Learning from Australia: Conservation & Desalination

"Learning from Australia: Conservation & Desalination" with Conner Everts, Southern California Watershed Alliance

Thursday, Sept 19th, 6:30pm graywater and rainwater demonstrations and 7pm program
Circle Church, 111 Errett Circle

Conner Everts will bring news from Australia, where severe drought has inspired innovative conservation efforts and where 6 new desalination plants sit idle.

Central Coast Greywater Alliance, Ecological Landscaping Association of California, Love's Gardens, and Santa Cruz ProBuild will participate by providing greywater and rain harvesting system demonstrations and technical resources. Also, ProBuild will offer 10% discounts to event attendees who make related product purchases at their Santa Cruz location.

According to Paul Gratz of Santa Cruz Desal Alternatives, the event sponsor, "Mr. Everts's Santa Cruz appearance is especially timely since voters and ratepayers are unlikely to approve the city's expensive and risky desal project. The community now is very interested in how to immediately institute water policies and reliable conservation measures, including recycling, regional water transfers, and incentives for customers to install greywater and rain harvesting systems."

Conner Everts is the executive director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance and co-chair of the Desal Response Group. He is chair of Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform (POWER) with its annual water policy conference and on the Board of Water for California, as well as other organizations. Conner was elected to the Casitas Municipal Water District and president of the Ojai Basin Management Ground Water Agency. Mr. Everts was convener of the California Urban Water Conservation Council and on the state task forces on TMDLs, Desalination, and the SWRCB recycled water stakeholder process. But his most important work is as elder advisor to the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and with the Southern California Steelhead Coalition helping remove dams on the streams where he caught fish as a youth and hopefully others can in the future.


More: http://desalalternatives.org/