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Dr. Cluff's history, philosophy and career highlightsInventing and installing water systems all over the world, for the United Nations and other organizations.A resume of developing pure water systems around the Planet EarthDr. Cluff has provided consulting services to build water systems in the arid countries of Africa, Southeast Asia, North and South America. In Mali, Africa, the Wunderman Foundation wanted give something back to the people who made wooden carvings. "They wanted to help the people that were making the African carvings for their museum," Cluff said. Cluff designed and installed a water harvesting system for a village of 1,000 people in the Dogon region of Mali. "In the village the women would spend four hours to go for 20 liters of water up a dangerous cliff trail." The water harvesting system worked. A rainstorm filled Cluff's new system, saving many dangerous trips up the cliff. In 1982, Dr. Cluff visited Tanzania on contract to design water harvesting systems and solar energy for water and lighting in a village located about 100 miles from Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile. "I went to Africa with my friend who took me to a village. My friend had gone all the way from being raised in a prehistoric village, in the middle of Tanzania close to where Livingston met Stanley, to being a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University.. "What happened was that he wanted me to go back to the village to help them with water harvesting and solar energy. But in order to get there we had to go on the Central Railroad. That proved to be an exciting trip." "Tanzania had recently had a socialist revolution. They had rounded people up and put them in villages. They had a major catastrophe. All their chickens got sick and died because they were not used to being together. The people started dying of disease because of the same reason. "All the infrastructure stopped working. The trucks refused to take the farmers into the city Dar Es Salaam because there was too many ruts in the road. They had a food famine." "When I got there to ride the Central Railroad. We were stuffed onto this train exactly like sardines. We could not even go from our car to the dining car without extreme difficulty.. It took us six hours to go seven railroad cars. "Finally we did it, got to the dining car. We were concerned that we not step on the people. You had to study out every step." As you rode along this railroad, you look out and see all these wrecked railroad cars and you start to get concerned." Despite the politics, the communists and the desperate people, Dr. Cluff designed a water system for the local people to help free them of daily water struggles and water borne disease. A Mormon MissionaryYoung Cluff spent two years on the island of Oahu and the big island of Hawaii starting in 1955 as a missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His journal entry of Tuesday, Nov. 6, 1956 reads: "Today was the election. Sounds like Ike is ahead." Cluff also served on the big island of Hawaii in Kona which has a desert side as dry as Arizona. After his service in Hawaii, he returned to the Arizona and enrolled in the University of Arizona at Tucson to study civil engineering. "That was the discipline of engineering that got me close to water. I wanted to go into water since I was a kid," he said. On the irrigated farm where he grew up, he saw how important water really was. "It was very difficult to go to the canal headgate and turn the water down the ditch to the next farm before the water had reached the end of our field. The Origin of the CluffsThe first Cluffs came from England to the new world in 1640. The Cluffs were people that lived in the glens not far from London. The Mormon patriarch David Cluff came to Arizona's Gila Valley in 1880. He had twelve sons. Today, there are more than 10,000 descendants among which Dr. Cluff is one. Dr. Cluff has three sons who are qualified engineers, including one Ph.D. The Black Mesa ProjectBetween 1982 and 1985, Dr. Cluff headed a project funded by the Federal Bureau of Mines called the Black Mesa Project. Located about 60 miles south of Page, Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation, the project covered 40 acres of mine spoils. Under Cluff's direction the otherwise useless ground of coal mine spoils was treated with salt and a field of asphalt and plastic was laid as a water catchment. "This was an inexpensive way of making ground impervious in order to collect rain water," Cluff said. With 12 inches of rainfall per year in the high desert environment of Black Mesa, Cluff calculated the ability - with the ground treated with salt and asphalt/plastic catchments in place, that he could collect 330,000 gallons per acre per year. "We were able to show that you could turn worthless coal mine spoils into a self-contained, productive farm." The reservoir irrigated a 5-acre farm of carrots, lettuce, squash and tomatoes. "We perfected the system and how it worked. Unfortunately, the Navajo Indians did not use it. They said it was a whole lot easier to get a check from the government and buy food at the store." Philosophy:"We have to go from the non renewable to the renewable and get off oil, diesel, coal and uranium. There are other technologies out there. If the world keeps going like they are now it will be like "Who took my cheese?" There will be a lot of people who will go back to the well to get their cheese and their won't be any. At that time there will be a lot of turmoil which will end civilization as we know it. It is essential that we switch to renewables now." Energy and Water Advisor to Arizona Governor MechamIn the 1980s, Dr. Carwin Brent Cluff got heavily involved in solar energy. "I realized that fossil fuels were not going to last forever." During his years as a Professor of Hydrology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Cluff carpooled and rode the bus for years to save energy. "In 1982, I went to one of gubernatorial candidate Evan Mecham's events. I talked to him about water and energy. We shared some of the same concerns. I helped out with his political campaign. In his 1986 campaign, I put up signs fifty feet away from the voting areas at several precincts on the night before the election. This time, Mecham was elected." The Governor borrowed me from the University of Arizona for six months to serve as his advisor. Governor Mecham called me in late November 1986 and, after a long conversation, accepted my proposal to take a leave from the University of Arizona and work for him. We spent 45 minutes together. He told me he had remembered our long talk four years earlier. He said he had wanted to talk to me. I refreshed his memory on water harvesting and spent a lot of time talking about recharge. I pointed out that I was not the most popular person with the Mayor of Tucson and others with vested interests. I worked directly under Sam Steiger as one of Governor Mecham's chief advisors. I was given the choice where to have my office, in the Water Resources or with the Solar Energy Commission. I chose to go to Water Resources because they had more office room, even though I spent more time working in energy than I did in water. I had been on the non-favored list with my supervisors at the University reaching all the way up to the president's office because of the politics involved in my research in both water and solar energy. Because of the interest from the new Governor, for a while they treated me with respect and even gave me an unscheduled raise. About a week or so later, after my interview with Governor Mecham, I was called by the University and was told they had accepted the Governor's request." The fight for the all-recharge system for the City of Tucson, Arizona "Storing water in the desert underground provides water security during drought years, plus a better quality water from the treatment the water gets during the recharge process," Cluff said. "The initiative was highly successful, we were way ahead in the polls even though our total budget was only $10,000. The business community of Tucson became alarmed, raised $100,000 and started running television ads showing the water being recharged through baby diapers, batteries and landfills, totally turning the election around, so we lost 2 to 1. That happened in Nov. of 1987". "Tucson wanted to build this expensive treatment plant because they got a hundred million dollars doing it from the consumers. There were some powerful forces that wanted the plant. The chemical companies wanted it. The water treatment director wanted it. The consultants wanted it so they would all be able to make money. So, the $100 million treatment plant was built and the water quality was terrible. The people found out we were right. There was another initiative in 1989 and this time we were successful with the help of businessman Bob Beaudry who shelled out thousands of dollars. I helped write the second initiative. This time we had money and we ran our own television ads and we won by about 2 to 1." "The hundred-million dollar water treatment plant is sitting there not being used." "Through the second initiative we were able to stop the conventional chemical treatment of CAP water and go to a natural recharge method. Unfortunately, the area selected for the recharge to occur was the Avra Valley. The recharge rate in Avra Valley is very low. In addition, the consumers of Tucson will have a high pumping cost because the water has to be lifted 1,000 feet to get it from the deep ground water table over the mountains into Tucson. Tucson Water can change the recharge location at any time. They can also change to slowsand nanofiltration. They could use nanofiltration at a far less power cost than the recharge method they are now using. I helped educate the city of Tucson about recharge. There are probably not many Tucsonians now who don't understand recharge. When we first started our campaign, very few understood. The situation of recharge versus the chemical treatment plant was controlled in the first event by vested interests who had everything to gain from building the chemical treatment plant. The bottled water companies promoted the chemical treatment plant knowing that their business would increase a hundred fold when the bad water was delivered. The bottled water companies didn't want good water. The chemical companies wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars of chemicals going in the chemical treatment plant. The consulting engineers wanted the huge fees they got building the plant. Even the city water utility wanted the treatment plant, instead of recharge, because it gave them control over all of the CAP water coming into the Tucson area. If they went with recharge any of the smaller water entities could have their own recharge or slowsand/nanofiltration system. Even though their own families, friends and neighbors would suffer because of their decisions -- they still wanted the chemical plant. On the other hand I have always sought to do the best for the people regardless of the consequences. This is true when I was working for the University of Arizona and my private business. Over the years this has cost me thousands of dollars of lost wages. The University withheld raises because I was working on CAP recharge and solar energy; I was attacked by big, vested electrical power interests and vested business interests through the University. If I had not been tenured, I would have been fired to stop my research. In fact, the University sent notification that they were firing me from my research position while I was working for Governor Mecham. However, Governor Mecham was able to have that notification rescinded and my job continued. When the political process starts controlling what the university does research on in the water and energy fields, the people pay for it eventually. Following Dr. Cluff's retirement in 1994, he founded Clean Water Products and began to market the equipment and systems described in this web site. He built the first CWP100 for himself. The next two were built for neighbors. Hundreds of early units were sent to Brazil. The CWP100 would provide drinking water for an entire village from unusable ground water. This kept the village from having to leave & migrate during times of drought. |
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