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American Morning
Interview with Andy Serwer, 'Fortune'
Aired April 22, 2002 - 09:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: The East Coast is struggling with the worst drought in over 35 years. It's straining communities, stretching water systems, but its impact on the economy could be even worse.
Joining us now to talk about this very expensive dry spell is Andy Serwer who is "Fortune" magazine editor-at-large and a regular contributor here on AMERICAN MORNING.
This is bad stuff.
ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, I'm a little -- it's ironic, Jack, that I'm here to talk about it because I actually got soaking wet coming over...
CAFFERTY: It's raining hard.
SERWER: It's pouring.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
SERWER: And it's actually rained a couple of days here in New York, but that doesn't make up for the fact that we've had month after month after month of below average rainfall. And you know people in the south and the farm belt and especially the southwest and the west are used to this kind of situation where you don't have enough rain, but the tenderfoots like us here in the northeast, we're just not used to it. And you know, there -- right now we're moving from a situation where it's just sort of inconvenient to a situation where...
CAFFERTY: Yes.
SERWER: ... it really could impact the economy in a very severe way.
CAFFERTY: Explain. I mean how tough could things get from an economic perspective? I know, obviously, the agriculture impact could be dire.
SERWER: Right. Right. Well right now let's take a look at where we are right now and then we'll take a look at how bad things could be.
CAFFERTY: OK. SERWER: Right now we just sort of have restricted water use, no public fountains in big cities, you can't wash the sidewalks and restaurants are now beginning to serve water only on request, which is just smart. It takes actually three glasses of water to wash a glass.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
SERWER: So every time you use a glass you use more and more water.
Let's take a look at where we could go and how it could actually impact the economy. New home building, it could really impact this because if you're a developer looking to put in a subdivision, the municipality must have water to support it. You could see a situation where permits get delayed. And we all know how important housing's been for the economy.
CAFFERTY: OK.
SERWER: Also, it can cause inflation because it can make vegetable prices and milk prices go up as you get shortages there. And of course tourism, landscaping, machine tool shops use a lot of water, car washes, all those things begin to suffer as they begin to do -- we have rationing come into effect. And you know it's -- again, it's starting to rain a little bit. It's not going to make up -- we need 40 days and 40 nights...
CAFFERTY: Yes.
SERWER: ... to get back to where we were.
CAFFERTY: Yes, we're something like 28 inches of rainfall to the -- to the downside, and we have to get it within 30 days or something. I live in New Jersey, and I have one of those automatic sprinkling systems in the lawn.
SERWER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: I didn't even call the guy this year to come turn it on...
SERWER: Right.
CAFFERTY: ... because they have already said no lawn watering, no war washing.
SERWER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: And you know, I mean the economic impact, if I'm one customer, I don't know how many customers he has,...
SERWER: Right.
CAFFERTY: ... but if they all say well it's not worth the 75 bucks this spring to get the thing serviced and up and running until we get a lot more rain than we've had, I mean there's a small businessman as being adversely affected.
SERWER: Oh absolutely, and you got all kinds of stories like that. I've actually even got my kids rooting for rain right now because they know that the lake we go to in the summer will be all icky with slime if we don't get a lot of rain.
CAFFERTY: That would be -- that's a meteorological term icky.
SERWER: That icky with slime...
CAFFERTY: Right. Icky with slime,...
SERWER: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the whole thing.
CAFFERTY: ... the whole thing's serious.
SERWER: Yes, absolutely.
CAFFERTY: That's a serious meteorological term.
SERWER: Absolutely. Also, Earth Day, my little contribution here, the good people at Ben & Jerry's ice cream shops (ph)...
CAFFERTY: Right.
SERWER: ... are giving away free ice cream cones and ice cream cups today on Earth Day. So I'm going out there.
CAFFERTY: Seriously?
SERWER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: Oh let's hit that right away.
SERWER: It's free ice cream -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
CAFFERTY: We're off in 20 minutes, I'll go with you.
SERWER: Let's go.
CAFFERTY: Sounds good. Thanks, Andy
SERWER: All right.
CAFFERTY: Andy Serwer, "Fortune" magazine.
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