Episode Details

Featuring Bruce Smedley, a chemical engineer with extensive experience in industry, government, and banking, this discussion highlights the urgent need for an integrated water resource preservation and restoration agency that is independent, apolitical, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and autonomous. This agency would be responsible for comprehensive data collection, scenario modeling, and real-time communication to address water shortages, climate change impacts, and resource conflicts. The conversation emphasizes the importance of accountability, public awareness, and sustainable practices, urging a shift from traditional infrastructure solutions to innovative, ecosystem-based approaches. The episode calls for immediate action and collaboration among government, industry, and communities to ensure long-term water security and environmental sustainability.

Welcome Back to J. Bruce Smedley

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, where you break down heavy ideas in the small buckets you can handle. Your mission is simple. Help us work through your dilemmas, through conversation and process. Together, you and your community will face your dilemmas and make the world a better place for everyone.

Jenny:

In the spirit of truth, I acknowledge I am a settler on stolen Blackfoot Treaty 7 Territory and Métis Districts 5 and 6 lands. I take reconciling action by seeking the wisdom of elders and individuals who aim to restore water, air, land, life or community. A healthy living-relationship with each other and the earth is our guide.

I’m thrilled to have Bruce Smedley here again. Bruce is with us today to talk about a letter that he wrote to the government calling for an organized, independent, apolitical, interdisciplinary, intercultural, autonomous group of people to help us do some future casting with respect to water.

We’re going to get into what has happened in terms of the government’s effort in water and then we’re going to talk about some recommendations that Bruce made, Bruce, myself and others made, and we’ll talk about what the Auditor General has and the School of Public Policy has said about [the government’s actions]. That’s what we’re hoping to cover today.

To give you a little bit of background on Bruce, and we’re not going to spend too much time in here, Bruce has a master’s and bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He studied in both British Columbia and Alberta. He has 50 years of industry, government and bank experience, which is a trifecta, in both the public and private sectors.

I am grateful to know Bruce through the 4C group, our Concerned Calgarians on Climate Change group, that meets Tuesday mornings to basically help support each other in our learning and our attempt to build solidarity in these really important issues. This is a call for an Integrated Water Resource Preservation Restoration Agency. I’m really grateful to you for doing that, Bruce, and thank you for your time tonight. Is there anything in your introduction that you’d like to add on or some other background that you’d like us to know about you before we roll?

Bruce: No, I think that covers it off. I would just add that as a chemical engineer, water and carbon are probably the two items that come up most in all of my work. And it doesn’t matter which industry you’re actually working in, it’s either one or the other that’s so…

Jenny: To me, they’re one and the same. They can’t be separated, right?

Bruce: Yeah, and everything humans do essentially involves water in one respect or another and the requirement for water or the use of water in the process.

Jenny: I bet.

Bruce:

My background has been various industry processes around the world and commenting on the relationship between the process that’s being proposed or built or running and how that relates to the community, the culture and the environment that it’s actually placed in. So I see my role as a