't shit where you eat."

>> We live about a block and a half west

of the contaminated area.

Are we really safe?

>> What can we do to protect ourselves now?

>> Are we still going

to be declared a Superfund in your opinion?

>> They can come in and issue you a Superfund status,

but that ain't going to stop anything.

This agency is broke.

>> They don't have any money?

>> Oh, EPA is broke.

They got nothing.

Nothing. Nothing.

They have 1,200 Superfund sites now they can't do anything with.

I'm telling you, Superman is not coming.

>> People still believe that that arm

of government is going to come save us.

And the look on their face even kind of startled me.

>> I wish that I could come here tonight

and tell you it's going to be okay.

But that's not what's going to happen

and I don't want to lie to you.

>> We moved here from Mesa.

I've done hair there for years and I do hair here.

I have more clients here with cancer,

I have shaved more heads here in three years

than I ever did there.

And I'm just concerned about our own children are waking

up with nosebleeds.

>> I don't think I need to tell you nor do I want

to scare you how carcinogenic hexavalent chromium is.

>> You know, when we first saw the numbers, I have to tell you,

some people I work with, we looked at each other

and it was -- they're walking dead.

And at that point for me, it gets really hard

to be a cheerleader and always try

to find some hope in it for them.

>> If you stay together and you use your voice

and you push back, you will make some progress.

At least you know the truth.

>> We the community, we want water.

That's all we want, is good, potable water.

Something when we turn on the faucet and we know it's okay

to brush our teeth with it.

>> Some of these chemicals can take

up to 100 years to get rid of.

And what are we supposed to do in the interim?

I mean, there's this vast world underneath our feet

that we don't see.

Out of sight, out of mind, we don't see it, we don't know

where it goes, and therefore, we don't pay attention.

>> I've been fascinated by amphibians

for as long as I can remember.

So as a child, I was fascinated by metamorphosis,

watching tadpoles turn into frogs.

Then I ended up at Harvard where I majored in biology.

And I ended up in a laboratory there where I focused

on amphibian development.

My work was getting fairly well-known.

Fork in the road, should we take it?

Twelve years ago, I've never heard of atrazine.

Atrazine is an herbicide or a weed killer.

Until a few years ago,

it was the number one selling agricultural pesticide

in the world.

I was approached by the manufacturer to examine whether

or not atrazine was an endocrine disruptor in amphibians.

The term endocrine disruptor refers to anything

that would interfere with the hormone's action.

And we found that the atrazine-exposed animals weren't

making testosterone properly.

In some cases, the atrazine makes them make enough estrogen

that they actually turn into females.

These are two genetic males that were exposed to atrazine

that actually developed into females.

So as you can see, the males are smaller but now genetically,

right, these are all males.

The guy on top is a male,

and that's his brother that he's on top of.

It's a hard thing to describe.

What does this have to do with people?

Why do we care?

Frogs and fish which live in the contaminated water,

they're much more sensitive as they're going

through these developmental stages.

On the other hand, a human fetus is inside an amniotic sac filled

with water, that's going through critical developmental stages

where hormones are important.

The same estrogen for example that makes my frogs turn

into hermaphrodites, that same estrogen is important

in breast cancer.

When people think of science, you know, they think of CSI.

In field work, you really have to sort

through all these potential suspects.

I think there's a line from a lot of the guys in CSI,

how do you find the answer?

>> Follow the evidence even if we don't like where it takes us.

>> And that's really what we're doing is in this case,

following the atrazine.

Atrazine is the most common pesticide contaminant

of drinking water, groundwater.

And there're a couple of studies came out showing

that atrazine is associated with breast cancer

and birth defects in humans.

There's a factory where Syngenta produces atrazine.

The prostate cancer in their workers is 8.4 times higher.

The U.S. Geological Survey says they can detect it

in the rainwater in Minnesota

from when they're applying it in Kansas.

>> I'm the principle scientist here

at Syngenta Crop Protection.

On the occasions where atrazine is found

in water it's extremely low in the part per billion range.

>> Starting at 0.1 parts per billion,

we started getting these hermaphrodites.

And that's an incredible number, 0.1 parts per billion.

The drinking water standard for atrazine is 3 parts per billion.

That's 30 times higher than we know is biologically harmful

in amphibians and in fish.

That's an average over the year.

So at that season when it's applied,

it's going to be much higher than that

and those data now coming to light especially in the Midwest

where most of the atrazine is used.

>> Several Southern Illinois water districts have joined a

lawsuit against an herbicide maker.

And they claim the chemical atrazine is contaminating their

water supply.

>> Water utilities in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas,

and Iowa are suing Syngenta to recover the cost

and filtering out atrazine.

>> The company that makes atrazine,

they're based out of Switzerland.

That's a funny thing because atrazine is effectively banned

in Europe.

In Europe, they utilize something called the

precautionary principle which says that if there is any data

that suggest that something is harmful, the manufacturer has

to prove that it's safe or it's off the market.

So you're guilty until proven innocent.

In the U.S., it's the opposite,

you're innocent until proven guilty.

So the company is charged with proving

that their compound is bad, otherwise,

it stays on the market.

>> These companies, they're really the only ones

with the money to pay for all of the scientific studies

that cost millions and millions of dollars to do.

More often than not, industry are self-regulating.

>> The goal here is to keep your product

on the market as long as possible.

So if you don't look for a problem,

you won't find a problem,

and you can continue selling your product.

There's been some cases

where test results are thrown away, set aside.

>> You know, I had lots of friends

who would say, "Well, be careful."

And I said, "What do I have to be careful about?"

And I was a bit surprised when the company, their response was,

"Well, let's make it go away."

And then I sort of thought, you know, this is not the kind

of person that I want to be that this is not the sense

of social responsibility that my parents,

you know, had taught me.

It was Albert Einstein who said, "Those who have the privilege

to know have the duty to act."

I have actively advocated for banning atrazine.

And that's two more ovaries.

It's not normal.

There're multiple sites

where you can sign petitions to stop the use of atrazine.

>> The pesticide industry, it's us versus them.

What you do is who's ever attacking you, you try

and destroy their credibility.

>> They followed me around to meetings, they disrupt lectures

that I'm giving, they once filed a false claim

that I was harassing endangered species with my research,

and I had armed guys come and take me

out of my classroom to arrest me.

Atrazine is used on corn.

And corn is our number one product.

You're not going to mess with corn.

It's about corn, it's about the ethanol lobby,

it's the big guys.

The first EPA hearing, I was the only academic there presenting

data for atrazine that wasn't paid by Syngenta.

You know, one of the biggest disillusionments I've had

in this whole thing is with the EPA.

>> Based on the Toxic Substances Control Act, since 1976,

EPA has issued regulations

to control only five existing chemicals determined

to present an unreasonable risk.

That is five out of almost 80,000 existing chemicals.

A 2005 study found 287 different chemicals

in the cord blood of 10 newborn babies.

Our kids are getting steady infusions

of industrial chemicals before we even give them solid food.

I have one simple message and that is that EPA is back

on the job for the American people

to protect human --

>> We got a new head of EPA.

And one of the first things he announced was, "We're going

to reopen up this atrazine thing."

>> The EPA examined well over 6000 studies

and they reregistered atrazine in 2006.

So we really don't think this is necessary.

>> Atrazine is the poster child for what needs to be done

to reorganize how the EPA evaluates the safety

of chemicals.

>> I've recently been joined by 39 scientists from 12 countries.

That data is stacking up, and I would suggest

that it's time for action.

>> You're talking about two

and a half billion dollar to growers

who ultimately pays the price

for higher cost that growers have.

>> There are times when I just think, "Geez I'm tired."

It's going to be interesting to see how the EPA responds

to this last set of reviews.

I'm hopeful and I would like to be optimistic.

But it's a tough call.

>> This new EPA?

Is there a new -- Is there a new EPA?

I don't see a new agency.

I wish them luck because they've got a hell

of a task in front of them.

And they're understaffed,

they are overburdened, and they're broke.

There's many highly qualified awesome human beings

within these agencies that want to do the right things.

But their hands are tied.

>> If EPA has adequate data and wants to protect the public

against known risk, the law creates obstacles

to quick and effective action.

>> We have to stop looking to them for the answers

because I don't know that they have them.

>> Hinkley, California.

After the worldwide attention that came with a Hollywood film,

people who live here thought

that their problems would have ended a long time ago.

It turns out those toxic chemicals have been spreading

over time.

>> I feel like Groundhog's Day.

This huge giant utility company.

You're still not telling the truth.

You're still poisoning people, what do you want me to say?

They're pathetic.

You set a standard there's no one around to enforce it.

You can just get away with murder.

>> We've got to shake ourselves out of this false sense

of security and we're all going to go have

to roll our sleeves up.

>> I'm a family farmer, grandmother, mother, wife,

water sentinel for the Michigan Sierra Club.

Most people have the bucolic vision of a small world farm.

When the CAFOs came in,

we've seen a deterioration of the communities.

>> CAFO stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.

It's generally defined as a large, industrial farm

that has 700 or more cows.

Where so much manure is produced that the only way for them

to get rid of it is to store it in giant lagoons then

to spread it on fields in a liquid form.

>> Within a 10-mile radius here, we have over 60 lagoons

that hold over 400 million gallons of waste.

>> Mama, get you plate?

What do you want?

>> We're really concerned about health issues with as young

as our granddaughter is.

>> My granddaughter could never play in the creeks

and the streams because of what was happening.

I'm just a country girl and I've taught myself

to do water sampling.

You have your antibiotics that they give

to the animals, growth hormones, chemicals.

And now, you've got a toxic waste

that they're spreading untreated on land.

We have some bad stuff here.

>> Yeah, we sure do.

>> I have lots of names.

The white haired witch, the pooper razzi,

shit huggers, a lot I can't say.

The.

>> Yes, they there are.

>> Here they come.

They're to the illegal lagoon.

He's dumping right now.

Look at him shoot it out.

>> In Michigan, a lot of the problems

that we've had deal with the CAFOs

that have dairy cows at them.

And the reason for that is just simply the amount of waste

that the cow generates, 150 pounds of manure every day.

>> One cow would equal 23 humans for the same amount of waste.

>> So, when you're talking about a dairy that has 5 or 6000 cows

on it, you're really talking the amount of waste being produced

in a day that a fairly large site city would be producing.

>> You know, it reminds you of the Jim Carrey movie

where you want to say, "Stop breaking the law, asshole."

>> She's someone that, you know,

everyone in our department knows quite well.

And I mean, she's often the first one

out there with a camera.

We just can't be out here every day,

we don't have the resources to do it.

>> Okay, so the first we're passing is.

I have never seen them that full, unbelievable.

>> You can see where the dead trees are in the corner.

With that overflow into the corner; the lagoon is leaking.

>> Her work has come directly

to the table based on what we've gotten.

We have reason to deny this permit now.

>> The emissions coming of, it's putrid.

I have lost a third of my lung capacity from my work.

>> Once the damage has occurred,

there isn't anything that's going to restore you

to a normal state of health.

So, I think avoidance is the key.

>> Okay.

>> The illness is associated with the bacteria

from CAFOs can be deadly.

Ecoli 0157, there is no medical treatment for that.

>> We've seen readings as high as seven

and a half million Ecoli.

>> When people think, "Well, it's just one stream, you know,

it's not that big of a deal."

All of the waterways in Michigan are connected in one way

or another through surface waters or through ground water.

It's really all one big lake in a sense.

>> Well, it's a different kind of trouble for the waters

of Lake Erie right now, algae.

>> Some blooms may be in the city's drinking water.

>> The EPA is warning people

to limit their contact with the water.

But those warnings didn't seem

to worry many people at the beach today.

>> It's only a matter of time before we have a catastrophe

because of all of the runoff

that is going in to our waterways.

>> A lot of people have gotten so frustrated.

They've moved.

They've sold.

They've given up.

>> One they had seen me out monitoring,

I started getting harassment and intimidation.

Dead animals left in my mailbox, on my front porch and my car.

The most recent was my two-year-old granddaughter's

bedroom window was shot out.

She was sleeping in her bed when it happened.

If you're going to be a cowardly enough to hurt a child,

then we really need to look at this issue much harder

because people are at risk.

Watch your step.

We try and get on site and off the site within two minutes.

>> You're McGyver.

>> Here.

>> The McGyver of water testing.

>> We're just middle-aged women that, you know,

sensible shoes are not the answer no more.

It's not bad, it's pretty warm.

>> It isn't too bad, is it?

>> The water is cold.

>> It's warm.

>> It's not one lake that's contaminated,

it's 30, it's 300, it's 3000.

Every single state has emailed me with some sort of problem.

25,000 inquiries in a month to the point

where I've actually started to create a map.

And what's scaring us is we still have 700 more entries

to imput.

So, we're able to start connecting those dots

to get some kind of -- there's just

so many accounts of contamination.

>> You got a fish kill here on the Neuse River.

We've lost over a billion fish.

Today, we're burying them on the beach with bulldozers.

>> We would take a glass of water out of the tap,

smell like diesel fuel.

My life is over without my water.

>> Six of our neighbors within a 10-house span have brain tumors

and half of them died.

It was like, "Oh my gosh, it's in the water.

We got to get the kids out of here, you know,

we've got to do something."

>> So, all of a sudden, it's like, "I can't just talk to you

about Hinkley,"because"Oh, it makes me think of what's going

on in Arizona, and Alabama, and Washington, and Texas,"

because it's happening everywhere.

So, I just feel like this is my contribution to take

in the information and doing something with it.

In hopes that I can get it somewhere or a message out

and do something about it.

>> You're reading too many times

and then you just start getting antsy.

>> Okay. I am antsy.

>> You'll be fine.

So, what do you think after all these years and six --

>> Are you going to make some comment about me being 50 again?

>> Yeah, there you go.

You are an old hag.

You've been hanging around Hinkley too much.

I think chromium-6 causes wrinkles.

>> You're such an ass.

You know what, Bob, I could still kick your ass.

>> Absolutely.

>> These communities are sending out an SOS.

Yet the system for investigating, responding

and reporting these concerns is inadequate.

>> Could I -- could somebody hold up that map?

It's unbelievable to me that they would call you,

rather than call the EPA or the NIH.

>> These people have said,

"We just don't know where else to go."

>> It's a daunting process.

But just burying your head

in the sand isn't little work anymore.

And for everybody else who's not out there, Mr. Policymaker,

you better come out here and take a look

at what's really going on.

So, don't get lost in your bubble.

Don't get stuck up there in your ivory tower and think

that the world out here doesn't exist

around you because it does.

And it's happening.

So, see now you pissed me off.

Everywhere I go, it's a huge question.

What am I supposed to drink?

We can't survive on Diet Coke.

>> When I'm in New York, I typically drink bottled water.

>> I try to buy bottled water because it just tastes cleaner.

>> I have some friends who only drink bottled water.

They keep it in their fridge.

They would never touch tap water.

They think it's disgusting.

>> When I was growing up in New York City,

we never drank bottled water.

There was no bottled water.

Today, the United States is the largest consumer

of bottled water in the world.

We're just increasingly fearful of what comes out of our tap.

That's a problem.

But the solution is not to drink bottled water.

>> I'd say bottled water is probably regulated more

frequently just because they have to sell it.

And so, obviously it has to go through a ton of tests.

>> Bottled water's regulated not by the U.S. EPA

which regulates our tap water.

But it's regulated as a food product by the Food

and Drug Administration.

The testing is done

by the bottled water companies themselves,

it's not as frequent.

I had to file some Freedom of Information Act request

and it turns out there have been more than a hundred cases

of bottled water recalls that we know about for things

like Coliform bacteria, sanitizer, mold,

glass particles, crickets or cricket parts.

There's been just an incredible marketing campaign

that convinces us that buying bottled water is a smart

and rational thing to do rather than an act of irrationality.

You buy Arctic Spring water and it turns out it doesn't come

from anywhere near the Arctic.

Forty five percent of the water sold

in the U.S. originates as tap water.

We built an incredible tap water system in this country and

yet we've forgotten what it used to be like.

In New York City, tens of thousands

of people were dying wave after wave of cholera.

We got rid of water-related diseases

when the U.S. built a high quality municipal water system.

If we were to abandon that system, what's the rest

of the world going to do?

They're going to think, "All right, well,

we'll just make bottled water too.

And the poorest people are going to end

up drinking contaminated water."

>> There's water in the new stadium

in concession stand coolers stacked against the wall,

but on the walls outside the restrooms, none.

Under 2001 Code, bottled water can take the place

of drinking fountains,

that's what you UCF will do on Saturday.

>> Their first game was a hot day.

They ran out of bottled water halfway through the game.

>> A dozen and a half taken to the hospital.

UCS new football stadium ran out of drinking water.

>> It's a way to convert a public resource

into a private good and a commodity.

The answer has got to be high quality safe water for everyone.

There are billion people without access to safe drinking water.

One of the most poignant images is the woman lugging very heavy

bottles of water back to their homes.

While here in the United States,

we have suburban shoppers lugging cases of water back

to a home that has perfectly potable water in it.

There are a lot of old decaying pipes out there,

we need to upgrade the entire infrastructure and get rid

of the new contaminants that we're finding.

And in the end, what we spend would be far less

than what we would spend to buy bottled water.

The question is how can we regain public trust

in our water system?

>> This is a brand new bottle of water.

I'm going to open the seal, and I'm going

to pour it into this glass.

Now, can I have our next course?

Now, what we have here is two cockroaches.

I'm going to take one of them.

And I'm going to put it in the water

and take it out, just like that.

Flick, flick.

Now, how about a sip of this water?

You don't want it.

Nobody will drink this water.

They say, "It's a cockroach, you cockroached the water."

Somehow, cockroachness has entered into the water

and that's the point, that's contagion.

I study disgust.

There's a veneer of fear.

Fear is an easy account for why you're disgusted,

but often it's not that.

It's much deeper.

And this is a plastic cockroach.

Now, how would you like to drink this water?

You don't want to see that this isn't a real cockroach,

it's just a piece of rubber.

Disgust is never really rational.

The problem is a mental problem

and this thinking can be applied to recycled water.

The simplest way to get water is

to take the water you've just used and make it

into usable water again, that's recycled water.

Recycled water is generally thought

to be the solution to water shortage.

It's safe, it's efficient, it's ecologically sound,

it makes total sense but it's offensive.

Now, Singapore has handled this problem rather well.

>> We are just a little island but very densely populated.

In Singapore, no raw sewage

or used water go south into the sea.

Because we recycle it, producing a product

that we call "New Water".

We don't even use the term sewage, we just tell them,

you know, "It's used water."

The concern of course was how would people respond.

And so, we explain the technology behind your water

with reverse osmosis.

What you get is practically just new water.

In solving our water problems,

I think we have turned what has been a vulnerability if you

like into a strength for Singapore.

Thirty percent of Singapore's water supply will come

from new water.

>> Ironically, recycled water can be the cleanest water

out there.

Every highly stressed city ought

to be considering using recycled water.

>> How about a cold glass of recycled sewer water.

Sounds pretty disgusting, doesn't it?

>> Other California cities are also looking into the idea

that they are wary of the public reacting, "Yuck!"

>> We got involved, we talked to the people

who run the recycled water facilities.

The problem wasn't making the water pure, it is pure.

The problem was convincing people to drink it.

>> Out of stormy public hearing, many citizens blasted the plan.

>> Don't ever let this happen to the public.

>> Cities have struggled to introduce recycled water.

They couldn't get past the yuck factor.

>> The principle of contagion is that once

in contact always in contact.

In the case of recycled water,

the image of its origin is just too clear.

>> We live by necessity in the contaminated world.

We face disgusting contamination all the time.

We just get through life like with a lot of things

by basically not thinking about it.

All water comes from sewage but the point is you don't think

about it when you turn your tap.

>> You can see Nicole is demonstrating a --

on the inside is the urine tunnel that's used

in the stations over there.

>> Astronauts recycle water.

They're drinking the processed urine

of not just themselves but other people.

It's a potential universe of disgust.

>> Of course, that's something

that every shuttle crew member wants to see if it's really

as good as they say it is.

>> Probably by the end of a week of a mission,

they're not even thinking about it.

>> Here's a toast to everybody drinking the recycled urine.

>> There's a general principles

in psychology called mere exposure.

If you're exposed to something that's not negative,

you tend to get to like it.

So, part of the problem is getting recycled water

into people.

Bottled water has a positive image, safety and purity.

Ironically, people might be willing to pay

for recycled water but not to drink it from the tap.

What a crazy idea that is, but it might be true.

The guys who sold bottled water to Americans should be working

on selling recycled water to Americans.

>> So Paul, we've been tasked

with creating a marketing campaign

to help introduce the idea of reclaimed water to people.

How do we sort of overcome the physical rejection

that people might have over trying

to drink something like this?

>> I think we -- when we do these researches,

we use Hitler's sweater, would you be willing

to wear Hitler's sweater, okay?

And for most

people, even after you clean it and wash it,

and changed the color into anything you want,

they still don't want to wear it.

The only way we can possibly get people to wear

Hitler's sweater is to actually put it on Mother Teresa

or Michael Jordan, or whoever your hero is.

So that their spirit enters and conquers Hitler's spirit.

>> So, if someone finds something disgusting,

it is possible for them to change their mind

on something like that?

>> Yes, we all do that.

People go into public toilets and they survive!

Everyone is managing.

By the way, there's a new book just written on this

by Peter Gleick, G-L-E-I-C-K.

>> Morning.

>> Morning.

>> Good morning.

>> I'm Peter Gleick.

There's so much money to be made in bottled water.

Money that municipal agencies don't have for advertising,

it's not a fair fight.

>> This one is I Am Lucky, eternally pure,

no nasty side effects like stinky breath or rotten teeth.

>> I always worry about that with water.

>> How hard is this particular challenge?

>> The idea of raw sewage going in tap

and literally being able to drink it convincing consumers

of that I think is almost impossible.

So I can kick this off with one of my favorite names on the wall

and has to be Porcelain Springs.

And Porcelain has certain connotations that, you know,

white, you know, clean.

>> It doesn't attempt to talk very directly

about getting over disgust.

There is, get over it, because it just looks

like something you'd find at IKEA.

It really does though.

I mean, that's -- if I were --

>> Where's the?

>> We got 80 more names.

There better be a winner in there somewhere.

So we go with.

That's the sense we were going with.

>> So when we last met, we narrowed it down to six names

that we thought were successful, started with Porcelain Springs.

>> Water from the most peaceful place on earth.

This bottle contains purified sewage water

and you get that.

>> Future Water, so the choice you have to make is

to drink the solution or ignore the problem.

>> Celebrity endorsement or you could try to get someone

who has already got a reputation that's relevant just

like Al -- let's say Al Gore.

On the other hand, it might be Newt Gingrich who doesn't have

that reputation, a person who's universally respected

could help.

>> Hey, sorry I'm late.

>> Don't worry about it.

>> We're going to save the fucking world, right?

>> Jack, we're so excited you've agreed

to be the face of Porcelain Springs.

>> I can't wait to taste this stuff.

>> I was like, "Jack is going to love this."

They're literally straining the poop juice right

out of the water that you and I drink.

>> Okay, quiet out here.

Whenever you want to, Jack.

>> Yeah, it's just a mental thing.

Yeah.

>> Yeah!

Woo!

>> It really tastes good.

>> This is someone I think I'd like to trust.

>> He's my man.

I would be drinking whatever he's drinking.

>> So Porcelain Springs,

it's water from the most peaceful place on earth.

>> The river.

>> Where is the Porcelain Springs?

>> It's French.

>> Get?

>> Get over it.

>> Get over it, okay, got it.

>> Porcelain -- oh, Porcelain Springs, we're idiots.

>> This bottle contains purified sewage water.

>> Sewage water?

>> Yuck.

>> Awesome.

>> This is a little scary to me.

>> We're recycling water.

>> Tell me, that sounds great.

>> That's good.

>> The sewage water?

Oh.

Can I taste it?

>> So, will you drink it?

>> Yeah, no.

>> I'd do anything once because I'm curious.

>> This better be okay.

>> The more you see that something is widely done,

the more acceptable it becomes.

>> Taste good?

>> Taste great.

>> Taste like tap water.

>> Cleaner than tap water.

>> Purified sewage water is actually really good.

>> I might get over it.

>> Even though the majority of people might accept it,

some people might not.

>> No chance that I'm going to drink sewage water whatsoever.

>> Disgusting.

>> I want to pour it out right here, maybe on you.

>> If we need to recycle sewage water, that must mean we're

in some sort of shortage that I'm not aware of.

>> To be completely honest this whole issue just doesn't seem

like one that's that important to me right now.

>> When I do that map of -- from outer space,

there's a lot of water.

>> Oh.

>> People think that the problem is merely drought

and that once the drought is over,

we can go back to business as usual.

It's the hydro-illogical cycle.

We humans have an infinite capacity to deny reality,

to think that there's some oasis out there somewhere

that we can go to get more water.

Tow an iceberg from the Arctic or divert a river

from British Columbia.

>> NASA said, today, a significant source

of water was found when it deliberately crushed a rocket

into the lunar surface last month.

>> We could get moon water, just think about that.

I mean, nobody has touched this stuff.

Moon water would be, mwah.

>> I'm sure they can treat the ocean water.

>> The de-saltation of the ocean.

>> Of all the things that people ask me about,

the most common thing is desalination.

>> Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water and it seems

like that's the obvious solution.

>> Desalination is the most expensive source

of water we have, at leaves behind it a concentrated brine.

It's not quite like spent nuclear fuel but it's close.

>> Because it's so energy-intensive,

it produces huge quantities of greenhouse gases.

>> There are more than 14,000 desalination plants

around the world.

>> The idea that desalination is going

to solve all our problems is a myth.

There's no reason to build desalination

if you haven't done the conservation

and efficiency that's cheaper.

Let's wash our clothes with efficient fixtures.

Let's think about how to do what we want

as efficiently as possible.

There's enormous potential

to do much more especially in agriculture.

We could grow as much food as we're growing now

with a lot less water.

>> Conservation is important

but is this crisis something we can conserve our way out of?

>> That's a deep -- so that's a deep thought question.

So let me give it 10 seconds of deep thought

because I've thought about it -- I've thought about it myself

and you know, I think the answer is no.

We have to couple the water picture that we see now

with population growth, when there's more people

and there's no more water coming from the Sierras

and the Colorado River Basin.

What exactly are we going to do?

>> Right now, we're hovering under 7 billion people

and there's about 211,000 more people added every day.

That's the size of the city

where I'm from, Irvine, California.

Imagine a new Irvine popping up on the map every day?

Project that out 10 years, 20 years.

Where is that water going to come from?

It is not just the Sierras that are losing snow pack,

it's the Rocky Mountains, it's the Alps, it's the Himalayas.

What will happen to the 2 billion people that live

in that region when their waster source disappears?

>> An infinitely growing population cannot be satisfied

with a finite amount of water on this planet.

I do worry that we're going to see more

and more conflict over water.

>> One person has been killed

in the beach battle over water in Mumbai.

>> The government here has recorded 5,000 water conflicts

in this one province,

50 are serious enough to end in violence.

>> In Brazil, tension turned to violence

to protest the multibillion dollar dam.

>> These water tensions could lead to a water war

in the Middle East, a doomsday scenario.

>> When I first got involved academically in water resources,

people were generally talking about water wars.

There's no question that water causes potential disputes all

over the world.

>> Islamabad blames New Delhi of stealing its water leading many

to force the fourth war between two countries.

>> When we say there's going to be war,

now I want to know what the evidence is.

We did a study where we actually looked at all

of the documented disputes over 50 years,

there were actually 1800,

of those two-thirds are cooperative,

very little actual violence and no wars in the last 50 years.

>> I was absolutely surprised.

I was kind of seduced by the water war's argument.

It was very exciting.

I mean, well, I'm involved in an issue that leads people to war.

Well, no, but I'm involved in an issue that brings people

in the room to talk about peace.

Everywhere, at all scales, water is brought,

people you wouldn't think to would be in the same room,

into the same room to think about their shared futures.

>> We look around the United States when we see competition

between ranchers and endangered fish.

We need to be looking to our friends around the world

for how they've coped with crisis that are orders

of magnitude worse than ours.

>> Even during war, water committees used to meet.

>> Throughout The Intifada.

>> Okay. Then throughout The Intifada and even

between the Jordanians and Israelis before.

So --

>> Before the Peace Treaty.

>> It's not that, you know, if there's a conflict,

there must be war over water,

but you will see it the other way around.

People meeting secretly to really solve their differences.

>> Friends of the Earth Middle East is the only regional

organization, very sadly, that exists.

There is no other organization that brings together Israelis,

Palestinians, Jordanians as one organization in any field.

>> You will always have problems when you are living in a castle

and your neighbor is in a cottage.

When the Israelis enjoy waters 24/7, in Jordan,

it's one day per week, and in Palestine, they'll be lucky

if they get it one day per week.

>> You cannot stop a bird from flying across a certain border.

You cannot stop water to flow, you know, across borders.

>> The demise of the Jordan River is very much connected

to the conflict.

Only 2 percent of the historical flow is left

in the so-called mighty Jordan.

>> How deep is that river?

How deep is that river?

I don't want to know where it's coming from.

I don't need to know where it's going to.

Before I place my trust in you, I just want to know, how deep?

>> Christians say Jesus was baptized in that river.

The Jewish, they looked upon the promise land across the river.

The Muslims, so many

of the Prophet Muhammad companions are buried

by the banks of the river.

Every single heavenly religion talked about water.

>> I don't need to know if it's safe

to swim before I put my trust in Him.

I just want to know, how deep?

>> Half of these people I baptized at Lake Mead

and they've traveled from Las Vegas all the way over here.

It's just magnificent.

>> It is holy water.

I was baptized as a baby but that was just a symbol.

This is real.

>> Yardenit was created because it's the only site left

where there is real fresh water flowing

in that three kilometer stretch of the Jordan River.

The legend tells us that the real baptism of Christ is here.

Here, there has been pollution released from hundreds

of thousands of residents, Palestinian, Jordanian,

and Israeli that live along its banks.

>> I wouldn't go into this water knowing what we know.

It's really unbelievable what we have done

to a river holy to half of humanity.

What we see here is the raw sewage

of some 50,000 Israeli residents around the Sea

of Galilee dumped here.

>> They're people, especially, they're really just a Christian.

They don't know that this is the water

that goes to the baptism site.

Imagine then if the people knew.

>> On water, we must cooperate.

It's not an issue of doing a favor to the other side.

It's an issue of self-interest and the fact

that the water resources is shared makes it mutual interest.

>> Let's go, let's go.

Okay.

>> We've been able to call out to our decision makers to speak

in our respective parliaments that this is unacceptable.

>> There're certain issues that cannot wait for the politicians

to solve their differences and then look

at the water situation.

>> By the end of next year,

there will be no raw sewage emitted from the Israeli side.

>> Next, we still need to continue pushing the Jordanian

and the Palestinian authority to further build sewage systems.

This is the -- just the beginning.

>> Being in the Middle East, if you are not optimistic,

you will have a heart attack.

>> Know how to cross it yet.

Before I get my spirit wet, I just want to know how deep.

>> The worst case scenario basin is the Jordan Basin.

If the Jordan can work out their water crisis in the absence

of violence, certainly, California can.

Certainly, other basins around the world can.

>> I don't want to know if it's yours or mine,

I just want to know how deep.

>> There's no doubt that humanity is capable

of screwing things up.

There's also no doubt in my mind that we're capable

of fixing things when what we're screwing

up is really important to us.

The more we know, the more likely we are

to do the right things.

And in the end, we -- you do what you can and you trust

in the ability of people to learn.

>> Porcelain Springs, water

from the most peaceful place on earth.

>> It's going to be about Western survival and we'll want

to fight but we can't.

We can't afford that war.

>> It is not clear to me that we can reverse this situation.

But we certainly are not going to be reversing climate change.

We can take steps to ensure

that there's a sustainable water supply

over a much longer period of time.

It's not a solvable problem but it's truly a manageable problem.

But we need to start addressing it now.

>> I tell people all the time,

I'm still a little boy who likes frogs.

We're losing species faster than we ever have before.

We think that we're here forever,

but all species go extinct.

But that doesn't mean we have to speed along and continue

on track the way that we are doing.

>> This isn't going to be resolved tomorrow.

It's just not.

But, look what you have done.

The EPA, they are going to finally set a standard

for hexavalent chromium in drinking water.

So, we've made some progress.

>> I got a phone call, a lady on the other end says,

"Congratulations Lynn, you've been chosen to --

for the Goldman Prize," and I was kind of,

"Yeah, right," you know?

So, I looked it up and I'm like, "Wow, they do exist!"

I mean I've been on a plane once in my life and it was

like being Dorothy on the Wizard of Oz.

When I went to reach to shake his hand, he says, "Hi Lynn."

>> Did you kiss the President?

>> He kissed me.

>> I wonder how many of these people when we started

out 10 years ago said we're just wasting our time.

I wonder what they're thinking now.

>> My two-year-old granddaughter deserves

to grow up in a clean world.

I hope you'll join me at our fight.

>> When you see it all at once, that becomes the eye opener.

There's a common agenda for all of us, for every walk

of life and that's water.

We might find ourselves in a pivotal moment here

where we can do the right thing.

I always felt hopeful that things work

out where everything converges at once.

Maybe that moment is happening now.

>> Time, reverse and rewind, erase and revise,

and try to start again.

You, don't you turn this around.

I have not touched the ground in I don't know how long.

You say to

walk it back,

walk it back,

walk it back.

Time,

time,

time, it cannot abide.

You,

you can't turn away,

you've asked me to stay

but something needs to change.

Why can't you?

Walk it back.

Walk it back.

Walk it back.

Time,

reverse and rewind,

erase and revise,

and try to start again.

You,

don't you turn this around.

I have not touched the ground in I don't know how long.

You say to

walk it back,

walk it back,

walk it back.