Authored by the Strategic Foresight Group and sponsored by the governments of Sweden and Switzerland, the report attempts to “redefine the water paradigm in the Middle East, so that water can be harnessed in a way that satisfies the social and economic needs of the people.”  The report’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to turn water into an instrument for peace in this war torn region.

It examines the current water situation in the Middle East and concludes that the nation states are about to walk off a cliff without a parachute. Nations have been making decisions about water as if it belongs to them, when in fact, rivers, lakes, aquifers, and rain have no consciousness of maps.

For example, the Jordan River supplies five nations: Lebanon,  Syria, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories and as each entity tries to optimize its own supply, the  Law of Unintended Consequences asserts itself and the overall supply declines. During many periods of the year, the river doesn’t have any flow.

What is the solution? Collaboration amongst national actors who haven’t played nice for a long time.

The collaboration strategy is named, “Circles of Cooperation,” a concept first introduced by Prince Talal of Jordan in May, 2010 at a regional conference, and it draws two initial circles, one around Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, and the other around Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

The report is chock full of interesting information, much of it bleak.

• The  Dead Sea is dropping one meter a year due to lack of water and could be reduced to a lake in 20 years.
• The West Bank has five wastewater treatment plants and only one is operational.
• The Palestinian Territories need almost 100% more water then their current supplies.
• One of the biggest challenges in Damascus is unlicensed wells (estimated at over fifty thousand) which are draining the aquifer underneath the city.
• In Lebanon, 40% of the water in its pipes never reaches customers due to damaged or destroyed infrastructure (from the 2006 War with Israel).
• In Iraq, since the 2003 War, over 300,000 tons of raw sewage is dumped into the Tigris River DAILY.

I think there are two major takeaways from this report:

1. Michigan is unbelievably blessed with freshwater compared to Middle Eastern countries and
2. If the authors can seriously propose a collaborative process to help Middle Eastern countries treat water as a regional resource, why can’t we do the same thing in Michigan, when we don’t suffer from war, religious strife, or long standing drought?

I would encourage anyone interested in our Blue Economy to read “The Blue Peace.”

The presenter was Fred Gohsman, one of the facilitators of the partnership.  Fred, a young and energetic resident of Redford, said that the Governor’s scorecard would give the partnership a tool to identify new projects and to help the township become more prosperous.  After the presentation, the members of the partnership gathered in a circle of chairs in the upstairs of the Redford Township Library and one by one they pledged their support for creating a visionary scorecard.

In September 2010 Redford Township, Redford Union School District and South Redford School District engaged Project Innovations to help build an innovative partnership between the township and the school districts that would identify areas of cooperation, improved communication, and efficiency enhancements. The effort started with the creation of a Partnering Agreement which was signed by 24 citizens and defined a Vision Statement, Rules of Collaboration, and 17 different goals.

Since then the partnership has conducted a series of meetings, engaging almost 100 citizens in grass roots efforts that have produced exceptional results.

• A Flag Football Program has been established and will kick off in the Fall of 2011
• A Summer Meal Program will be launched this summer to provide free meals to any township child under 18.
• The Neighborhood Watch Program was successfully revived!

• A New Resident Orientation Program will be implemented this summer, including a new brochure for all township residents.
• A Tutoring Program has been established in partnership with Detroit Diesel.  The first program was held this week with 11 volunteers from Detroit Diesel and 13 students.

• An Arts Summit, the first of its kind, was held between local artists and the two school districts to spread the word about creating great art!
• And, the partnership is sponsoring the State of the State Township address by Supervisor Tracey Schultz Kobylarz on April 13th at the Presbyterian Village.

Needless to say, my opinion of the partnership is colored by the fact that I helped to create it, but I am nonetheless proud of the partners.  As far as I know, it is one of the few active partnerships in our region between the school districts and the local government.  Township Supervisor Kobylarz, and School Superintendents Brian Galdes and Ron Stoneman deserve a lot of credit for having the courage to form the partnership. Now, Project Innovations is exiting the scene and township leadership  is taking over.  I wish these brave new leaders, Fred Gohsman, Jay Johnson and Jeff Roth, lots of energy and success!

Snyder says that collaboration is absolutely essential for restoring prosperity:  Local governments, the private sector, schools, higher education and nongovernmental and civic organizations must collaborate to make Michigan’s economic regions, and ultimately the state, competitive.   Snyder appears to be serious about this collaboration thing as he liberally seasons his message with politically correct language.   In total, these words and their derivatives—“cooperation, collaboration, partnership, regionalism, sharing and teamwork”—can be found 46 times in the message.

(On the darker side of collaboration, that dirty word “consolidation” can be found 12 times, but the tension between collaboration and consolidation is a topic for a future post.)

If the Governor is serious about increasing collaboration, he and his minders should know there is a lot more collaboration in Michigan than meets the eye.  It’s a little like sex after 50—lots of people are doing it, but not many are sexting about it.  For obvious reasons.

And so it goes with collaboration, especially in Southeast Michigan.  For decades, the mere thought of cooperating, collaborating, teaming, partnering, or sharing with the City of Detroit, was a death sentence for a budding politician on the other side of 8 Mile.

And that is why it is so important for Snyder to study the long term success of the Technical Advisory Council (TAC), a collaborative partnership between the City of Detroit Water Department and its 86 suburban wholesale customers (communities). Detroit initiated the partnership in 2003 to support the development of a 50 year Master Plan.  The goal of the partnership was to reduce conflict between Detroit and the suburbs by putting the customers and city in a set of problem-solving teams.  Although you would never know by reading the Free Press or the News, these problem-solving teams have been working like magicians in the shadows to create some powerful collaborative magic for Southeast Michigan.

• In 2003,  over 2/3 of the water contracts between Detroit and its suburban customers had expired, making it increasing difficult for Detroit to get most favorable interest rates from Wall Street. Seeing the long term consequences of system insecurity,  Detroit and its customers designed a new standard contract and have signed up 74 communities to 30 year contracts, including the City of Warren, that old enemy of Detroit.  But if you google “City of Warren signs new water contract with Detroit” you won’t find anything about it.  For obvious reasons.
• The new water contracts have given suburban customers much more control over their own rates. For example, Troy, one of the largest suburbs, was able to shift its water usage to reduce the pumping burden on Detroit during peak hours and got a substantial rate reduction.

• The contracts have brought Detroit and the suburbs together to plan large projects, to modify the rate model to make it more fair, to identify best practices, to hold national forums on infrastructure, to explore energy saving innovations, and to educate citizens and elected officials about why water rates are going up as the region’s economy declines.

Finally, the TAC has been meeting quarterly for seven years;  has five elected customer leaders and governs itself with a set of by-laws!  Talk about collaboration! These folks know how to do it … now its up to the Governor and his team to find out how they did it and spread this “best practice” throughout the state.

The Clinton River Watershed

Located northeast of Detroit, the Clinton River covers 760 square miles and includes over 1,000 miles of streams in addition to the 80-mile-long main branch. In the 50’s and 60’s, fish couldn’t survive in the Clinton, but today, thanks to big investments in pollution control, the river supports an extensive fish population as well as canoeing and boating.

I wonder if Mr. Hackel envisions any collaboration with the Alliance of Rouge Communities, which “encourage watershed-wide cooperation and mutual support to meet water quality permit requirements and to restore beneficial uses of the Rouge River to the area residents?” Or if he sees any collaboration between his effort on the Clinton River and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s “Green Jobs for Blue Waters” initiative, which claims to support eco-tourism amongst its efforts to expand water technology industries related to water conservation, quality and transport technologies, wind energy production, and pollution remediation?

Although admirable for its energy, go-it-alone approach on the Blue Economy will not be nearly as successful as a collaborative approach.

Needless to say, the red-hearted Grand Rapids folks were polite about yet another Lansing money sucking idea, but let’s get serious here.  Regional collaboration isn’t going to happen in this state until our communities start going bankrupt and we force the administrators and unions to figure out how to work together.

An office filled with consultants and studies and of course, a few ex-state legislators who just happened to be term limited out of their jobs isn’t going to make any one in government to agree to give up their job or their city council seats or their budgets.  In fact, the real impact of Donigan’s  Intergovernmental Advisory Office (embodied in House Bill 5930) will be to delay regional collaboration by encouraging meaningless studies, community dialogues, conferences, etc.

As most people in the business know, there are many laws on the books in Lansing that actually make it more difficult for communities to cooperate, including Public Act 116 of 1954, which permits intergovernmental collaboration agreements to be used as a cause for recall efforts against elected officials. Check the Citizens Research Council report which describes the many legal obstacles.

If Donigan wants to serious about regional collaboration, she’ll quit the kissing and hugging and square off the real roadblocks to regional collaboration—her fellow legislators in Lansing.