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November 22, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Air Quality;
· Water Settlement;
· Edward Albee
In-Studio Guests:
· Joy Rich, Interim Director of the new Maricopa County Air Quality Department;
· Rod Lewis, attormey, Gila River Indian community;
· Tom McCann, senior attorney, C.A.P;
· Edward Albee, playwright


>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," Maricopa County tackles the deadly problem of air quality.

>>> Michael Grant:
The Gila River Indian community can make a big splash. Now that a water settlement has been reached.

>>> Michael Grant:
And a visit with one of the most significant American playwrights in theater history, Edward Albee. Those stories in a moment.

>> Announcer:
"Horizon" is made possible by the friends of channel 8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has created a new department that will focus on regional air quality issues. The valley has until 2006 to meet EPA air quality standards for particulates. Complicating this goal is the valley's rapid growth. Furthermore, a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association links high ozone or smog levels to an increase in mortality. Here to talk about the county's plans the Interim Director of the new Maricopa County Air Quality Department, Joy Rich. Joy, thank you for joining us.

>> Joy Rich:
Hello.

>> Michael Grant:
Why a new department?

>>Joy Rich:
Our board of supervisors thought this was the time to focus on the issue. The department was part of our Environmental Services Department, and they dealt with things like West Nile virus, roof rats, restaurant inspections. So our board really didn't want something as important as air quality not to have its own department and its own focus.

>> Michael Grant:
What will be the responsibilities of the new department?

>> Joy Rich:
Well, the new department will monitor both the small and large sources of emissions. It'll monitor air quality throughout the valley. And we hope it will serve as a regional place for everyone interested in the air quality issue to form late a plan for tackling the problem.

>> Michael Grant:
What are the primary challenges? Obviously we got through ozone. We're now moving into the winter season. I mean, summarize for me what the major challenges are.

>> Joy Rich:
Ozone is really something we've not had an attainment day since the late 90s. Certainly our dusty environment is part of the issue. As you mentioned construction creates particulates. Unpaved roads. Anything that's part of the combustion process creates particulates. So those are all things we need to focus on.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, if I recall correctly, just cars driving around even on paved roads create a fairly large problem; right?

>> Joy Rich:
That's correct. That's correct.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, you are the interim director. Are you being punished for something?

>> Joy Rich:
I hope not. I'm actually the county's planning and director and then I'm chief officer over several departments like Department of Transportation, Flood Control, other related departments that have a piece of the development pie. So David Smith and the Board of Supervisors asked me to come in as the interim director, get the department set up from a business perspective and recruit for a full-time director. And we're doing a national search for that position.

>> Michael Grant:
What are you looking for in a full-time director?

>> Joy Rich:
We want somebody who is an accomplished professional in the air quality field who can lead change, because we feel that we need to go down a completely new path work cooperatively with those being regulated the EPA, ADEQ, the Maricopa County association of governments, all phone recall players, bring everybody together to work on this problem.

>> Michael Grant:
I assume you are looking for someone with a similar agency, either county or state level? You mentioned a national search.

>> Joy Rich:
Correct. We are looking for anybody who has worked in any of those organizations but we're throwing our net broadly all over the country to come up with that person.

>> Michael Grant:
Well, you mentioned 90 days. Go over for me in a little more detail what you see as some of the, let's say, key developmental points.

>> Joy Rich:
Well, what I'm doing if that first 90 days is meeting with all of those people I told you about, ADEQ, EPA, MAG, the regulated community. The homebuilders association, general contractors association, and trying to bring them together to help us develop a business plan for what this department is going to be. We want input from everyone. In 90 days I want to be able to hand over in and out director a consensus from all of those people about what this department should be, where we can achieve some real successes so that they can start down that path and put it into action right way.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, I realize you are new on the job, but there are the new EPA standards that have to be met, 2006?

>> Joy Rich:
That is correct.

>> Michael Grant:
I would assume that's obviously one of the most immediate and primary challenges?

>> Joy Rich:
We absolutely have to attain that goal. That's true. Maricopa County government won't do it all on its own. I think everybody in the community senses that this is a community problem. When I've talked to the homebuilders association, they know they are regulated but it's not in their best interests if we don't attain that goal. They don't sell house it is we have dirty air, and so we're getting cooperation from everyone, really, in helping us attain that goal. It's not just a goal being imposed upon us. It's a community standard we all need to make to make us all successful.

>> Michael Grant:
Give us some idea of what the key functions of the department are? I know there is a permitting function.

>> Joy Rich:
There is a permitting function. We monitor the air throughout the valley. We have a pretty aggressive earth-moving program where we regulate the construction industry, what they can do on a construction site. When you move earth on a construction site, you have to come to us and get a permit. Our inspectors visit that site periodically to make sure you are not tracking dirt out onto the street that you are watering down your site. We have one of the most aggressive programs in the country. That's because construction here is such a big piece of the issue.

>> Michael Grant:
From the monitoring standpoint, is that one of those that at this point in time, I mean, you pretty much know where you need to monitor and the monitoring stations are in place? Or is that a dynamic element as well?

>> Joy Rich:
The monitors are approved by EPA, so those are set where they are at. There could be segment of additional monitors as we go throughout the program and work cooperatively with EPA. We have a series of set monitors out in the community now.

>> Michael Grant:
From a personnel standpoint, you mentioned the new director, but is the core personnel of the new department essentially people coming over from the old division?

>> Joy Rich:
Many of them are. However, the administrative branch, possibly a deputy director and a couple of lead permitting managers are going to be hired to assist with this effort.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Well, Joy Rich, I certainly wish you the best of luck in the assignment. Appreciate you joining us.

>> Joy Rich:
Thank you very much.

>> Michael Grant:
The Gila River Indian community is one of the big winners in the water settlement reached by congress last week. In a deal spearheaded by Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the Gila River Indian community will get over 150,000 acre-feet of C.A.P. water. C.A.P senior attorney Tom McCann appeared on "Horizon" last week to explain the settlement. Here's an excerpt of that interview with video from the Central Arizona Project.

>> Tom McCann:
Well, for C.A.P. it gives us certainty and finality on the allocation of CAP water. That's something that had been in dispute for sometime in previous administrations there have been threats or notions that the secretary would try to take water away from the C.A.P. for Indian use and that the amount of water tied up with Indian use is directly tied to our C.A.P. repayment. We had an interest in that. This firms that up and makes it final. As far as the cities are concerned and the farmers and other water users in the state, they were facing claims from the Gila River Indian community in the adjudication that you referred to have close to 2 million acre-feet, I will. Pretty much the entire flow of the salt and Gila River systems. So what they get out of this is the ability to keep using the water supplies they've been using for many years. No longer will they have to worry about whether some of that water can be taken away through the court action to be given to the tribe. Instead, the tribe will be given replacement supply of C.A.P. water. In the case of the Gila River Indian community, the agreement contemplates that they will lease approximately 41,000 acre-feet right away to valley cities. So there is definitely some leasing back to the cities of this water. So again, that provides an additional water supply right away to the cities. But there is also the potential for leasing much more of that water in the future if the parties agree. One of the things that people overlook about the bill is that it provides a financial source to settle future Indian water rights claims. It also provides a source of financing and funding to pay for the delivery of the C.A.P. water to Indian tribes, and to build the distribution systems that I mentioned a minute ago, both for the Gila River community, for the San Carlos Apache tribe, the Tohono O'odhams, many of the tribes. It does this by use the money that C.A.P. each year for repayment. In the past, that money would be paid into the treasury into a specific account, and then at the end of each fiscal year the United States would transfer the money back into the general fund. But under the settlement legislation, the money will stay there and can be used for future settlements and these other expenses that I mentioned in Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining us now to tell us more about how the settlement will affect the Gila River Indian community is their attorney, Rod Lewis. Rod, good to see you again.

>> Rod Lewis:
Good to be here, Michael.

>> Michael Grant:
Did you ever think you would see this day?

>> Rod Lewis:
I did. I think we have a sense of the inevitability about obtaining our fair share of water and we felt confident that Senator Kyl and the Arizona congressional delegation would be able to enact this law, as they did.

>> Michael Grant:
It's been a long time coming, though. The litigation has been going on for almost 30 years, hasn't it?

>> Rod Lewis:
The litigation really began back in 1935, and the Gila River Indian community and Pimas and Maricopas have been seeking to redress their water claims since the late 1880s and before. So it's been over a century. It's been a century long battle for Pimas and Maricopas of the Indian River communities and rectifying the shortage of water.

>> Michael Grant:
I guess I was focused on the -- I think the adjudication action, which, if I recall correctly, I think came along in the late 1970s?

>> Rod Lewis:
I think that's correct. Maybe 1978 when I believe SRP filed the initial petition.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, what uses does the tribe have for the water? What plans?

>> Rod Lewis:
Well, we plan to ultimately build out to 146,000 acres and with our 653,500 acre-feet, which is contained in the settlement, we will apply that water to that 146,000 acres of land on the Gila River Indian reservation. We farm now anywhere from 30,000 acres to approximately 70,000 acres historically, and we can grow almost any kind of crop that can be grown in the world. Our primary crops are going to be cotton, wheat, citrus, alfalfa, and of course, we can grow vegetables. As many people in Arizona do. So ultimately, after 10 or 15 years, we're really going to be the bread basket for central Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
All of this tribal member doing the farming or will there be some leasing activity to non-Indian farmers?

>> Rod Lewis:

There is going to be some leasing activity, I believe. But I believe the tribal farms are going to expand and this is going to provide a great wonderful opportunity for individual Indian farmers to regain their cultural background as far as farming is concerned. We're basically an agricultural people. You know, we've been farming the Gila and salt valley for thousands of years, and it's simply the shortage of water or insufficiency of water, which has caused farming to decline at Gila River. So in the future, I see hundreds of Indian farmers reclaiming the use of not only their land but tribal land, combining it together for a good sized farms. On other hand, I'm sure we'll have non-Indian lessees come onto the reservation and assist us in reclaiming water and subjugating new land.

>> Michael Grant:
Any water feature -- I know there is a water feature associated with one of the casinos. Is that in this mix as well?

>> Rod Lewis:
Well, there is not specifically a plan. We put together a master plan back in 1985. That master plan accounted for every acre-foot of use of that new water on every -- on the 146,000 acres. And it's primarily surely use. We're looking to expand our current amount of land that we use. There will be some eminent use. We don't plan at least at this time a lot of water features. We do have two golf courses. There are some very small lakes in those golf courses, but we do plan to use reclaimed water in those golf courses.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, I think the figure was 41,000 acre-feet --

>> Rod Lewis:
That's correct.

>> Michael Grant:
Of water that the tribe has agreed to lease to certain cities?

>> Rod Lewis:
Yes.

>> Michael Grant:
Any additional plans in terms of additional leasing activity on the water rights to municipalities?

>> Rod Lewis:
No current plans. We are going to honor that commitment to lease back 41,000 acre-feet of water to the Phoenix, Chandler and Mesa. We will be engaged in an exchange of water, that is reclaimed water from Mesa and Chandler primarily to the Gila River Indian community and lease back C.A.P. water. Whether or not there is going to be any additional amounts over and above 41,000 acre-feet of water is down the line. It's in the future. At this moment our plans are to use all of the 653,500 acre-feet on the reservation in cultural activities. However, that doesn't rule out the possibility that there could be additional exchanges in the future. And I don't believe the current council or the councils in the very near future will be interested in leasing back water, but in times of shortage, I think I should add, I'm sure that the community will consider being an equal partner in easing shortages of water for all beneficial water users in Arizona, but that's got to be on a basis of government to government relationship and based upon mutual respect and -- respect for the authority of the tribe.

>> Michael Grant:
What about the distribution infrastructure? We all focus on the canal itself, but you've got to get the water out of the canal and to where you have to use it.

>> Rod Lewis:
Exactly. Well, we're in the process of putting together some works to deliver the C.A.P. water. We have an original allocation of 173,000 acre-feet of C.A.P. water right now. We have the funding which will give us the ability to put down pipelines, to put down canals, to distribute that water from one end of the reservation to the other. So that's in progress right now. We have some substantial construction activities now taking place at Gila River. And people -- if people drive down to Tucson between Tucson and Phoenix, there has been a lot of work going on underneath the freeway so we can get water from the East Side of the reservation to the West Side.

>> Michael Grant:
In last week's story, Rod, there was a quote that I'll loosely paraphrase it. I think he was a water historian if I recall correctly --

>> Rod Lewis:
Yes.

>> Michael Grant:
He said how in the world could we justify less than 1% of the state's population having this much water. How do you respond to that?

>> Rod Lewis:
Well that's a fairly easy, I think, inquiry to respond to. We have our claim based upon; of course, the United States Supreme Court decisions. We base it on current litigation. I think everyone in Arizona, we had over 35 entities sitting down at the negotiating tables with us over thousands of hours of very intense contentious, emotional negotiations, and we hammered this out. We hammered it out because the other parties in Arizona realized that everyone had some risk, and the risk was to lose the amount of water they were counting on in litigation and in court. And we took a look at our risk, and I think the parties all 35 parties in Arizona took a cold, business-like approach, assessed their risk and came up with the amount of water we have. You know, Pimas and Maricopas have been here for a long, long time. We're not going any place, and we have a fair claim to an equitable amount of water.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Rod Lewis, tribal attorney for the Gilas. Thank you for joining us.

>> Rod Lewis:
Thank you, Michael.

>> Michael Grant:
Playwright Edward Albee has won multiple Pulitzer and Tony awards for his work in the theater. The author, whose work includes "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and "A Delicate Balance" joined us last week. Larry Lemmons spoke with the playwright.

>> Larry Lemmons:
You actually spent some time in Arizona as a youth. Can you talk about that?

>> Edward Albee:
Back about 70 years ago I was an orphan adopted into a wealthy family and this was the days before antibiotics and my father, my adoptive father had gotten a shot in the shoulder and he was going to lose the arm, whole arm. It was disgusting, puffed up like overripe watermelon. They thought he was going to lose the arm. They brought him out here to Arizona, and we had a house on the grounds of the Arizona Biltmore, which used to be out of town back then in those days. And he lay in the sun for months and baked the arm and he saved the arm, which is fortunate. I was a kid, and I had learned how to ride eastern saddle because my family had a stable of saddle horses. And out here I learned to ride western saddle and how to rope goats. I had a good time.

>> Larry Lemmons:
A widespread quote on the Internet about your work describes your work as an examination of the American scene, an attack on the substitution of the artificial for real values in our society, A condemnation of complacency, cruelty and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy keen.

>> Edward Albee:
That's a good quote, but the most impressive thing about that quote, nothing has changed. I made that quote about four years ago. I was just starting out as a playwright. And I guess nobody pays attention to playwrights, because they still behave that way for the most part.

>> Larry Lemmons:
I suspect that you agree that it's not the artist's job to validate the preconceptions of the audience?

>> Edward Albee:
I think the artist's job is to question the audiences preconceptions, to make an audience rethink its values and maybe come to different conclusions. No, who is there to Pat people on the back just because they are smug and self-satisfied?

>> Larry Lemmons:
Your lecture at ASU is about the state of theater and the arts in America. Is it pessimistic or optimistic?

>> Edward Albee:
Well, no, I don't know whether it's going to be -- depending upon your point of view. I do want to point out that the problems that the arts have in this country are basically economic and aesthetic. The economic problems are that the arts have become big business in this country, which means that the only way to sell product is to dumb down the audience and so the arts are suffering because they are owned, by big business. And the lazier the audience is and the less the audience wants to think, the less opportunity there is for serious art. And so it's a holding action.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Sort of a chicken and egg thing. Which came first the dumbing down of the audience? Because they are not necessarily going to be receptive to an artist telling them they are wrong, on the other hand, should they not be giving the artist the benefit of the doubt?

>> Edward Albee:
Yeah, it's a problem. That's why we don't go into the theater and hit people over the head. We try to be sneaky about getting them to change their values.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Realism has pretty much dominated the theater in the 20th century. Eugene O'Neil, Arthur Miller.

>> Edward Albee:
It's an American tradition. We have a fear of the intellectual. We have a fear of experimentation. We like familiar naturalism in the arts.

>> Larry Lemmons:
You and a few others have tried to expand that audience perception of reality.

>> Edward Albee:
I think probably I was influenced more by the avant-garde European playwrights than I was by anybody else. That's why my work went that way.

>> Larry Lemmons:
But what you've done in maintaining a certain integrity, of looking at things from different points of view, I think about "Three Tall Women", almost Picasso-esque in a time sense. You are looking at that same person through different periods of time. That's something that generally --

>> Edward Albee:
It is a cubist fragmentation, yes.

>> Larry Lemmons:
So generally something that American theater audiences, what they think about the old bourgeois theater, that they are not necessarily going to appreciate for the most part.

>> Edward Albee:
So? If that's the way the play wants to be, that's the way you write the play. Hopefully people will come along for the ride.

>> Larry Lemmons:
What should an audience do?

>> Edward Albee:
Some of the audiences come in, you know, Samuel Beckett, who can understand Samuel Beckett. He's the clearest playwright of the 20th century. If his plays were set in living rooms, nobody would have any problem with them. It's the preconditioning of an audience. A play has to be set in a living room, people have to sit on sofas and they have to wear clothes that I can recognize and talk the way I recognize. How limiting.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Who have been some of your influences?

>> Edward Albee:
I think about 20th century playwrights that have influenced me most. The four are Chekov, Pirandello, Brecht and Beckett, and among prose writers, I think the two that I'm very, very fond of are Jorge Louis Borges and Nabokov.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Talk about Brecht. Epic theater and something Peter Brook has tried to instill, too, this bigness of scale, which again is missing so many times when you go to the theater and see the normal and the mediocre and every day.

>> Edward Albee:
Also it's very expensive. And theater has gotten so expensive. The economics for theater are destructive. Most poor theaters try to do two and three character one-set plays and nothing beyond that because they can't afford to do anything else. Universities have the responsibility and the ability to do expensive productions. They should do -- they should be doing more of the epic theater.

>> Larry Lemmons:
How does America support the arts? Funding.

>> Edward Albee:
I find that the American funding for the arts, especially through the national endowment for the arts is a disgrace. It's highly controlled and censored by the congress, and it is economically embarrassing, how little money is given to the arts. And of the money that is given, only 5% of it is given to create the identify artists. The rest is given to institutions and buildings, the old he had first complex. Our governmental support of the arts is preposterous, but having testified before senators and representatives over the years many times in support of the national endowment, I'm shocked by how many senators and representatives loathe the arts. They hate them and they fear them. I'm not saying that the creative artist should be coddled or supported you have to make your own way be being provocative and telling the truth, but the problem is, so many people want you to only tell half truths and not be provocative and there's the economic pressure on the creative artist to lie.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Have you ever thought about writing for film?

>> Edward Albee:
Don't be silly.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Why not?

>> Edward Albee:
Because when you write a film, you are an employee. You don't own the copy writing. You don't own what you've written. Your work can be -- you are forced to change it. Somebody else can be brought in to rewrite your work. You don't own it. They can keep your name on something and completely rewrite your script. Life is too short.

>> Larry Lemmons:
What do you tell your writing students?

>> Edward Albee:
I tell my playwrighting students and everybody who wants to listen wants to be a writer of any sort, the most important word you have to learn as a writer is no." You want me to change something? No. You want me to compromise? No.

>> Reporter Paul Atkinson:
The latest KAET-ASU poll looks at why Arizona voters favored President Bush. An opinion by Arizona's attorney general says Prop 200 applies only to welfare benefits, but a supporter explains why employment, housing assistance and business licenses should also be included. Tuesday at 7:00 on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant:
Wednesday, we take a close look at the controversy over the building of roads in Arizona forestland. Thursday, "Horizon" is off so we can bring you special Thanksgiving programming. Friday, we'll have highlights from the 2004 Walter Cronkite awards luncheon, honoring long-time CBS anchor, Charles Osgood. Thank you for joining us this evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a good one. Good night.

 

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