SPEECH President's Message

by Janine Gates

Water shortages, struggles, rights, and wrongs. The subject is timeless, going back centuries, and will no doubt continue well into the future.

The most recent issue of Orion magazine has an article titled, "Holy Water," and details the historic and current Middle East conflicts about water. An article in the October 31 issue of High Country News considers how mapping the rise and fall of Lake Bonneville in Utah, Nevada and Idaho can help us predict how rains in the west will be affected by climate change.

Closer to home, the autumn rains begin, and regional water users, such as residents of Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and Yelm, compete with salmon and other aquatic species for this precious resource. Ground water withdrawals lower the levels of rivers, lakes and streams. What is our groundwater availability? How can we manage water use sustainably? How can we build with the environment to restore watersheds and reconnect water cycles? How can we manage the impact of exempt wells on aquifers? How is fresh water and marine water interconnected? What ways can we conserve and reuse water? How can we protect both fresh and salt water quality and native aquatic flora and fauna? What about our artesian wells? Some of these questions are not answered in this edition of the Green Pages, but some articles within provide us topics to think about.

There is little agreement on how to manage our water resources. Take the case of shellfish farming, for example. This issue of Green Pages provides a lively exchange on that topic. From this dialog SPEECH hopes that readers are able to have more informed opinions about shellfish aquaculture.

SPEECH would like to thank Bob Vadas, Jr., a state fish biologist, for his service on our board. He was an enthusiastic Green Pages distributor, contributor and SPEECH ambassador at local events.

SPEECH would especially like to thank Jeanine McGann for her amazing four years of volunteer service as our Green Pages layout designer. She has consistently provided a clean-looking layout design, creating page and title headings, headlines and so much more. Our loss is Colorado State University's gain. We wish Jeanine good luck in her new job!

And coming around full circle, we are thrilled to have SPEECH founder Gita Moulton back with SPEECH, using her newly acquired In Design program computer skills to produce this issue of the Green Pages. Thank you Gita!

Finally, SPEECH is excited to present "The Nisqually: Making Cooperation Work," Please see detailed on the next page. This is already expected to be a standing room only event so please come early! Seating is limited. I look forward to seeing you there!

Janine Gates is president of SPEECH and can be reached at (360) 791-7736. She is happy to report that she drove her '81 Honda scooter nearly everyday from May through October, even in the rain, but alas, has wimped out the last couple weeks as the weather turns colder and roads more slippery.