Q&A with Charles Fishman

This week, the UNC Water Institute and the UNC Institute for the Environment are hosting the third annual Water and Health conference at UNC.

Charles Fishman, a journalist and author of “The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water,” is a keynote speaker, and will speak at 6:30 p.m. today at the Friday Center.

Daily Tar Heel: How did you get involved with water?

Charles Fishman: I got interested in water because of bottled water.

I grew up in Miami, and we went to visit my parents five years ago — we stayed at a hotel, and they had FIJI Water in the hotel rooms, and I had never seen or heard of FIJI Water…

Fifty-three percent of the people in Fiji do not have clean, safe drinking water.

So you can walk into a convenience store on Franklin Street and get water from Fiji easier than the people who live in Fiji can get it, and you don’t need water from Fiji — and they do.

DTH: How did you get involved with the conference?

CF: The people organizing the conference, a guy named Jamie Bartram principally and a guy named Peter Coclanis, who are both faculty here, knew about the book and knew about me.

I think what they were looking for (for the speech) was somebody to sort of take a step out of that community — it’s very focused.

DTH: What is your ultimate goal with water?

CF: I’m a journalist, so my goal is to wake people up.

My message is that most water problems are solvable, and if you personally are in charge of the problem and don’t know how to solve it, someone has solved it.

DTH: Are there any water issues facing UNC that you know of?

CF: UNC is planning this second campus (Carolina North) … And part of the planning for that expansion of the campus is to make sure that the water systems are managed there as carefully and imaginatively as possible. So, I don’t know if that represents a challenge in the way that running out of water would represent a challenge.

DTH: What do you want the audience to take away from your talk?

CF: If there are places where there is inadequate water or inadequate water service, then we should swoop in there and insist on knowing why and insist on fixing the problem.

DTH: How many people attend the conference?

CF: I think this year, between 400 and 500.

DTH: What’s the purpose of the event?

CF: The purpose of this meeting at UNC every year is to bring together people who actually typically work in somewhat separate communities from each other, trying to solve water problems all over the world.

DTH: You’ve won the Gerald Loeb Award for journalism several times. What was that like?

CF: I’ve been a finalist six times, and I’ve won three times. I mean, it’s a wonderful award, and you’re in company of the New York Times people and Wall Street Journal people.

DTH: Do you plan on working with UNC in the future?

CF: Absolutely, if I’m invited … I’m an admirer of what UNC is trying to do (with the water theme). We need UNC to pay attention to water, because you guys have the ability to solve problems that aren’t getting solved.

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