notes for a new Water Culture
BLOG.WATERCULTURE.ORG
Earth Day Thoughts about Carbon and Water
A new report this week from Carbon Tracker shows the financial folly of investing in oil exploration when the oil companies doing the exploring already own far more oil than can be used in the foreseeable future. Click for the BBC article or download the full report.
Some 60% to 80% of fossil fuel reserves (oil, gas and coal) already owned by listed firms cannot be burned without pushing planetary temperatures far beyond the 2C limit already agreed to, or even a 3C limit which might become the fall-back position.
What this means to the investors of those firms is that a very large amount of their money is being utterly wasted. According to the report, about $600b was spent in exploring new fossil fuel sources last year, a rate of $6 trillion over a decade. Assuming that even dysfunctional global governance systems can eventually get their act together to save the planet from cooking, the fossil fuels being discovered will never be used. That $6 trillion of investor's money, in other words, will be wasted.
One lesson I take from this is that investing $6 trillion in renewable energy technologies instead of useless exploration, might be a better idea. Another lesson is that we are doing something rather similar in the water sector.
In the name of "water security" we are investing in expensive dams, pipelines and groundwater projects which could destroy already over-burdened water ecosystems just as surely as the fossil fuel industry's plans would destroy our planet's already warming climate.
While there are certainly many places where new water infrastructure remains a sensible and even urgent priority for drinking water access and food security, we need to factor in the ecological cost of adding more stress to already depleted water ecosystems. The rush to build new pipelines as a way of ensuring future water security, will result in a lot of financial waste along with environmental destruction.
A 2012 report from the Natural Resources Development Council, "Pipe Dreams" documents this phenomenon in the United States. Within the Colorado River Basin alone (which last week was designated the Most Endangered River in America) there are active plans to divert 691,000 acre feet (0.85 km3), and this from a river so overused it no longer reaches its once lush delta.
Just as it is perfectly legal for oil companies to waste money looking for oil that can never be used without destroying the climate, it is perfectly legal to expend $billions of public funds to divert water from rivers that have none to give without utterly destroying them. It makes no moral or financial sense, yet it is happening on Earth Day 2013.
What to do? Get involved in the Water Ethics Network and help instill some moral intelligence into water policy decisions!
Water infrastructure that makes sense: Curb cuts in a New Mexico parking lot (above);
Pedestrian-friendly river banks along the Seine in Paris (below)
Stylish men's restroom (with low-flow toilets) in Cologne, Germany (below)
Some 60% to 80% of fossil fuel reserves (oil, gas and coal) already owned by listed firms cannot be burned without pushing planetary temperatures far beyond the 2C limit already agreed to, or even a 3C limit which might become the fall-back position.
What this means to the investors of those firms is that a very large amount of their money is being utterly wasted. According to the report, about $600b was spent in exploring new fossil fuel sources last year, a rate of $6 trillion over a decade. Assuming that even dysfunctional global governance systems can eventually get their act together to save the planet from cooking, the fossil fuels being discovered will never be used. That $6 trillion of investor's money, in other words, will be wasted.
One lesson I take from this is that investing $6 trillion in renewable energy technologies instead of useless exploration, might be a better idea. Another lesson is that we are doing something rather similar in the water sector.
In the name of "water security" we are investing in expensive dams, pipelines and groundwater projects which could destroy already over-burdened water ecosystems just as surely as the fossil fuel industry's plans would destroy our planet's already warming climate.
While there are certainly many places where new water infrastructure remains a sensible and even urgent priority for drinking water access and food security, we need to factor in the ecological cost of adding more stress to already depleted water ecosystems. The rush to build new pipelines as a way of ensuring future water security, will result in a lot of financial waste along with environmental destruction.
A 2012 report from the Natural Resources Development Council, "Pipe Dreams" documents this phenomenon in the United States. Within the Colorado River Basin alone (which last week was designated the Most Endangered River in America) there are active plans to divert 691,000 acre feet (0.85 km3), and this from a river so overused it no longer reaches its once lush delta.
Just as it is perfectly legal for oil companies to waste money looking for oil that can never be used without destroying the climate, it is perfectly legal to expend $billions of public funds to divert water from rivers that have none to give without utterly destroying them. It makes no moral or financial sense, yet it is happening on Earth Day 2013.
What to do? Get involved in the Water Ethics Network and help instill some moral intelligence into water policy decisions!
Water infrastructure that makes sense: Curb cuts in a New Mexico parking lot (above);
Pedestrian-friendly river banks along the Seine in Paris (below)
Stylish men's restroom (with low-flow toilets) in Cologne, Germany (below)
Ethics in Denial: Universities vs. Science
The New York Times has an article today about the "Disinvest from Oil" campaign that Bill McKibben has been pushing in his "Do the Math" tour during the past month. The logic is that unless we can force the hand of the fossil fuel industry, they will happily keep releasing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, ensuring that all our descendents die a very hot death. The only way to stop this mass suicide is to pull the financial rug out from under the industry by disinvesting the $$ billions that shareholders have put into those companies. For details, see Bill McKibben's article in Rolling Stone.
Who better to be swayed by this logic than universities, those bastions of rational science who cannot fail to take the side of the 99% of scientists who say we have to act right now, and not be distracted by the clearly biased position of the fossil fuel industry who say there's nothing to worry about?
What is so fascinating about the universities' reaction, as made clear in the New York Times article, is that they don't see their investments in the fossil fuel industry as an ethical problem. "Harvard is not considering divesting from companies related to fossil fuels," said a university spokesman quoted in the article. Yes, the planet will die unless we cut our carbon emissions, and yes we (the wealthy universities like Harvard with a $31bil endowment) are shareholders in the very companies that are emitting that carbon, but no, we don't feel a need to do anything differently.
This is the outcome of rational science devoid of ethics, and it offers a humbling lesson for the challenges of applying ethics to other arenas, like water policies. When Harvard University, a symbol of Western intellectualism, cannot see a reason to disinvest from the oil and coal companies they are financially supporting, can we really expect the US Army Corps of Engineers to question their historic traditions of converting healthy rivers into concrete floodways?
The problem is not that Harvard's administration or the Army Corps of Engineers lack personal ethics about what's right and wrong. The problem is that they don't regard the issue of owning a share of an oil company, or replacing a stream channel with a concrete pipe, as a moral issue. Their focus is on the outcomes of high returns to investment, or smoothing over a stream for a building site.
We who work on the issue of "water ethics" are trying to reframe water management choices from being seen as purely technical or economic decisions to having inherent moral and ethical dimensions. We expect the Army Corps to "get" this concept, but the challenge seems more daunting if even Harvard doesn't "get" it! How can we even imagine more sustainable alternatives unless we first learn to see the moral content of existing policies?
Once upon a time, it made perfect moral sense to invest in oil companies because they provided the energy we needed for our economic systems to flourish. It also made perfect moral sense to employ poor children as workers. Today employing children in factories is not acceptable no matter how much they are paid because our society recognizes the over-riding importance of those children spending their time getting educated. Companies that would like the benefits of cheap child labor are out of luck.
When the oil and coal companies are shown -- by the world's best scientists -- to be undermining the health and livelihoods of our children and most certainly our grandchildren, shouldn't we, as a society, tell them, "No!"? We don't even need to change our ethics. We only need to recognize the basic ethics that we already hold.
With investments, as with river management, we can't have it both ways. We can't invest in industries that are killing us and pretend it's not a moral choice. And the Army Corps can no longer "rectify" rivers that have pesky meanders and call it good management. In fact, the Army Corps no longer does that; they have adopted more ecological guidelines for their management decisions. Harvard University should be as enlightened!
Who better to be swayed by this logic than universities, those bastions of rational science who cannot fail to take the side of the 99% of scientists who say we have to act right now, and not be distracted by the clearly biased position of the fossil fuel industry who say there's nothing to worry about?
What is so fascinating about the universities' reaction, as made clear in the New York Times article, is that they don't see their investments in the fossil fuel industry as an ethical problem. "Harvard is not considering divesting from companies related to fossil fuels," said a university spokesman quoted in the article. Yes, the planet will die unless we cut our carbon emissions, and yes we (the wealthy universities like Harvard with a $31bil endowment) are shareholders in the very companies that are emitting that carbon, but no, we don't feel a need to do anything differently.
This is the outcome of rational science devoid of ethics, and it offers a humbling lesson for the challenges of applying ethics to other arenas, like water policies. When Harvard University, a symbol of Western intellectualism, cannot see a reason to disinvest from the oil and coal companies they are financially supporting, can we really expect the US Army Corps of Engineers to question their historic traditions of converting healthy rivers into concrete floodways?
The problem is not that Harvard's administration or the Army Corps of Engineers lack personal ethics about what's right and wrong. The problem is that they don't regard the issue of owning a share of an oil company, or replacing a stream channel with a concrete pipe, as a moral issue. Their focus is on the outcomes of high returns to investment, or smoothing over a stream for a building site.
We who work on the issue of "water ethics" are trying to reframe water management choices from being seen as purely technical or economic decisions to having inherent moral and ethical dimensions. We expect the Army Corps to "get" this concept, but the challenge seems more daunting if even Harvard doesn't "get" it! How can we even imagine more sustainable alternatives unless we first learn to see the moral content of existing policies?
Once upon a time, it made perfect moral sense to invest in oil companies because they provided the energy we needed for our economic systems to flourish. It also made perfect moral sense to employ poor children as workers. Today employing children in factories is not acceptable no matter how much they are paid because our society recognizes the over-riding importance of those children spending their time getting educated. Companies that would like the benefits of cheap child labor are out of luck.
When the oil and coal companies are shown -- by the world's best scientists -- to be undermining the health and livelihoods of our children and most certainly our grandchildren, shouldn't we, as a society, tell them, "No!"? We don't even need to change our ethics. We only need to recognize the basic ethics that we already hold.
With investments, as with river management, we can't have it both ways. We can't invest in industries that are killing us and pretend it's not a moral choice. And the Army Corps can no longer "rectify" rivers that have pesky meanders and call it good management. In fact, the Army Corps no longer does that; they have adopted more ecological guidelines for their management decisions. Harvard University should be as enlightened!
Black Friday and American Water Culture
Today is the biggest shopping day of the year for Americans when stores offer special today-only sales to tempt shoppers. After
celebrating the Thursday festival of "Thanksgiving" yesterday, when we
pause briefly to give thanks for our American way of life, we spend the
following day expressing the values underlying that way of life:
shopping! Many items are priced below their actual cost to lure customers into the store and get them into a buying mood. This year the sales started on Thanksgiving Day itself in a blending of celebrations: Give thanks for great deals on the latest electronics.
Why limit Black Friday sales to stores? Urban water utilities might consider reduced water rates on this day to encourage longer showers and extra toilet flushes, and maybe some winter irrigation of the lawn. Let's lower prices and increase demand! Let's get our consumptive economy moving!
Providing cheap water, below the "real" cost, and stoking consumer demand for that water, is the basis of American water policies. The advertising hype about Black Friday sales also conveys an important message for the environmental education of America's water users: Open the taps wide and use as much as you can, and don't worry. We'll find new ways to satisfy your incessant demand.
Just as Walmart has constructed a virtual pipeline delivering cheap goods from China to the US, our water engineers have built a network of pipelines (sometimes in the form of canals, or "rectifying" natural rivers to work like canals) to give us cheap water, effectively boosting total demand to use more and more. Just as we didn't know we needed a 60" (1.5m) widescreen TV until the culture of Black Friday shopping convinced us, we didn't realize how important it is to have green lawns in Phoenix, Arizona (or irrigated cotton fields nearby) until the federal government built canals from the Colorado River to make those lawns and cotton fields possible through the Central Arizona Project. Who cares if the river no longer reaches its delta in Mexico? Who cares about the working conditions in the Chinese factories producing those cheap TVs, or the labor contracts of the Walmart employees in US stores who don't get to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families?
Shoppers standing in line waiting for the Black Friday sales are not thinking about Chinese workers any more than Phoenix homeowners are thinking about the dried up Colorado River Delta. In the rush to consume, there's no time time to worry about consequences!
Why limit Black Friday sales to stores? Urban water utilities might consider reduced water rates on this day to encourage longer showers and extra toilet flushes, and maybe some winter irrigation of the lawn. Let's lower prices and increase demand! Let's get our consumptive economy moving!
Providing cheap water, below the "real" cost, and stoking consumer demand for that water, is the basis of American water policies. The advertising hype about Black Friday sales also conveys an important message for the environmental education of America's water users: Open the taps wide and use as much as you can, and don't worry. We'll find new ways to satisfy your incessant demand.
Just as Walmart has constructed a virtual pipeline delivering cheap goods from China to the US, our water engineers have built a network of pipelines (sometimes in the form of canals, or "rectifying" natural rivers to work like canals) to give us cheap water, effectively boosting total demand to use more and more. Just as we didn't know we needed a 60" (1.5m) widescreen TV until the culture of Black Friday shopping convinced us, we didn't realize how important it is to have green lawns in Phoenix, Arizona (or irrigated cotton fields nearby) until the federal government built canals from the Colorado River to make those lawns and cotton fields possible through the Central Arizona Project. Who cares if the river no longer reaches its delta in Mexico? Who cares about the working conditions in the Chinese factories producing those cheap TVs, or the labor contracts of the Walmart employees in US stores who don't get to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families?
Shoppers standing in line waiting for the Black Friday sales are not thinking about Chinese workers any more than Phoenix homeowners are thinking about the dried up Colorado River Delta. In the rush to consume, there's no time time to worry about consequences!
Framing the Water Debate
Did you feel something was missing from the presidential debate on Tuesday? We don't even expect to hear about the big issues facing our planet -- climate change, land and water degradation, entrenched poverty, or environmental, social, or cultural justice. Somehow the debate is framed around small business, entrepreneurs, and tax cuts. How did our universe become so small and one-dimensional?
Then I had one of those "aaha!" experiences. I get the same feeling of something missing when the latest global water report is issued. The framing of water policy is, thankfully, a bit broader than the Obama-Romney debates. No self-respecting water think-tank will fail to mention the environment, and especially climate change. Even gender and social justice is often included. But the real focus of recent water reports -- the inner framework -- revolves around a set of issues almost as narrow as we heard from our candidates. "The Green Economy" has become the point of reference, along with specific policies of water pricing, pollution standards, and water governance. But what about Nature?
The unease that I'm feeling is not that small businesses, or green economies, are bad in some way. It's just the opposite; they are desirable things but they are single dimensions of far broader issues. A river is more than a "stream" of economic benefits, or even ecosystem services. Rivers provide homes for trillions of organisms of all sizes, shapes and economic value (I'm including bacteria and macro invertebrates to get the numbers up). Indeed, most of those trillions of creatures have no known economic value, but they depend on the same river that gives measurable economic benefits to farms, businesses and cities.
Bobby Kennedy famously quipped that GDP measures everything except what's really important. The same might be said of how economic accounting is being applied to water ecosystems. There are lots of great reasons to value rivers that don't have a price tag. Stephen Kellert has just written a great book about this, Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World. His hopeful message is that our broken connections with nature can be repaired through 'biophilic design" (click here for 2 min. video clip about this). It's a very similar message to that of the Water Ethics Network, which explores a sort of "aquaphilic" water management, challenging water policy makers to consider the ethics of their choices.
As part of their preparation for the next debate, President Obama and Gov. Romney might do well to take a long walk in Nature, preferably along a river, and get in touch with a larger reality!
"Culture" in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Another view of Albuquerque, New Mexico: the Rio Grande
Then I had one of those "aaha!" experiences. I get the same feeling of something missing when the latest global water report is issued. The framing of water policy is, thankfully, a bit broader than the Obama-Romney debates. No self-respecting water think-tank will fail to mention the environment, and especially climate change. Even gender and social justice is often included. But the real focus of recent water reports -- the inner framework -- revolves around a set of issues almost as narrow as we heard from our candidates. "The Green Economy" has become the point of reference, along with specific policies of water pricing, pollution standards, and water governance. But what about Nature?
The unease that I'm feeling is not that small businesses, or green economies, are bad in some way. It's just the opposite; they are desirable things but they are single dimensions of far broader issues. A river is more than a "stream" of economic benefits, or even ecosystem services. Rivers provide homes for trillions of organisms of all sizes, shapes and economic value (I'm including bacteria and macro invertebrates to get the numbers up). Indeed, most of those trillions of creatures have no known economic value, but they depend on the same river that gives measurable economic benefits to farms, businesses and cities.
Bobby Kennedy famously quipped that GDP measures everything except what's really important. The same might be said of how economic accounting is being applied to water ecosystems. There are lots of great reasons to value rivers that don't have a price tag. Stephen Kellert has just written a great book about this, Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World. His hopeful message is that our broken connections with nature can be repaired through 'biophilic design" (click here for 2 min. video clip about this). It's a very similar message to that of the Water Ethics Network, which explores a sort of "aquaphilic" water management, challenging water policy makers to consider the ethics of their choices.
As part of their preparation for the next debate, President Obama and Gov. Romney might do well to take a long walk in Nature, preferably along a river, and get in touch with a larger reality!
"Culture" in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Another view of Albuquerque, New Mexico: the Rio Grande
The Ethics of Omission
The ethics of building dams, or polluting streams, or other conspicuous acts that damage rivers or people or both, are at least easy to point to and argue about. The ethics of not acting, however, the "ethics of omission" are like a hidden cancer, silently festering inside the unsuspecting body. Slowly growing, the cancer erupts suddenly, as happened last week in Kenya when 52 women and children were hacked to death or burned in their homes in a dispute between local herders and local farmers.
The tragedy, according to an editorial in the on-line Kenya newspaper, the Star, can be traced to water supply policy. The Orma pastoralists need water sources for their cattle other than relying on the Tana River, since the cattle will inevitably trample the fields of the Pokomo farmers along the river's edge. The issue has been around for some time, and is discussed in a 2005 background paper on water and land management in the Tana River basin.
We often hear about corruption, in the sense of bribes, but what about corruption in the sense of not doing what could, and "should" be done? This kind of corruption is a lot murkier; no laws are broken, and sometimes people even get into trouble for trying too hard to do the right thing. I don't want to accuse or excuse, but just want to suggest that analyzing the ethics underlying water inaction, as well as water actions, can help identify opportunities that are otherwise hidden from view until it's too late.
The Water Ethics Network (www.waterethics.org) is set up to promote the analysis of water ethics as a way of guiding water management decisions (as well as indecisions!). You can view and subscribe to the monthly e-newsletter, or join the Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-in groups through the Get Involved page.
Rainbows need water too!
The tragedy, according to an editorial in the on-line Kenya newspaper, the Star, can be traced to water supply policy. The Orma pastoralists need water sources for their cattle other than relying on the Tana River, since the cattle will inevitably trample the fields of the Pokomo farmers along the river's edge. The issue has been around for some time, and is discussed in a 2005 background paper on water and land management in the Tana River basin.
We often hear about corruption, in the sense of bribes, but what about corruption in the sense of not doing what could, and "should" be done? This kind of corruption is a lot murkier; no laws are broken, and sometimes people even get into trouble for trying too hard to do the right thing. I don't want to accuse or excuse, but just want to suggest that analyzing the ethics underlying water inaction, as well as water actions, can help identify opportunities that are otherwise hidden from view until it's too late.
The Water Ethics Network (www.waterethics.org) is set up to promote the analysis of water ethics as a way of guiding water management decisions (as well as indecisions!). You can view and subscribe to the monthly e-newsletter, or join the Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-in groups through the Get Involved page.
Rainbows need water too!
Urban Stream Deficit Disorder
The Santa Fe River is flowing again, just in time for Earth Day. No; it's not because the reservoirs upstream are getting too full from the snow melting in the mountains above. There's not that much snow this year. It's because the City Council voted 2 months ago to keep some little bit of flow in the river, year-round. That new policy just started last week.
Santa Fe River on Earth Day 2012
Letting some water stay in the river was a huge step for our local city leaders. Legally speaking the water belongs to the city, and there is a reservoir upstream designed to hold that water and release it directly into the water treatment plant, and from there into the plumbing systems of the 30,000 water utility customers. Why let the river have any of that water?
Just as an alcoholic should be praised for not drinking, we can praise our city leaders for not diverting the last bit of water from our long-suffering river. We are becoming sober and clear-headed again. We are learning to see the river as a part of nature that we can enjoy for its very existence: Live and let live!
That's the official Earth Day message from the United Nations: Harmony with Nature. When the UN voted, just two years ago, to adopt April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, they also started an annual Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature [This connects to info about the 2011 Dialogue; presumably the 2012 Dialogue will be folded into the Rio+20 meetings]. See especially the Report of the Secretary General (dated 15 Aug. 2011) which gives a sweeping overview of how we came into dis-harmony and what to do about it. I was pleased to see a reference to the role of values: "We must look at the bedrock of our intrinsic human values, at the intentions behind our actions."
The latest podcast from High Country News provides a perfect illustration of how to re-create harmony with dead rivers in Los Angeles and Tucson. Along with the effort to "daylight" the Los Angeles River (see folar.org) they are also trying to reclaim the tributary streams that used to feed the river, and which are now mostly running under urban hardscape. In Tucson, efforts to revive the Santa Cruz River run up against a visioning problem. It's hard to imagine how the river can come back to life while the City's water demand keeps increasing.
Maybe Santa Fe offers a way out. The first step is the commitment to keep some water in the river; just leave it there. The next step is to re-calculate water management based on that living river. "Harmony with Nature" like "Harmony in Marriage" depends on sharing and respect.
Ancestral Puebloan Rock Art along the Santa Fe River
Santa Fe River on Earth Day 2012
Letting some water stay in the river was a huge step for our local city leaders. Legally speaking the water belongs to the city, and there is a reservoir upstream designed to hold that water and release it directly into the water treatment plant, and from there into the plumbing systems of the 30,000 water utility customers. Why let the river have any of that water?
Just as an alcoholic should be praised for not drinking, we can praise our city leaders for not diverting the last bit of water from our long-suffering river. We are becoming sober and clear-headed again. We are learning to see the river as a part of nature that we can enjoy for its very existence: Live and let live!
That's the official Earth Day message from the United Nations: Harmony with Nature. When the UN voted, just two years ago, to adopt April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, they also started an annual Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature [This connects to info about the 2011 Dialogue; presumably the 2012 Dialogue will be folded into the Rio+20 meetings]. See especially the Report of the Secretary General (dated 15 Aug. 2011) which gives a sweeping overview of how we came into dis-harmony and what to do about it. I was pleased to see a reference to the role of values: "We must look at the bedrock of our intrinsic human values, at the intentions behind our actions."
The latest podcast from High Country News provides a perfect illustration of how to re-create harmony with dead rivers in Los Angeles and Tucson. Along with the effort to "daylight" the Los Angeles River (see folar.org) they are also trying to reclaim the tributary streams that used to feed the river, and which are now mostly running under urban hardscape. In Tucson, efforts to revive the Santa Cruz River run up against a visioning problem. It's hard to imagine how the river can come back to life while the City's water demand keeps increasing.
Maybe Santa Fe offers a way out. The first step is the commitment to keep some water in the river; just leave it there. The next step is to re-calculate water management based on that living river. "Harmony with Nature" like "Harmony in Marriage" depends on sharing and respect.
Ancestral Puebloan Rock Art along the Santa Fe River
Of Dogs and Rivers
Human societies have co-evolved not only with rivers, but also with dogs. I've been thinking about both this past week. Last Saturday I was in Paris, walking along the quintessentially civilized River Seine, blessed by flocks of tourists, Notre Dame Cathedral, and busy Parisians. A few days after returning home (Santa Fe, New Mexico), our dog Lilly, age 12, passed away. She has been an intimate part of our family, co-evolving with our children, adding playful energy and solace to our lives.
As a domesticated piece of Nature, our dog Lilly also required human attention. We had to take care of her, giver her food (but not too much), take her for regular walks, and provide attention and affection. Our unspoken contract with our domestic animals is one of reciprocity. They help us, and we help them. It's a "win-win" that probably started with our Homo erectus ancestors more than 100,000 years ago, though recent research on foxes in Russia has shown that the shift from wild to domestic can happen in just a few generations, much faster than we had assumed.
Rivers can also be domesticated very quickly. Some levees to keep the river contained allows cities to build right up to the banks, as in Paris. The domesticated Seine makes Paris what it is. Can you imagine Notre Dame surrounded by land instead of water? The Seine has helped Parisians for many centuries, providing transport (barges), energy (water wheels powered pre-industrial Paris), as well as drinking water, recreation, and of course, inspiration to philosophers, artists, writers, lovers, and as Notre Dame reminds us, to our inner spiritual yearnings.
What is the unspoken contract between people and their domesticated rivers? We need to offer them the same kinds of things my family provided to our dog, Lilly: food, exercise, and affection. A river's food is water which comes, ultimately, from surface runoff and infiltration. Urban rivers depend on us to get food that is clean and healthy. Both dogs and rivers also need regular exercise. Rivers that are forced to stay inside their embankments while in the city, need to be able to flex their muscles in rural areas through meandering and periodic flooding. Without this exercise they can become lethargic, depressed, and unexpectedly violent, jumping their urban embankments and flooding the city.
And rivers, like dogs, need human affection. They need to feel loved, and are only too happy to reciprocate. Here in New Mexico, the Indigenous Pueblo Indians used to sing to the Rio Grande thanking the river for what we now call "ecosystem services." I'm guessing (and hoping) that the Indigenous Parisians perform blessings for the Seine, whether through the Catholic church, or as small prayers of gratitude as they walk along the river. [If you have any examples to offer, please post them on the Facebook page of the Water Ethics Network.]
The affection for our rivers, and our dogs, means that we don't depend on economic cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to take our dog for a walk, or whether to let the river flood into adjacent fields or to keep its meanders. We often force our dogs to stay in the house while we go to work, but we know we need to come home in time to let them outside. Do we have the same balanced approach to damming rivers? A little affection can do wonders for dogs...and rivers!
As a domesticated piece of Nature, our dog Lilly also required human attention. We had to take care of her, giver her food (but not too much), take her for regular walks, and provide attention and affection. Our unspoken contract with our domestic animals is one of reciprocity. They help us, and we help them. It's a "win-win" that probably started with our Homo erectus ancestors more than 100,000 years ago, though recent research on foxes in Russia has shown that the shift from wild to domestic can happen in just a few generations, much faster than we had assumed.
Rivers can also be domesticated very quickly. Some levees to keep the river contained allows cities to build right up to the banks, as in Paris. The domesticated Seine makes Paris what it is. Can you imagine Notre Dame surrounded by land instead of water? The Seine has helped Parisians for many centuries, providing transport (barges), energy (water wheels powered pre-industrial Paris), as well as drinking water, recreation, and of course, inspiration to philosophers, artists, writers, lovers, and as Notre Dame reminds us, to our inner spiritual yearnings.
What is the unspoken contract between people and their domesticated rivers? We need to offer them the same kinds of things my family provided to our dog, Lilly: food, exercise, and affection. A river's food is water which comes, ultimately, from surface runoff and infiltration. Urban rivers depend on us to get food that is clean and healthy. Both dogs and rivers also need regular exercise. Rivers that are forced to stay inside their embankments while in the city, need to be able to flex their muscles in rural areas through meandering and periodic flooding. Without this exercise they can become lethargic, depressed, and unexpectedly violent, jumping their urban embankments and flooding the city.
And rivers, like dogs, need human affection. They need to feel loved, and are only too happy to reciprocate. Here in New Mexico, the Indigenous Pueblo Indians used to sing to the Rio Grande thanking the river for what we now call "ecosystem services." I'm guessing (and hoping) that the Indigenous Parisians perform blessings for the Seine, whether through the Catholic church, or as small prayers of gratitude as they walk along the river. [If you have any examples to offer, please post them on the Facebook page of the Water Ethics Network.]
The affection for our rivers, and our dogs, means that we don't depend on economic cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to take our dog for a walk, or whether to let the river flood into adjacent fields or to keep its meanders. We often force our dogs to stay in the house while we go to work, but we know we need to come home in time to let them outside. Do we have the same balanced approach to damming rivers? A little affection can do wonders for dogs...and rivers!
Manipulating Rivers
Civilization grew up around the manipulation of rivers, so I don't want to suggest we shouldn't, but there are limits to how much manipulation is a good thing. This became a theme of my trip to the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge along the Rio Grande in Central New Mexico. The refuge sits on land that was once a constantly changing braided river channel of the Rio Grande. As the river migrated back and forth finding new channels and abandoning old ones, the resulting pools of water would attract migrating waterfowl like Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese.
Birds migrating is accepted as a good and natural phenomenon. But when a river wants to migrate back and forth within a broad floodplain, it's seen as a sign of an undisciplined Nature that needs to be brought under control. The US Bureau of Reclamation and the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District responded to that challenge by channelizing the river, building Elephant Butte Dam (completed in 1916), and constructing a 80km "low flow conveyance channel" parallel to the river to make sure water could flow into the reservoir created by the dam. Otherwise the river's water tended to form pools and some of the water would be lost to infiltration.
The modern refuge, which has been under development since the 1930s, effectively replaces some of the standing water that would have existed had the river not been channelized and bypassed. The refuge today is more farm than wildland. Fields are plowed, planted, and irrigated to attract the geese and cranes, using pumped groundwater, since the river is often dry. What looks like a natural floodplain is intensively managed to enhance the bird population, often at the expense of pesky mammals such as beavers (which are relocated) and coyotes (which have been culled in the past, but no longer).
The management policy of the refuge has been evolving towards a more natural approach, with a new conservation strategy in the works (click here for a 6MB pdf summary). But how natural can and should the management be? Hopefully the refuge plan will include a path to the otherwise out-of-sight-out-of-mind Rio Grande. I was able to drive up to the low-flow channel, but there's not even foot access to get a view of the river. In a very literal sense, we can's see the river for the trees!
Irrigating the Refuge
Sandhill Cranes and geese enjoying the Refuge
Low flow conveyance channel in the Refuge
Elephant Butte Dam and reservoir downstream from the Refuge
Birds migrating is accepted as a good and natural phenomenon. But when a river wants to migrate back and forth within a broad floodplain, it's seen as a sign of an undisciplined Nature that needs to be brought under control. The US Bureau of Reclamation and the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District responded to that challenge by channelizing the river, building Elephant Butte Dam (completed in 1916), and constructing a 80km "low flow conveyance channel" parallel to the river to make sure water could flow into the reservoir created by the dam. Otherwise the river's water tended to form pools and some of the water would be lost to infiltration.
The modern refuge, which has been under development since the 1930s, effectively replaces some of the standing water that would have existed had the river not been channelized and bypassed. The refuge today is more farm than wildland. Fields are plowed, planted, and irrigated to attract the geese and cranes, using pumped groundwater, since the river is often dry. What looks like a natural floodplain is intensively managed to enhance the bird population, often at the expense of pesky mammals such as beavers (which are relocated) and coyotes (which have been culled in the past, but no longer).
The management policy of the refuge has been evolving towards a more natural approach, with a new conservation strategy in the works (click here for a 6MB pdf summary). But how natural can and should the management be? Hopefully the refuge plan will include a path to the otherwise out-of-sight-out-of-mind Rio Grande. I was able to drive up to the low-flow channel, but there's not even foot access to get a view of the river. In a very literal sense, we can's see the river for the trees!
Irrigating the Refuge
Sandhill Cranes and geese enjoying the Refuge
Low flow conveyance channel in the Refuge
Elephant Butte Dam and reservoir downstream from the Refuge
Water Ethics: Getting to "WHY"?
I’m attending the annual conference of the American Water Resources Association in Abuquerque and the theme of ethics, surprisingly enough, is in the air. The opening keynote address was by Cynthia Barnett, author of the just published book, Blue Revolution, who pitched ethics to her largely technical audience, in such an engaging way that no reasonable person could help but agree with her.
That was a bit of a trick, since her audience represented the professional water establishment – the very group that has watched, and profited, as the water crisis has continued to unfold. It was like talking to a gathering of investment advisors about the economic crisis and the need for a new ethic about the economy. It’s not exactly their fault, but their profession is intertwined with a dysfunctional system that needs to change.
One criticism Barnett leveled at the water profession is that they have made water too easily available; they’ve been too good at what they do. Better to have a few water shortages in major cities (Think of Atlanta a few years ago) to remind us of the value of water, and help us get more interested in knowing where it comes from.
A related criticism she was too diplomatic to press very hard was that the water utilities who provide drinking water to cities, or the US Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers that provide water for farmers and flood protection for valley dwellers, have too narrow a view of their jobs. They are rewarded for pulling water out of rivers, often destroying the rivers in the process, and telling their water customers not to worry; everything is under control.
Control is precisely the problem! Channelizing and damming rivers to tap their water is like a 19th Century plantation owner whipping his slaves to bring them under control. Within the context of institutionalized slavery, whipping served as an effective way to discipline unruly workers. Reformers who abhorred whipping realized they had to take on the whole system of slavery. There are other ways for worker to cooperate; you can invite them to become full members of society and pay them for their work. What a concept! But it requires an ethical shift.
We need a new water ethic that is not based on enslaving rivers, but on finding new ways that rivers can work for us that respect a river’s basic right to be a river. The technical expertise for building environment-friendly dams, for recycling water, for recharging aquifers, for removing or isolating toxic contaminants, is already on the market. We know how to manage water resources sustainably; we just have to learn “Why”!
That was a bit of a trick, since her audience represented the professional water establishment – the very group that has watched, and profited, as the water crisis has continued to unfold. It was like talking to a gathering of investment advisors about the economic crisis and the need for a new ethic about the economy. It’s not exactly their fault, but their profession is intertwined with a dysfunctional system that needs to change.
One criticism Barnett leveled at the water profession is that they have made water too easily available; they’ve been too good at what they do. Better to have a few water shortages in major cities (Think of Atlanta a few years ago) to remind us of the value of water, and help us get more interested in knowing where it comes from.
A related criticism she was too diplomatic to press very hard was that the water utilities who provide drinking water to cities, or the US Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers that provide water for farmers and flood protection for valley dwellers, have too narrow a view of their jobs. They are rewarded for pulling water out of rivers, often destroying the rivers in the process, and telling their water customers not to worry; everything is under control.
Control is precisely the problem! Channelizing and damming rivers to tap their water is like a 19th Century plantation owner whipping his slaves to bring them under control. Within the context of institutionalized slavery, whipping served as an effective way to discipline unruly workers. Reformers who abhorred whipping realized they had to take on the whole system of slavery. There are other ways for worker to cooperate; you can invite them to become full members of society and pay them for their work. What a concept! But it requires an ethical shift.
We need a new water ethic that is not based on enslaving rivers, but on finding new ways that rivers can work for us that respect a river’s basic right to be a river. The technical expertise for building environment-friendly dams, for recycling water, for recharging aquifers, for removing or isolating toxic contaminants, is already on the market. We know how to manage water resources sustainably; we just have to learn “Why”!
Ethics of Agricultural Water Transfers
California farmers are being paid not to plant so Los Angeles and nearby cities can use the water that would otherwise go to (mostly low value) crops, says an article in the New York Times yesterday. The water is worth a lot when reallocated to urban use, so it's not hard to offer farmers a lot of money for the privilege of borrowing their water for a season. The blowback from this kind of arrangement is that local farming economies -- the ancillary services that depend on crop production as the base of a large economic pyramid (with the bankers on top, but we won't go into that!) -- get undermined when some farmers stop producing. When a lot of farmers stop producing, the local economy suffers even more, and the speculation is that, as with climate change, there is probably a tipping point where local farming-based economies will collapse.
The ethics here are complicated. Should cities forgo the opportunity to buy water from farmers? Should farmers refrain from selling their water? What if they need the money to put their kids through college? The NYT article cites two divergent responses from the Palo Verde Irrigation District, which is taking a mercenary stance, helping their members get top dollar when they sell their water, vs. the Imperial Irrigation District which regulates sales through a lottery system, and keeps the selling price low, to limit the land that is taken out of production.
This situation also shines a light on the inefficient application of scarce water to water-thristy, low-value crops like alfalfa. How ethical is that? What about regulating crop choice to require farmers to grow something more interesting, like vegetables? Or what about cropping practices that pollute the irrigation return flows with deadly agrochemicals? Is that ethical?
There was a big debate about all this in Europe over the past 15 years, as the members of the EU had to come up with a Common Agricultural Policy. The EU decided that agriculture is about more than growing crops; it's also about lots of tangible and intangible benefits that are linked to the production cycle, from ecosystem services to culture heritage to health benefits of good food grown consciously. This is referred to, in the European (and Japanese) literature as agricultural multifunctionality, [This links to the Water-Culture Institute's webpage on "The Ethics of Agricultural Water Use"], a term that has been suppressed by US agricultural officials as counter to the interests of American industrial modes of producing cheap food.
Debates about urban water needs and the ethics of transferring water out of agriculture into cities, will inevitably raise questions about the kind of agriculture that scarce water is supporting. One way farmers can increase their water security is to shift to growing crops that their urban water competitors really appreciate, and using farming practices that contribute to ecosystem health. A little water competition between cities and farmers might not be a bad thing, if both sides can make adjustments towards more responsible use.
