Global Water Policy Expert to Speak at Smith

Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst and senior fellow at Worldwatch Institute, will be at Smith College Wednesday, April 4, to discuss "Water, Population and the Environment." The free public lecture is at 8 p.m. in Neilson Library Browsing Room.

Author of two books, over 100 articles in popular and scholarly publications and some 20 op-ed features published in the U.S. and abroad, Postel is one of the world's leading authorities on how the world uses water and how it can conserve for the future.

According to Postel, "Water scarcity is not the primary reason people lack drinking water ... It's a problem of inadequate government investment, of political will, of making it a priority to meet the basic water needs of the poor. It's a solvable problem, if we decide to do it."

In her book "Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?" (Worldwatch 1999) Postel points the way toward protecting rivers and vital ecosystems even as we aim to produce enough food for a projected 8 billion people by the year 2030.

Postel's talk is co-sponsored by several organizations, including the Population Committee of the Pioneer Valley Sierra Club, the Smith College Project on Women and Social Change, Tapestry Health Systems and Mt. Holyoke College Biological Sciences Dept.

For more information, call Anita King at (413) 268-9212 or Aimee Koff at (413) 582-0282.

Contact: Marti Hobbes, mhobbes@smith.edu

March 23, 2001