Water In An Endless Loop

http://vimeo.com/9333749 I wanted to share this excellent video I helped produce some years ago about the why's and how's of water recycling. It was produced through the then California WateReuse Foundation, which has morphed into a national organization now based in Virginia. Recently the Board of Directors released the video for open source and it soon was posted on my friend, Diana Foss's web site, "Running Water" which she developed during her recent (and unfortunately unsuccessful) bid for election to the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors in San Jose, CA.

This video was produced with contributions from the public and private interests in water recycling. As Chair of the WateReuse Education Committee, I conceived the treatment, raised the funds, selected the excellent prodution company, and labored over the many script drafts and managed the ego-systems that were always in the way of completing this project.

It was produced using PBS specs, so it is 24 minutes long. Getting a Non-PBS production on the air on the PBS network is very difficult, but luckily my sister-in-law works for KQED in San Francisco and gave a copy to the programming director and once it played SF, it was picked up by the remaining PBS stations in CA.

Late in the year, it was awarded the Best Documentary of the Year award by the San Jose Film Commission. This was a mixed blessing because the WateReuse staff immediately thought they could turn this donated production into a cash cow and offered to sell the video rather than distribute it free to school and public libraries. So it sat on the shelf for over a decade, and hardly anyone saw it. I 'm still amazed how greed and short-sightedness can ruin a good thing in any group.

Now that it's posted on the Internet, I am again hopeful that this video will help overcome the ignorance and knee-jerk reactions that are so prevalent surrounding water recycling proposals. With global warming threatening more droughts in the future, we need to reuse every drop of water that we have developed and used in our urban communities.

Never Thirst!

Pat