one of the first things you have to do in scientific evidence and what's happening in some of these crises is get the baseline data. that enabled to get the baseline data and also establish relationships between japan and international scientists to pull together in a cooperative way to continue to trace what's happening with the fukushima ocean radioactivity. also these scientists have worked very hard in getting information out to the japanese public. there was a workshop and public forum. the japanese came in droves and thanked the scientists for getting the unbiased, solid information out there. we worked very creatively through crowd sourcing to get, again, samples of water along the west coast and that has come in to be analyzed and shows that the level of threat s very, very low, well below a safety standard. we have a whole center devoted to it. >> i want to thank all of you for your interest this morning in this panel and please thank me in -- join me in thanking these distinguished scientists for their time. [ applause] >> our coverage of this year's american renewable energy summit continues with american rivers president bob irvin who says there's a fresh water crisis in the u.s. and around the world. >> before i get to introduce the great work of peter and bob i just wanted to tell you a little bit about what we do. we were created in 2007 by the founder and everybody is asking why would cirque du soleil pay so much attention to water that it would create a foundation? the first connection is evidently our founder, who started basically from nothing, toured the world, started his career as a flame thrower, saw a lot of poverty worldwide, and wanted to have a major impact to alleviate poverty. he did a lot of research and soul searching to figure out where he would have the most impact and he realized quickly it was going to be through water. cirque du soleil also performs in countries all around the world where some of them have serious water issues. obviously our biggest permanent operations are in las vegas right in the middle of the desert as well. so it's no coincidence i think that one drop was created. i also think that when we created one drop, basically cirque du soleil reinvented in the way of the circus arts and they thought there was room for perhaps a creative n.g.o. in a sector that would also inspire change rather than impose change. and i could talk to you and i will in a few minutes a little bit more about what we do. i thought i would show a little video that shows what we've done in the first six months of this year. it shows you a little bit about our business model and how we go on about our business. so cue the video. thank you. >> a partnership with water for people and delivering a program n an integrated way. ♪ ♪ >> the united nations has laid important groundwork. i would want to also recognize water aid, the global poverty project. the one drop foundation and many more. >> there you see one drop is basically an organization that delivers very unique water management programs on three continents but more than just providing access to water and sanitation, i mean the greatest issue that our sector faces certainly is sustainability. there is anywhere between 30 and 75% of all the water and sanitation programs that are delivered worldwide that will fail within two years of being implemented. so quickly we wanted to come up with a model to help overcome the sustainability challenge. not only do we provide access to water and sanitation but we also provide behavior change using the arts, culture, entertainments. that allows us to speak to communities from, people who are literate to illiterate the young and the old and address an entire community all at once. it is very similar to the work you are doing here. it will be an interesting connection to make later. the third component of what we deliver is the sea is a capital. we basically transformed water into revenue generating activities so after five or six years of implementation the community has enough resources and wealth and ownership of the infrastructure to maintain it forever. now the reason why we're here today is certainly because it's hard to talk about water and or talk about energy without talking about water. decisions made in one sector definitely impact the other. they are intrinsically linked together. someone who actually saw, you know, and we talk, we've talked yesterday and we talked today and we will in the next few days talk about the energy crisis and the fact that in a little more than a hundred years we'll run out of oil, 200 years we're going to run out of gas. the fact is we're running out of water right now. i think someone who has seen it first hand because it happened in his back yard is peter mcbride who is an amazing award winning film maker, photographer, water expert. so, peter, we have about 30 minutes, a little less now to leave the audience with a powerful message about what's actually happening. do you want to share some of your thoughts? >> thanks. thanks for your work. thanks for coming out. just to give you a little background on what i do, i've worked -- i started as a photographer doing work mostly for "national geographic." i've had the privilege to travel over 70 countries. i started off doing adventures going to the far flung corners of the planet. after a little while i wanted to do a story a little closer to home. about five years ago i followed what i call my back yard river. i grew up here in the valley and the colorado river starts in the rocky mountains here and flows all the way to the sea of cortez. it used to. it ran there for 6 million years. i followed that river about three times and was amazed four years ago when i came to the u.s.-mexican border just south of it and saw the colorado river go completely dry. that just perplexed me beyond my comprehension. colorado river ran to the sea for 6 million years. not a single drop of it reached the sea since 1998. it's been drying up since the 1960's basically. i think what is so significant about that is that rivers really embody so much of fresh water as a whole. it supports us in recreation, agriculture, industry, and basically maybe our well being. i started following rivers all over. i've now done about i think five source to sea rivers. i just completed a source to sea from 18,000 feet in the himalaya and followed the sacred river the ganges all the way to the sea. the ganges river supports water for 400 million people in india. arguably one of the most contaminated rivers in the world. believed to be by 1 billion hindus sacred and embodyment of a god and goddess. what is so remarkable to me is not only a river on the other side of the world that is loved and hugged daily by so many people, embraced, you know, face on and getting terribly over used and abused, revered and reviled as many like to say, yet at the same time, in my back yard, in a river that is famous in the world, worldwide for the grand canyon, so many of us turn our backs to it in part because we just think water is going to keep flowing. our taps are going to keep running. the reality is they're not. it's an issue everywhere. whether you're impoverished in india or whether you live in aspen, colorado, or anywhere in the southwest or even in the u.s. because every bit of lettuce comes commercially from the u.s. and our grocery stores comes from colorado river water. winter lettuce. baby spinach in january comes from the colorado river. and lake mead, one of the largest reservoirs on the colorado river built by hoover dam, 1935, has now reached the all-time record low, 39% full. so we have this mentality that water is, you know, as long as our taps flow, no big deal. we'll just keep turning the sprinklers on and keep doing business as usual. and we're basically just eroding, detonating our reservoirs, our bank account water. what amazes me is nobody is really paying that close attention. a lot of people banging the drum but it seems to be one of these issues that goes very heavily ignored and now wherever i go whether it's locally or abroad i'm seeing the issue everywhere. water, water, water. fresh water is just vanishing. what i was going to do is show you a two-minute little video i recently did because i want to make you aware that although we're in an extreme, i would call it approaching a very serious crisis on fresh water, particularly around rivers but ground water as well, it feels like what can we do? it's such a big challenge. how do i make a difference? sure i can turn my sprinklers down or use less but i think a lot of it is just i know it's used, the phrase is used a lot but awareness and being aware of what is happening and getting your voice out there. the video i'm about to show you is an example because the colorado river although it hasn't reached the ocean continuously for a long time did this spring. is video is about an eight-week experimental post flow that is mainly due because a lot of people were concerned and got together and the hands of many as the video will explain lifted the gates on the last dam and enabled the colorado river to actually kiss the sea of cortez this last may for the first time in a very long time. it was temporary, experimental. i was one of three people that took a paddle board the entire length of it to see it. so i know it a little more closely than i maybe wanted to. the angry mosquito down there iting for fools like us were extraordinary. cue the video and then we'll ove on to bob. >> you have to go over that. rgets like a trail. >> this is an improvement, i swear. > you're moving. >> this is called moving an inch an hour. >> a trickle of water is enough. trust me. >> what are we doing here? >> the last time i came here, i walked 90 miles across a dry, forgotten river channel. my back yard river, the colorado. i've been chasing its flow for years. most people think of it as that loved architect of the grand canyon, carrying the memory of the rocky mountains near my home in colorado. be you it is different down .ere at the end it's been sucked dry so we can eat baby spinach in january. but in the spring of 2014, something happened. two countries decided to work together to restore a delta. the hands of many lifted the gates on the morales dam and released a temporary pulse of water. less than 1% of the river's flow. mexico's allocated aqua into the delta to see what would happen. a river of sand became wet once again. and a fiesta ignited down the tream. locals celebrated the return of the rio. the river party only lasted a few weeks, though. we did what any river loves would do. we floated it. by canoe, paddle boards. and eventually by foot crossing the shallows. >> i believe this is the colorado. generally the real colorado has no water in it. but as you can see, it's a pretty nice river right now. >> it looks amazing. usually this part of the river is completely dry. it's sand. it has been many years like that. on may 7, after nine, 13-hour-long paddling days -- we crossed 90 miles of the delta and reached the sea. it was the first and only paddle board crossing of the new delta. and the first time the colorado river kissed the sea in nearly two decades. on many levels, it was a preposterous journey -- foolish, even wrong headed. >> i don't feel like i'm getting anywhere. >> the most absurd paddle board mission ever. also beautiful and symbolic. and with a relative trickle, we can bring a river back to life if we try. [ applause] >> i'll just say a couple words before we move on to bob and american rivers. there are many people who often ask me, i think it is very symbolic on the dilemma we're dealing with water and fresh water as i recently did a radio interview here and they said, well, so the river -- colorado river doesn't reach the sea anymore. who cares? big deal if the river dries up. and i went on to give my usual answer as well. the fresh water interface with salt water, creates habitat, helps support us, i go down the list. that usually goes right over people's heads. i felt like saying, listen. what happened at the river in your back yard dried up? i think that is part of the dilemma and bob can get on to this as we often see our watersheds in our, just immediate vicinity. we don't look downstream. and all of these systems are very heavily connected. and so i think, you know, taking a paddle board mission across this delta many say it was crazy. why would you let water go down into mexico with california's record drought, etcetera. i think it is just very symbolic of what we can do. that water was less than 1% of the colorado river. it was mexico's water. it wasn't taken from anyone else. i think there is potentially enough water in our systems if we use it wisely and with that we'll move on to bob. >> for those of you who don't know bob irvin, he is the c.e.o. of the american rivers association. he's been 30 years in the environmental field. he's a wildlife lawyer by training. he's been three years at the helm of the american rivers association and previously worked for wwf, several nature conservancy organizations, as well as the united states senate. >> thank you. it's a real pleasure to be here. this is a great event. it's especially nice to be sitting next to my friend pete mcbride. pete is truly one of the world's great film makers and photographers. he did a film for american rivers last year when we named the colorado river america's most endangered river. it's the film called "i am red." it's won numerous awards. if you haven't seen it i encourage you to go to his webie -- his website and watch it or american rivers.org and watch it. it'll bring tears to your eyes. it is that powerful. american rivers is a national conservation river advocacy organization. we were actually founded in denver in 1973. i believe sally was there at the creation. she worked for the wilderness society where the meeting was held. i've done the math. she must have been about 12 years old the youngest employee of the wilderness society. but it's always nice to be back home in colorado. as i said, we named the colorado river the most endangered river last year. this year we named thee tributaries of the colorado. the upper colorado, white river, and hilla river on our america's most endangered rivers list. this year we named the san joaquin in california as america's most endangered river. we did that not because of the drought. the drought is just a symptom of decades of mismanagement of a river that literally is running dry. so each year we try to focus attention on rivers under threat and rivers where things can be done now to actually bring them back. and we really are facing a crisis for rivers and for fresh water around the world and here in the united states. just last weekend, people in toledo, ohio were told for two days they could not use water for any purpose. katy russo is one of our staff members who is based in toledo, ohio. she and her family were directly affected by this. she has written a blog on our website. and you'll recall a few months ago charleston, west virginia had a similar water ban when there was a spill of toxic chemicals into the river. we have mistreated our rivers throughout our history and continue to do so in many ways. climate change is affecting this. in toledo the reason the ban went into effect was because of a toxic bloom in lake erie. that results from polluted run-off from cities and from farms. nd as we see more storms and intense storms we see more of that run off occurring and more events like this unless we take steps to address the problem of polluted run off, unless we take steps to address the problem of climate change. if we don't address climate change and our rivers, we're really missing the boat. no pun intended. because the fact is that our rivers are one of our best defenses against climate change. they provide critical linkage for wild lifey to move in response to a change in climate. so addressing our rivers, restoring our rivers to their natural state, is critical. but we're doing all of this in a climate of political paralysis as you've heard a lot about today and yesterday as well. the fact is that even though we have a crisis for our rivers, a crisis for fresh water, we seem to lack the political will to do something about it. right now the u.s. environmental protection agency and the corps of engineers are working together to finalize a rule that will restore clean water act protection to virtually all waters of the united states, particularly head waters, streams, and wetlands. this is something that is desperately needed. it is needed because we have to correct another bad supreme court ruling of a few years ago. we need to get this protection back. it is being opposed every step of the way by the oil and gas industry, by home builders, the farm bureau, by the politicians they've spent good money for. unless the american citizens stand up and comment on this rule, tell the e.p.a. and the corps of engineers we support this and we want to see all waters protected, this rule will be in trouble. so that's critical as well. there are a lot of challenges ahead. i want to share a couple reasons for hope. pete's film is an eloquent reason for hope. what he said a few moments ago, if we have enough sense these rivers, we can bring these rivers back without a tremendous amount of effort in many cases. i've seen that as i travel around the country. just a couple weeks ago, i was in peterson, virginia on the appomattox river where my organization has worked with the fish and wildlife service and the virginia fish and game agency to take out a hundred-year-old dam on the appomattox river. as soon as the first breach was in that dam the small, insignificant breach that was allowing the water to flow over it, there were baby american eels literally ready to switch water. one trickle of if you want to see it go to american rivers facebook page, the video there. it's amazing. three years ago when i became president of american rivers i went out to the elwa river in washington state on the olympic peninsula where we had been working with partners and with the federal agencies to take out two large dams on the elwa river and restore 70 miles of a 75 mile river for salmon habitat. this is a river that had been for ed for a hundred years salmon to go upstream and spawn beyond that lower five miles. as i stood on top of the dam that day, before all the ceremonies commemorating the event took place and before the looked down and i could see salmon literally bumping up against the concrete of the dam just waiting, the g for us to have sense and foresight to take that dam out. now there are salmon spawning where they haven't for a hundred years. they knew where to go even though it had been that long since their ancestors had been going there. these are the things that give me hope. it tells me no matter how much we damaged our rivers the river is still there. if we have the sense and foresight to restore it and take out the dams and clean up the pollution, the river will come back with all of the life in it. our lives ppens, come back as well. i am very, very hopeful though we have many challenges ahead. thank you. >> if i speak from experience, when one drop goes into developing countries and before we even begin implementing a program we need to have both the government and private sector, the social sector make this her to happen and work. i see people very much working, private sector and so on. where do they convene? how do we bring these sectors together to collaborate? . they convene on the river we have a great slogan. it's "rivers connect us." it's true. they connect us in so many ways. for any of these things to happen all of these different interests have to come together. in rockingham, north carolina, this little community near the south carolina border, we worked there for over 10 years with first on a federal relicensing of a big hydroelectric dam. then we worked with the community to take out an old obsolete dam. then we worked with the community to create a new blue trail which is a paddle trail with a hundred acres of green way around it which has become an engine to revitalize this community that lost thousands of jobs when seven textile ills closed years ago. by working with the community, federal and state agencies, with partner groups in that area all of those interests have to come together to make that happen. i think it's the same in the u.s. as in the developing world, also. >> at one point the -- to give you an example of how challenging some of these working on river situations addition to the colorado compact called the law f the river written in 1922, it is the first of its kind, the first binational agreement treaty to bring water back for the environment. there are 260 rivers in the world that cross international boundaries and this is the first time countries have worked together to bring back something not just for industry and people but for the environment, too. so it's, it can be an uphill slog but the fact that that happened in 2014 on the colorado river with our second decade of drought is i think very helpful -- very hopeful as a sign that if we want to recan restore a lot of these things. >> i think you are in a privileged role because you act as a channel basically to convey these voices through beautiful medium of the movie to the general population. how do you make sure you transform these movies and platforms into real agents of change and not just people going to see movies? >> i don't know. that's a good question. just try to -- i'm not a scientist. i don't consider myself a water expert. i'm just a concerned citizen with a camera. so i try to partner with people like american rivers and others to get the word out. i think -- my personal opinion is we need to push the needle in the public and in order to media, we need social you know, sadly the attention span has gotten down to about a minute and a half these days but if that's the tool we have to use that's what we need to do. >> i'd like to make a commitment to you today. the reason one drop works the way we do, we don't do pure awareness programs or platforms but we strive to create fundraising platforms that generate that kind of movement and awareness. and we crated one of them. it's called one night for one drop. it basically gets billions of impressions every year when we do that. i'd like to find a way to integrate your content and make sure that through all of our platforms and anything we have available we help propel that message through the beautiful movies that you've produced. i certainly will do that. >> thank you. an honor. >> it's amazing. thank you very much for your great work. i think we have one minute left. if there are any questions from the floor for our panelists, we have a few -- yes? >> just holler. we'll repeat it. > we can hear you. >> originally i heard about an old application of paddle wheels being located on rivers that had generated a small amount of electricity but they don't affect the rivers in any way. they take it out in a short period of time. there are also generating facilities. aspen has been in a big fight over a hydroelectric plant that 51.4% eated by a vote of and it was sponsored by a fossil fuel billionaire named koch, who lived upstream. why the citizens of aspen would submit to -- because he spent literally millions of dollars to defeat this when it's in the best interests of aspen and the environment. but there are many facilities and i understand koch generation is legal and the grid has to accept it. is that correct? does the grid have to accept ogeneration? >> i believe they do. if i can address your point, first of all, there are many opportunities to use existing diversions to generate hydro electricity which is of course part of the solution to climate change. and so my organization, american rivers, has worked very closely with the hydro power industry and with some people that would not normally be our allies on some legislation that passed congress this past year to actually encourage that kind of development because we see that as a good alternative to taking a wild and free flowing stream and building a new facility on it and damaging the stream in that way. as far as i think it's the capital creek project goes, i know there's been a lot of controversy here about it. american rivers was engaged in that issue through our staff based here in colorado to make sure that the process going through the federal energy regulatory commission was not circumvented. to make sure that the proper reviews took place. it derstanding is that -- was clearly more than just one person who was opposed to this project. >> thank you. >> my point is there are plenty of ways to use the rivers that don't denigrate them at all. on the colombian river in washington where they built a series of dams, i think 30 ars ago, they were looking forward to selling electricity to the western grid, but dams are being taken out as