Episode 44: Water Insecurity and Circularity
“The biggest issue in the water-housing nexus is how can we built more affordable housing supply in California, which we absolutely need, but do it in places that have enough water and also don’t have too much fire”
A conversation with Dr. Greg Pierce (UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation) about the Human Right to Water, the housing-water-fire nexus, wastewater equity, and green infrastructure. Released March 10, 2023.
guests on the show
Dr. Gregory Pierce
Greg Pierce (he/him) is the co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab within the center. He is also the co-director of the UCLA Water Resources Group within the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and serves as faculty in the department of urban planning. Since joining the Luskin Center in 2015, he has been instrumental in guiding the Center's leadership to produce rigorous, engaged research which informs Human Right to Water policy in California, as well as across the United States. He has authored 50+ peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous major research reports. His broader research interests lie at the intersection of public finance, infrastructure planning and environmental justice. Greg holds a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA. Learn more about Dr. Greg Pierce here and follow him @gregspierce.
TRANSCRIPT
Faith Kearns
Welcome to Water Talk. In today's episode, we're talking with Greg Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab within the center. He is also the co-director of the UCLA Water Resources group within the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Urban Planning. Greg's primary research is focused on water insecurity, though, he also produces a prolific amount of work in several other areas, including green infrastructure, climate resilience, and transport insecurities.
So, as you can hear just by that biographic description there, Greg is a very busy guy with his hands in a whole bunch of issues in California. And I think the one that, you know, we're going to have a good conversation with him today is about the human right to water in California, which we haven't spent a lot of time talking about. We've certainly touched on it in other episodes, but I'm really excited to talk with Greg today about some of the really unique and really, honestly quite sort of nerdy, work that Greg does on some of these really important topics where there's a lot of nuance and complexity.
What about you Mallika? What are you thinking about talking with Greg about today?
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, I always feel excited about green infrastructure. And I see that Greg has done quite a bit of work thinking about, you know, urban planning and thinking about green and green infrastructure within cities, which is always interesting to me, because it fills my sci-fi cup up a little bit. Just thinking about well, what could cities be like? Or what should cities be like? And it was my entry point into water, even though I'm studying agriculture right now, because that's what I did my master's degree in was thinking about green infrastructure and stormwater, infrastructure in cities. Anytime I can think about that again, and just think about how to make a greener, more circular urban environment. It's always pretty fun and cool. And then I'm curious if there are ties between that and the work on the human right to water.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, that's super interesting. I did not actually know that about you. I think it's really cool.
Mallika Nocco
Full of surprises!
Faith Kearns
Yeah. And, you know, Los Angeles is to me, one of the most interesting places to think about green infrastructure, because there has been a pretty massive refocusing on sort of regionalizing water supplies in a way that I think a lot of people, particularly maybe out of state, don't really understand how much they really are trying to kind of shift away from these distant water sources and think a lot more about what the sort of one water concept, how to utilize stormwater better how to do groundwater recharge within an urban environment. So, it's a super interesting place to think about water.
Mallika Nocco
Yes. And I also always like it when we travel to Southern California, right. Virtually, it would be amazing if we could.
Faith Kearns
With that, we will start our conversation with Greg Pierce.
So welcome, Greg, we're so excited to have you on Water Talk today, you have some really unique interest in things like infrastructure, utility service provision and mobile homes. Can you talk a bit about this eclectic mix of things you study and how you became interested in them?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, well, first, thanks for having me. First time caller, longtime listener type situation. And yeah, I'm interested in a lot of different things. Part of the reason for that is because I'm a nerd. But probably the answer, or the answer you're looking for, is that I'm a social scientist through and through who has come to the environment.
I’m really motivated by what households, or people, need to survive and thrive with respect to the environment. And it turns out if you if you study these things, and particularly if you talk to people, and are in communities that particularly disadvantaged or frontline communities, folks usually don't just need water access, which is my primary and always has been my primary focus, but they need drinking water, they need wastewater, they may have greater vulnerability to fires, they may need transportation access, all these things sort of occur in intersectionally and relate to each other. And so, I think it's important to understand the whole picture to the extent that's possible.
And then just a brief note on mobile homes, which is a particular interest of mine, as it relates to water actually that studying mobile homes a little bit randomly over a decade ago is how I migrated my work, which used to be very focused internationally, back to the US and really focused on US water issues. So that has a special place in my eclectic mix of topic areas.
Faith Kearns
Greg, could you talk a little bit about the specific water issues that relate to manufactured houses?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, so we have one hour for this response? There's a lot going on. And I would say really every dimension of the human right to water, namely quality, affordability, accessibility. There are outsized deficiencies particularly in mobile home parks, especially around accessibility and just the reliability of water flowing through pipes because a lot of the infrastructure in the parks- well is the responsibility of the landlord, not the responsibility of a water system. And very importantly, a lot of mobile home parks run their own water system, then they really stand out when you look at lists of water systems that are violating quality standards. Again, that's how I got turned on to the issue in the first place.
There are also affordability issues in particular, not so much just that the cost of water is higher, although it is for a lot of the really small systems, again, in the broader context of small water systems. But particularly because ,again, of the landlord element, and a lot of times the landlord is the one almost always the landlord is paying the bill because the parks master metered, and they don't pay the bill, and the water can get shut off for residents when the landlord doesn't pay the bill. You know, California has special protections for that type of issue. But I don't think they're uniformly proactively enforced, and a lot of other places just don't have them at all. So, it's quite a mess.
Mallika Nocco
So, water is obviously just a core component of what you do, Greg, and you do a lot of work that's related to California's human right to water. And this is something I know that people have probably heard about, especially listeners of Water Talk, but it's still a confusing concept for many of us. Can you talk a little bit about the history and the current status of the human right to water in California?
Greg Pierce
Absolutely. And I'll say also that my colleagues, and your colleague, Kristen Dobbin, and then Jenny Rambo, who's currently at Berkeley, are doing a 10-year retrospective on the human right to water law passed in California, that's where it starts. The human right to water is a law in California since 2012. The law is pretty short. In terms of its language, it basically says it says a little bit more, but it basically says that every human being has a right to clean, safe, affordable, and accessible water in California. So again, basically, high quality, affordable and accessible water. The law was passed in 2012. It didn't change anything overnight.
In fact, I would say nothing changed until at least 2015 when the law meant that states, or agencies within the state, were directed to consider the human right to water and their decisions. And I would say that really got off the ground starting in 2018, 2019. And ever since then, you've seen agencies, particularly the Water Board, but other agencies in California, take that more and more seriously.
That being said, we haven't achieved a human right to water in California, holistically, at all, and on every dimension, whether it's quality, affordability, and accessibility, we still face challenges. I would say sort of in the inverse order I just listed them. With quality, we've had a framework for a while, and the state has been working in the state has more money than ever to work on addressing quality issues. Affordability has become a really large part of the conversation on the tip of everyone's tongue. A lot of people have proposed ways to measure it. And agencies and utilities are documenting it, but we still haven't done much to address it. And then accessibility, in a way it's always been at the forefront: people having enough water just to survive, but we haven't had a systematic framework for it.
There's a lot of people who rely on private wells that aren't really covered systematically in terms of having reliable water supply. And that's been exposed particularly in this most recent drought with folks simply running out of water and even small systems simply running out of water. So, we need to be more proactive on that and figure out what we’re really committing to, I think.
Faith Kearns
In terms of the overall context for a human right to water, are there other places that have this human right to water besides California? Are there places that are sort of implementing it in better, faster ways? Or is this really California leading the way on this topic?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, great question. So, I should back up and say the US isn't a party to the UN human rights to water. And plenty of countries are. So, there's no national framework for this. And I do think Massachusetts, and maybe one other state has a human right to water. I've have gotten in trouble for saying California is the only one to have human rights water. Other states are currently considering it.
I know, at least, Maryland and Michigan in recent years have tried to pass legislation. Michigan, I believe is trying right now. That being said, it's clear that California does stand out in being the most proactive in implementing, and trying to assure a human right to water, especially when it comes to quality and affordability. But other states, I think are definitely moving on this, and in some ways, are more proactive and are experimenting with more proactive measures. So, we shouldn't rest on our laurels as it were.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see how this evolves over time. And I think, somewhat relatedly, there's a lot of focus, particularly in Southern California, on making a transition from relying on distant water sources to thinking more about local water supplies. And I know for you, you focus a lot on equity issues when it comes to water. And so, the process of moving from these distant to local water supplies can sometimes be pretty inequitable. So, can you talk a little bit about what it means to have a just transition to more local water supplies?
Greg Pierce
Absolutely. And as you said, at the end there, the move toward more local water is by no means assured to be just. I think the default is it won't be just, just as most past water infrastructure investments have not been. I do want to caveat this also by saying that the move, and the transition toward local water is absolutely necessary.
The biggest and broadest impact, though, that we need to think about from an equity perspective is the cost of that transition because the cost is massive, whether it's conservation, or particularly in new supply, namely, recycled water, stormwater, to groundwater recovery, potentially desalination, although I think that's only a good idea in certain contexts. But all those investments are expensive and they're much more expensive than people are used to paying on the bills. In some ways I do think everyone has to get used to paying more for water, the overall price of water is going up for the foreseeable future.
That being said, we again, we need to shield local communities and individual households, who can't pay more for water or are already struggling with paying their bills and don't consume much from bearing the brunt of these large investments. And the cost of large investments at regional, or many times much, much larger, scales it really becomes a technical matter of how you structure rates and also boosting discount programs because, again, the cost is going up. Local agencies need to recover costs, but they need to do that in ideally a progressive, or at least in a non-aggressive way to the extent that they can. There are also handcuffs that we put on ourselves when it comes to public water utilities in California, which are quite ironic, given our human rights water objectives. But that's the main concern.
I do want to note one other one, which is that there is an opportunity that I have seen some large agencies take, because it's really a large agency who are making these massive new investments, but I think there's a unique opportunity when they're making these new investments, when they're reconfiguring in some ways, who's involved in their regional coalitions to graft in the small systems, even private well owners, to be part of that supply, and really to boost reliability and quality. It still may have, again, a negative impact on affordability. But I think we have a unique opportunity to help the less water rich at least get a little bit less poor or something like that. And that only really takes place or makes sense for the larger utilities when there's a moment of change, which there is for everyone right now.
Faith Kearns
So, you're basically saying that you want to be able to alleviate individuals from having to bear the brunt of the cost of moving to say, a large-scale recycled water facility, which is really expensive to build, maintain, etc. And so, is there a sense of then how that would get paid for? Is this the kind of thing that like, there would be grants to establish the facility originally? Or are we talking about the state, the federal government that would sort of pick up some of the tab?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, so, part of it is the state and the federal government picking up the tab. I hesitate, especially from the federal perspective, even with the bipartisan infrastructure law, to say that there's going to be massive federal investment in things like recycled water plants that would really lower the costs at the end of the day for the consumer, I don't quite see that happening. I'd love to see it happen. And then some state grants, but I do think the largest brunt of the cost should be borne by customers of local water utilities. But it really, again, becomes a technical matter of structuring the rates. So that the cost of essential water for your typical household isn't where you put the surcharge or cost recovery mechanism as opposed to higher rates of consumption, and that you also shield low-income customers, customers with fixed incomes from being shut off, and you provide discount and debt recovery.
But that's where it gets tricky, because the cost commitments are made, oftentimes, by a wholesaler, or by regional coalition, and they get passed through and pass through and pass through. And then it's up to the local agency. The local agency is not going to commit when the recycled water plant from the wholesaler breaks ground. So, you need to see follow-through over a course of years to make sure that this happens. And there are different entities that can't tell each other what to charge. So, that's where I think a more holistic framework and maybe some state guidance on that matter, more than just state investment would be essential.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it really brings up how important implementation is. I feel like everything we've been talking about really is held at this level of like you can, you can kind of have these big ideals or even things like the human right to water, and there's just so much detailed work that needs to be done. Speaking of which, you know, you and I both share an interest in this fairly new and emerging topic, which is about wildfire and water supply issues, or what some people are now calling the water-wildfire-nexus. What do you see as some of the most pressing issues that we're dealing with right now when it comes to water and wildfire? I know it's something that's on a lot of people's minds.
Greg Pierce
I feel like every day I learn about some new dimension of the water-wildfire-nexus broadly. And of course, there's the classic concerns around erosion and retention of water due to the effects of fire as well as the upstream water quality impacts. But what I think is particularly interesting or of concern and needs further attention is the impact of wildfires on water supply distribution systems, as well as on the premise plumbing that folks rely on their private property. When wildfire impacts both of those networks, it introduces contamination and quite often very volatile contamination.
How we advise people to address that on their own and/or how we step in and pay for reconstruction and whether we should pay for that and whether folks should be building back. Overall, those are very thorny issues and you see them everywhere between the entire town of Paradise to a mobile home park in Calabasas with just really, really large price tags. And people not having guidance on long term rebuild, and then people not having guidance on whether they can or should use water in the short term.
The other thing I'd mention, as it relates to our broader approach on the human right to water in the dimension of accessibility, is how we're providing and whether we're providing water to folks who are displaced by wildfire, and how long we provide water to them, how long we provide housing to them. And again, there's another framework for that all that is ad hoc, as far as I can see, and I'm pretty confident that is the situation, but what is our sort of water access guarantee to folks who are displaced by wildfires is a big question to me. That does relate in this is to a larger federal system of disaster recovery, which needs to be overhauled.
Mallika Nocco
So, in addition to the water-wildfire-nexus, you also research the water and housing nexus to large issues that are facing California when you think about water, and you think about housing. How do these issues intersect? And what are some of the potential solutions that you see?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, so, again, there's a lot of intersections in sort of the water-housing nexus, because housing mediates a lot of water access questions, as we've already talked about, with mobile home parks. But I think the biggest issue here and the water and housing nexus, or the trillion-dollar question that no one knows how to answer, is how can we build more affordable housing supply in California, which we absolutely need. But do it in places that have enough water and also don't have too much fire? It's maybe more than a trillion-dollar question. I'm just obviously using that as a round number.
And I think it's been fascinating to see, particularly in the most recent drought, really the lack of water supply used as a justification to block housing development. It's always kind of been a mechanism, "show me the water laws", and I think a proper mechanism, we shouldn't be building housing supply in areas where we need to truck or haul water, we're seeing the effects of agreements like that, in places like Arizona.
But we're also now seeing that not in my backyard “NIMBY” advocates are using the specter of not having enough water in very urban areas to block affordable housing supply all over the place in ways that are similar to sort of fire housing, discussion, but I've never seen that happen with water in the ways I've seen it happen the last few years. So, I think in terms of solutions, what we need to do is first recognize the studies that have already come out from folks like the Pacific Institute, Laura Feinstein at SPUR that show that in core urban areas served by large water systems, building new housing isn't going to have a big impact on water supply. It's going to have some impact, don't get me wrong, but that shouldn't be a reason to block new housing. Of course, we do need to build more resilient local water supply, particularly centralized and decentralized, potentially, water recycling with new housing, to provide the marginal supply that we do need.
But then the third thing is to get into the weeds and reverse some of the mechanisms that cities have to use the specter of not having enough water supply as a reason to either levy such large fees on new housing supply, that isn't feasible to build. And in these very local sort of city council, or county development discussions, that can't be used without proper evidence as a way to block housing supply. But again, a lot of it comes down to we need to build a lot of infill housing supply. And there's plenty of water for that all else equal. And so, we need to get to work.
Faith Kearns
It's such an interesting issue, because in some ways it does feel like it's a less pressing issue in our major urban areas. I know, particularly from the fire perspective and the water supply perspective, it always seems like it comes up more, although I hesitate to say that in rural areas, it feels like a somewhat larger issue.
But I'm also just curious from sort of an equity-justice perspective, what I've seen in my own career is that wealthy residents and or wealthy communities are better resourced to block this kind of housing development based on things like wildfire risk and water supply. Is that your sense? I'm just curious how that affects the overall sort of water equity issue in California? Where it may be easier to build housing in less wealthy areas of the state in a certain way. Is that true?
Greg Pierce
I think it's true overall, but it's not universal, because even the state has stepped in ways that haven't seen it before the last two years to say if wealthier areas, including in Monterey and Santa Monica, Malibu area, can't build new housing supply because they don't have enough water. But yes, largely, it's still a tool used by wealthier communities to block affordable housing supply.
Again, that's likely also not to have outdoor landscaping, they use very little water per capita, and with new construction standards. So, it's still largely a tool that's used by NIMBY groups, wealthier NIMBY groups, but again, not universally and seeing it all over the place in ways not just in California and other western states, and really unprecedented and concerning ways to take away water from communities that had some sort of deals on the books, but apparently not entirely secure ones to have water for daily use.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it's hard to not feel like these are such intractable issues on certain days. So, there's another pretty new issue on the horizon in California, and again, probably largely in the western US, which is around the issue of wastewater equity. So, can you explain to people who've maybe never heard of this concept, what it means, and maybe the kind of work that's starting to happen on this issue?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, absolutely. And I'd start actually, by noting, globally, there's been a long-standing recognition that you need drinking water access alongside sanitation access, which is really what we're talking about talking about wastewater equity.
Mallika Nocco
I was going to ask. I was curious. Okay. So, access to sanitation is another way to think about wastewater equity?
Greg Pierce
Yeah, making sure that the sanitation you have doesn't immediately create problems for your drinking water supply and hygiene, basically, that the waste is properly disposed of. And I will say actually globally, wastewater equity, sanitation equity, is a bigger gap than we have, even with drinking water. And the story, of course, with wastewater is because we're talking literally about crap, it gets less attention. And people don't want to deal with it, even when they recognize it.
I actually say, you know, the west is better off when it comes to wastewater equity in the context of the US, than particularly parts of the south/southeast that are still straight piping sewage onto the ground. So, in some ways, even in the US context, and in terms of the number of folks who aren't connected to sewer, the West is doing better than other parts of the country. We have 20% of the country who's off the sewer grid, it's a lower percentage than we have who's off the drinking water grid.
That being said, there's a lot of folks in California who are served either by relatively small sewer systems, or are on, what is lovingly known in the wastewater sector, is onsite wastewater treatment systems or “owts”, but more commonly it's septics. But it's not exclusively septics. We don't actually know what the starting place for California is. We don't actually know how many people exactly are reliant on septics. And there are places in California, where there are also small sewer systems that aren't properly performing and have sanitary sewer overflows. But it's particularly small communities who don't have regulated systems and have sewage overflows, sewage backing up and, particularly, sewage that isn't properly maintained r disposed of and goes into the groundwater and immediately pollutes drinking water.
And so, the state is now committing to working on this as part of the human right to water. I also want to say the state, and more broadly across the US, there has been funding for this issue over the years through the Clean State Water Revolving Fund. But there hasn't been a commitment to what the priorities are, it's all been ad hoc. And California is now going to work on a statewide wastewater needs assessment. We're going to be part of that along with some other partners, including some folks at UC extension, to try to set a baseline and to try to set firmer targets around where the failing systems are, where at risk systems are, what the solutions are the systems, either solutions that are in situ or sort of on site, or particularly around anywhere and everywhere that we can consolidate or integrate septic systems into sewer systems. And again, I can tell you right now that the first place to look is in mobile home parks.
So that's really where things stand. And it is an effort, I would say that is largely just getting off the ground. Certainly, our effort with the state is going to get off the ground later this year. But I've been encouraged to see actually a few other folks literally just in the last few weeks, who are also starting wastewater equity projects in California and more broadly in the US. So, I feel like folks are getting around to this issue, and there's going to be more focus and attention and hopefully progress on it. But it's probably going to take a few years because it's kind of a new frontier.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it's so interesting to think about it in the global sense, where, you know, the term wash is a really commonly used sort of framework for thinking about water, sanitation, hygiene. And so to say it's a new issue is clearly not quite right. But I certainly I've never heard it talked about in the United States in any real sort of systematic way. And as somebody who grew up in a really rural area, it was just taken for granted that everybody was on a septic system. And so, it's really interesting to think about how you start to move some of this stuff forward.
I had a related question for you, which is just about using consolidation, water system consolidations, as a tool. It seems like it's coming up for dealing with drinking water. And now wastewater. Maybe you could say a little bit about water system consolidations. Because again, I feel like it's something that people hear, but may not have a deep understanding of what that means in terms of paper consolidations, versus, you know, sort of engineered consolidations, and just why that's become such a useful tool in solving some of these issues.
Greg Pierce
Yeah, so I'll try to do this quickly. In California we have 3000 regulated drinking water systems, I think 900 regulated wastewater systems. Again, then we have a lot of folks who aren't served by regulated systems at all. And really, California doesn't stand out across the US in having so many systems. Water utilities are much less consolidated, and much more fragmented would be a better way to put it, than other types of utilities, particularly energy utilities. And we find again we have better evidence, systematic evidence, on the drinking water side. That there's small, particularly really small utilities, that serve 500 people or less are the ones that really struggle to provide high quality, and reliable, and I think there's mixed evidence on unaffordable water.
So, there's a big push, and California's in part of leading the push to consolidate or reduce the number of systems to lead to greater efficiencies and reliability, particularly in light of climate change. California has been working on that conservatively, since around 2015. I could name various state laws, but I'll spare you those numbers. And it has had some success in reducing the number of systems by about 200. So, I should say the current number of regulated systems is 2800 down from 3000. Consolidation is on the tip of everyone's tongue as a potential solution to a variety of both drinking water and now, sanitation challenges. And I do think it's wherever possible, particularly in areas where small systems are right next to large systems or even doughnut holes within large systems, again, mobile home parks, but other types of systems, that should be done. When I say that should be done that is referring to physical consolidation or actually connecting the pipes of two systems together.
But managerial consolidation or partnerships regionalization is also a part of the solution wherever it's possible. It's easier to do politically, typically, and it costs less, but it's also less reliable as sort of a long-term arrangement. And again, things like you're seeing in Buckeye, Arizona, where one system was saying we'll serve a part of a population outside his boundaries, but then reneged on that, do concern me in the context of manage areas consolidation or partnership agreements.
And the final thing I'd say is that consolidation is great. But even in California, and when we did the estimate for the state board, for the first statewide needs assessment, I think we found that about 40% of systems that were struggling to provide safe water could possibly be consolidated, with other larger higher performing drinking water systems. And the anecdotal or sort of pilot evidence so far is on the wastewater side, the number is going to be even lower. So, I don't want to present consolidation as a silver bullet to address even half of the issues that we're facing, those will have to be local on site in situ solutions for them to work.
Faith Kearns
Thanks, that's super helpful to know, I hadn't heard the last part there about the statistics, in particular of what can even start to be served sort of by consolidation efforts. You know, as you've been talking, you refer to a lot of really policy relevant work that you do as an academic. And I'm wondering if you could offer some advice to other researchers, other academics that might be looking to increase their policy work, or potentially even their policy impact.
Greg Pierce
The first thing to say is, I've learned a lot from other folks, particularly at the Luskin Center, where I started my postdoc quite some time ago now and I think the biggest thing I learned is that one should take a relational approach to policy and policy makers and treat policymakers as human beings and try to communicate with them, and ask them questions and ask them what they're trying to do not just sort of, do a study on a policy, potentially ask them for data at some point, or share your results back with them in an email and tell them, this is what they should do about their policy.
I think more and more researchers are realizing that's not the most effective approach for policy impact. Sometimes that can have an effect if your study is amazing, it can really penetrate the policy process. But largely, I find policymakers are human beings and they like to be understood. And they like to understand what you're up to before you just published a study about what they're working on.
So, my biggest piece of advice is just communicate early and often/ I know there can be some positionality issues there depending on what you're looking at. But a lot of times, you can also find, and I highly stress: you can find better information and understand the policy mechanisms a lot better if you don't just rely on public information, or even public records act request information, that's great, but there's a lot going on that you won't understand, or you may be able to identify if you talk to people in the policy process are adjacent to the policy process.
And also, I'd say, most of all, if you can stick around for some time with respect to a particular policy, that's where the greatest impact can be, you don't just do a one-off study, no matter how good it may be. I know policymakers get sent studies all the time. And even if they're great studies, even if they're covered in the news, they may or may not care unless they have a sense of who that person is or who that organization is. And that organization or person has tried to understand their perspective. So, I hope that's helpful. But it's also completely, as is illustrated by what I'm saying, it's not a linear, neat, or short-term process, I think to have an impact, and we haven't in any way, perfected it.
Mallika Nocco
So, I was really curious about some of the work that you do with green infrastructure in the city, like what types of issues around green infrastructure are you working around?
Greg Pierce
I'd say I'm working around what it means for there to be equity in green infrastructure, particularly in the stormwater space, and I use the term green infrastructure but it’s pretty buzzwordy. And I think both the question of what it means, well to have restorative equity, but particularly procedural equity, and green infrastructure decision-making as well as distributional equity, which we've thought about a little bit more. Those are all rather open questions. And I'd say the green infrastructure space is so interesting.
Everyone again, I don't think anyone's gonna say we don't need green infrastructure at this point. Everyone agrees that we need grid infrastructure. But no one agrees on exactly what green infrastructure is. And particularly, I think part of the work I'm trying to support is in helping us recognize that with green infrastructure projects, we can't do everything at once. We need to understand that there are tradeoffs. And we need to be clear about what the objectives are when it comes to something like local stormwater capture, which for instance the county of LA has $300 million a year to invest in, are we focused on compliance with water quality standards that's traditionally motivated stormwater investment by mandate? Are we really saying, which I think everyone wants, that this can boost local water supply? If so, we need to get serious about putting in the capture, where it can percolate into groundwater and where there's water rights, sorted out.
Also, a lot of what people are thinking about now with green infrastructure is green space. And it's about cooling. And it's about other habitat benefits. All those things are great. But there are tradeoffs. And I think the green infrastructure space in particular, I haven't seen people fully reckon with that trade off concept. And so that's what I'm trying to support along with a bunch of others who are working in this space. But that's the niche I try to contribute in.
Mallika Nocco
We always like to ask our guests if there's just anything more that you'd like people to know about your work. How can we all support your efforts?
Greg Pierce
I appreciate the work of extension and feel like extension already supports my efforts, the Luskin Center's efforts, the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab's efforts. But I'd say that here's a number of ways certainly, you can follow our work, my work, on Twitter, on the Luskin Center website, through our email listserv, sign up for all our email listservs, we don't spam people.
But even more than that, of course, we want to hear about your work. I always want to hear about other people's work, to try to keep up on other people's work. We want to learn from other people's work in similar spaces, whether it’s water access more broadly, environmental justice or even environmental policy in California and beyond. But I'd say the biggest thing is also, tell us what you think of our work, give us feedback, give us critical feedback. We don't think we're doing perfect work. And if you have the time, I know next time, let us know what we're missing and partner with us if you're interested.
Yeah, I do feel like that's happening more and more in the spaces I work in. And I really appreciate the community in California. And I feel like it's truly collaborative, not competitive. And so it's all a lot of fun, even though we're working on issues. And I feel like in many ways, fighting an uphill battle at this point due to climate change and other pressures.
Faith Kearns
Greg, thank you so much for all of the work that you do. I'm really glad you're in the weeds of all of this work in a way that not everybody can be, but people clearly need to be. So, thank you for talking with us today and for all of the work that you're doing in the world.