April 8, 2005
Woman and
Water Forum
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Margaret
Van Deusen ’76 |
Two MHC alumnae
talked about their efforts to understand and protect water in this year’s
Women in Public Life Forum, which was titled “Women and Water.”
Margaret Van Deusen ’76, a lawyer with the Charles River Watershed Association,
explained her efforts to make state regulators protect the state’s rivers.
Her group’s goal is to change resource-water management in Massachusetts,
and to incorporate feasible solutions into state law.
“There’s been a big failure at the state level,” she said.
As a result, many communities in eastern Massachusetts are using more water than
state resources can support, and rivers are drying. The Ipswich River, for example,
is the third most endangered river in the U.S. despite the significant rainfall
enjoyed by Massachusetts.
Oceanographer Mary Scranton ’72 said the ocean is so large that it is just
beginning to feel the impact of human activity. Since oceanography is so new,
scientists are still trying to get a picture of the ocean’s past, and connect
it to the present and future.
"More is known about Mars’s surface than the bottom of the ocean,” she
said.
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