El Niño's numerous and severe impacts on global weather clearly establish the phenomenon as water event of the year. In honor of the event — or more precisely to provide El Niño news and information relevant to Arizona and the Southwest — the Water Resources Research Center published four issues of a special El Niño News.

This edition of the Arizona Water Resource contains a bonus El Niño News, with information summarizing events and research throughout the past year. Future editions of AWR will contain other centerfold supplements, to better provide various kinds of water information to our readers.

Something New

Also new to this edition of AWR are several features that will appear as regular columns. Each deals with a different water theme and all are written by WRRC staff members. "Stream of History," by Barbara Tellman, will discuss some aspect of water in history. Val Little's "H2O Conservation Notes," another new column, is concerned with water conservation as a public policy issue. Ken Seasholes' "Water on the Web" column reviews web sites containing particularly relevant or useful water information.

Email — Reach Out and Touch Someone

Among its many and varied services, from producing a CD-ROM and an Arizona water map to incidental and regular publications, the WRRC also responds to inquiries about water. At one time, most of the inquires were made by phone. People who called for water information generally had relatively simple and uncomplicated requests. "Where can I get my water tested?" "Does the Santa Cruz River really flow north?" "How is CAP water treated?"

Changes are occurring with the use of email as a communication tool. For one, we get requests from all over the world, from people who have become acquainted with us through our home page. We received email from someone in France interested in bottled water use in the United States, from a man in Rome who was interested in decorative water fountains of the Southwest, and a student in Belgium with questions about fish farming in the desert.

Not only are requests coming from farther afield geographically, but some email requests are seeking vast quantities of information, much more than would usually be requested by phone. For example, a single email message requested the annual rate of evaporative loss for the Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project, Colorado River Aqueduct and California Aqueduct, the economic loss this evaporation represents, along with the method of computation to determine the loss, and the total surface area of each of the above projects.

That we receive such robust information requests might in some ways be expected. Email has greatly increased access to many and varied resources including the WRRC, and those in search of water information can easily get in touch with us. But there is more to the situation than that.

Part phone call and part written message, email is a media very well suited for conducting extensive information searches. Inquiries arriving by phone, an accessible and informal means of communication, tend to be relatively undemanding. In contrast, when a message or inquiry is put in writing, greater purposefulness is implied. When a written message gains the fluidity and accessibility of telephoning, heavy-duty requests make the rounds.

Also, email partakes of the aura of the much vaunted communications and information revolution. The movement encourages expectations that great pools of information are forming and are readily accessible. Email is viewed as a way to dip into that pool.

Drink Your Water

Being human, people usually have no trouble coming up with reasons why they do not do what is good for them. The Cornell Medical Center and the International Bottled Water Association looked into why Americans do not drink recommended quantities of water. They found that six percent prefer other beverages; seven percent forget to drink water; eight percent do not like the taste; and 11 percent do not feel thirsty. The reason that 27 percent of Americans do not drink enough water, however, is the same reason often provided to explain a multitude of other shortcomings, from a failure to write letters to broken marriages; i.e., they don't have enough time.

If I had a Hammer

Sledgehammer-toting Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt has given new meaning to the term "hit list." Once mainly a figure of speech — e.g. President Carter's infamous hit list of western water projects — hit list has taken on a more forceful physical meaning in water affairs, thanks to Babbitt's crusade to rid the country of harmful dams. On a recent western trip Babbitt said, "I arrive with sledgehammer in hand to celebrate the destruction of dams." Critiquing the dams on the Colorado River, Babbitt said their effect on the river is to give it, "the regularity, and the predictability of a giant toilet."

Back from the Grave -- Again

AWR's at least temporary resurrection is due more to the encouragement of our readers and irrational staff stubbornness than a grand reversal of fortunes. However, if our sponsors come through for us, we will publish AWR six times per year. Wish us luck, and please resume sending us stories, announcements, and letters to the editor. (New sponsors also are welcome.)

CD-ROM, History Published

Despite financial setbacks, this issue of AWR features two major new WRRC publications. They represent our most ambitious efforts in two areas -- "new media" and Issue Papers. Each is intended to serve unique needs of Arizona's water community.

The first is a multi-media CD-ROM entitled Desert Landscaping: Plants for a Water-Scarce Environment. The CD is described in Special Projects, pp. 6-7.

The second major release is our most ambitious Issue Paper to date, a history of Arizona rivers entitled EM>Arizona's Changing Rivers: How People Have Affected the Rivers. This ublication is described in Publications, p. 9.

Solar Water Treatment?

If sun exposure can treat water and reduce cases of diarrhea, as reported by a recent study, then the low-tech method might be applied in many parts of the developing world. A report published in The Lancet said that Kenya's Massai people reduced cases of diarrhea by a third by leaving contaminated drinking water in the sun for several hours before drinking it. The ultraviolet rays destroy many of the microbes that cause diarrhea, which kills between 4 million and 6 million annually. Two groups of children had their drinking water in bottles. One group exposed their water on the roof of their huts at dawn, not drinking it until noon. The other group kept their water indoors. The former had one third less cases of diarrhea.

Water Conservation Redux

With work on the Department of Water Resources' Third Management Plan underway, now is a good time to take note of water conservation practices of yesteryear. The following is taken from Wallace Stegner's memoir, Wolf Willow, A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier. "There was a whole folklore of water. People said a man had to make a dipperful go as far as it would. You boiled sweet corn, say. Instead of throwing the water out, you washed the dishes in it. Then you washed your hands in it a few times. Then you strained it through a cloth into the radiator of your car, and if your car should break down you didn't just leave the water to evaporate in its gullet, but drained it out to water the sweet peas." Clearly, a conservation standard to which we all can aspire.

ULFs Save Water, Spray Less

If the notion of washing your hands in the same water "a few times" gives pause, then the hygienic implications of brushing your teeth with toilet water might really raise concerns. Yet, research done a few years ago by Charles Gerba of the UA's Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science suggested that conventional toilets produced bacteria-laden aerosols when flushed, resulting in the same effect. More recent research from Linda Stetzenbach and colleagues at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, suggests that ultra-low-flow toilets do not disperse measurable amounts of germs when flushed, providing a side benefit to conserving water.

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