notes for a new Water Culture
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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.
A Standard for Water Ethics?
I'm in Portland, Oregon attending a conference of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals (IISP), and there is a lot of discussion about standards. "If you don't measure it, you can't improve it," advised Craig Moss of Social Accountability International (SAI). That's the idea behind the ISO standards, which earlier this year released ISO 26000 a comprehensive set of social and environmental indicators aimed at businesses that want to be considered green and socially responsible. An ISO water standard based on the concept of the "water foot print" is in the works, and an independent group, the Alliance for Water Stewardship, is working on a very detailed set of water standards that hopefully will cover indirect water impacts as well.
Can standards be developed for water ethics too? Most readers of this blog would likely agree that we need a different set of ethics guiding our water management, if we are to arrive at a sustainable way of doing things. But can we evaluate the ethics directly or must we rely on measures of physical outcomes (water quality, quantity, etc.)?
The experience of social accounting standards offers some encouragement that the murky world of ethics might also be amenable to measurement. SAI came up with a hugely intricate set of criteria to assess how workers are treated in their SA8000 standard. SAI offers training courses around the world to help companies assess how well they are doing in meeting these standards. Imagine training programs for water agencies that would help them assess whether their management practices are adequately supporting the cultural values of their stakeholders!
Some first steps towards this outcome are being taken through the newly launched Water Ethics Network, an initiative of the Water-Culture Institute, which helps connect people and organizations working on the values-dimension of water policies. A network today....and perhaps standards tomorrow?
Tar Sands and Water Ethics
The Tar Sands action in front of the White House has now ended. The goal was to convince President Obama to not grant US government permission for the construction of a pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, feeding those hungry refineries, and our addiction, with the world's dirtiest, most carbon-intensive oil. But it's not just the releases of CO2 that are an issue, although that's a big one. It's the trashing of the water ecosystems and the destruction of First Nations' territory. Cultural genocide or water ecocide or planetary matricide are all terms that apply here. See the Tar Sands Campaign webpage of the Indigenous Environmental Network for details.
For a front line perspective, I'd like to turn this blogpost over to the words of Sam Hitt, fellow resident of Santa Fe, founder of what is now Wild Earth Guardians, and participant in the Tar Sands Sit-In. Here is his account, taken from an email he sent today to a local list-serve:
ARRESTEDI was # 93. They took the older women first, then the younger women (they all looked beautiful). The old men came next. A Washington D.C. police officer finally points to me and says “You”, motioning with his hand to come forward.More than 160 of my fellow citizens from every state are chanting (the favorite, “You say tar sands, I say no”) back and forth with a lively group of supporters in Lafayette Park across the no-man’s land cordoned off by the police.When my turn comes I turn and face the White House with arms held behind as the officer tightens thick, white plastic handcuffs around my wrists. “Officer”, I begin “We are here to respectfully remind President Obama of his campaign promise to protect the nation from the ravages of an unstable climate by foregoing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from northern Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast”. He nods his head, says nothing.Then I am firmly padded down; my sweaty hat is removed and rigorously inspected. As instructed, I have brought nothing except my driver’s license and cash for bail. For the first time in decades, I removed my wedding ring. I am not wearing a belt but did find a cheap tie to wear at the last moment.This was last Friday, the thirteenth day of the largest U.S. environmental sit in so far this century. The media finally paid attention as 1265 were marched off to jail. However, our message – leave the dirty tar sands oil in the ground – is strange and incomprehensible to their tin ears. What about jobs? The high cost of gas?Of course, if you’re an addict – and we are all petroleum addicts – where the stuff comes from doesn’t matter. To addicts, losing primeval forests, polluting vast watersheds, violating treaties with First Nations and putting the largest aquifer in the U.S. at risk are abstract, distant threats. Big Oil’s position is simple: we’ll deal with the consequences after the $10 trillion worldwide petroleum infrastructure has been milked for every penny of profit.The struggle over the toxic, carbon intensive Canadian tar sands may be THE critical battle for the climate. They are the second largest source of carbon on the planet. The largest, Sandi Arabia, is close to being pumped dry. If the pipeline is built, tar sands extraction will double (it’s already the size of England) and, according to Dr. James Hanson, the nation’s leading climate scientist, that means “game over” for the climate (Dr. Hanson was arrested earlier in the week).This is serious stuff and by administrative fluke, the decision to approve the Keystone XL pipeline is exclusively in Obama’s hands. He can’t blame the wing nuts in Congress for inaction. This is Obama’s environmental litmus test before the 2012 election.We don’t have money like Big Oil to sway public opinion, therefore we have to “use the currency of our bodies” to make our point. That’s how author and reluctant activist Bill McKibben explains it as we prepare to be arrested.McKibben is not your typical cheerleader. He’s a writer more comfortable making his case one step removed from the chaos of unfolding events. But McKibben has stepped it up recently. It’s his valor and intelligence that has brought us here today, lifting from the noise of heartbreaking current events an issue that First Nations in Canada have been battling for over a decade.No one, least of all Bill McKibben, thinks Obama will nix the pipeline with the stroke of his pen. But after two weeks of civil dissent that rapidly gained political purchase, the tar sands are on the President’s radar. And as a sign that we hit a nerve, oil king pins on both sides of the border are mounting a counter attack (that’s what those absurd ads for ‘ethical oil’ are all about).For many it was the first time they had purposely disobeyed the law. Held the longest on day one, Gus Spath, environmental advisor to numerous Presidents, smuggled a note out of D.C.’s Central Cell Block saying, “I’ve held numerous positions and public office in Washington but my current position feels like one of the most important.” It’s what we all now believe; doing nothing is a choice that is no longer an option.We pay our $100 fine and are shown the door. Freedom. A few hours ago I was free but didn’t know it. Now I’m truly free and ready for a bathroom.Carved in marble at the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on Washington’s Mall, Dr. King reminds us that “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”.Don’t worry if you missed this one. There are many mountains to move and everyone is needed.Keep posted at www.tarsandsaction.org/next-steps
Water Ethics: Good, Bad, and Ugly
Yes there is some good news about water ethics. The Water-Culture Institute of which I am the director has started a network to share experience and inspiration across disciplines. The Water Ethics Network consists of a blog and newsletter and will be issued on the 15th of each month. You can subscribe to the newsletter on the blog site, and you are invited to submit news items to network@waterculture.org.
Other good news: The Charles River Watershed Association in Boston is a finalist for the international Riverprize awarded each year by the Australian-based International River Foundation. The nomination is an acknowledgement of the Association's effective advocacy for reviving the health of the Charles River to the point where an annual swim can take place without anyone getting sick! See their website for details of their diverse set of programs.
Charles River (upper right) entering Boston Harbor, 24 August 2011
And still more good news about water ethics: A few days ago the once dead Los Angeles River was the scene of kayakers proving beyond a doubt that the river is alive once more, as a result of a decade-long effort by local activists. Click here for the New York Times account. Along the Buffalo River in New York, a $50 million clean-up effort was announced for the section of river that flows into Lake Erie and is polluted with PCBs and heavy metals. In Nevada, the native fish populations of Walker Lake are being restored with $200 million in federal funds, much of which will be used to pay irrigators for using less water so more can go to the lake. Click here for details. These cases are examples of changing values as local communities start to view their rivers and lakes as having enduring importance that justifies steep short-term investments.
Bad news is, of course, always easy to find. Two weeks ago the last commercial fisherman operating out of Milwaukee, on the shore Lake Michigan, closed his operation and is planning to move to Alaska where fishing is still viable. He's not leaving the lake, he says: "The Lake left me" with collapsed populations of fish many of which are too toxic to eat anyway. See the story here. It's both ironic and hopeful that the Milwaukee Water Council was formed just two years ago to orchestrate inputs from academia and business and draw attention to water issues.
Lake Michigan last week at dawn, looking more alive than dead.
The ugly news comes from Appalachia where Waterkeeper and other environmental groups are suing two Kentucky coal companies using the Clean Water Act. The suit claims the two companies have committed 5,000 new violations of the act, on top of 12,000 other violations previously identified. Click for the press release giving details.
Seeing the Big Picture
The New York Times ran an OpEd piece today about the looming water crisis, the prospects of bigger and longer droughts, and the need for more careful water conservation, under the title, Drought: A Creeping Disaster. The writer, Alex Prud'Homme, knows water (He wrote The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the 21st Century). The model he suggests we learn from is Singapore, where wastewater recycling is reducing overall water consumption, and desalination is adding to the supply.
"To forestall a drought," he writes, "we must redefine how we think of water, value it, and use it." It sounds like reasonable advice, especially if we live in a wealthy urban metropolis where water is in short supply. But can the global water crisis really be solved by recycling wastewater or desalinizing seawater? What about rivers and lakes? What about Nature?
Is our long-term societal goal just to have water come out of our taps? Or do we want to redefine our role within our local water ecosystems: our watersheds and river basins? Worrying about water without bringing the natural context into our picture is the classic case of not seeing the forest because we're too preoccupied with the individual trees. We need to worry about bigger things than water, like rivers and lakes and the Natural World. If we can "do right" by the natural world, we'll enhance our water security in the process.
Two new documents help us think about managing water from an ecosystem perspective.
1. Ramaswami Iyer, water writer and former Secretary of Water Resources for the Government of India, offers an Alternative Draft (in the Economic and Political Weekly) of what India's new water policy ought to look like. His vision nicely balances the priorities of environmental sustainability with the need for economic development. Protecting Nature is not just to keep the water flowing so we can divert it; rather (or "and") respecting Nature and protecting rivers is seen as part of what makes us human. While we may be hardwired to live in a "polis" as Socrates told us, we also need to live in Nature.
2. Water Management Options in a Globalised World (9MB download), edited by Martin Kowarsch, is a rapidly compiled collection of papers from a June 2011 conference organized by the Institute for Social and Development Studies at the Munich School of Philosophy. The paper by Kowarsch presents a framework (the "triangle of justice") for applying ethical analysis to water management options. This nicely complements the paper by Akpabio who shows how cultural values underlie the frame within which water is managed. His focus is southern Nigeria, but the point is universal. When the water crisis is defined as a shortage of water, the solution is to conserve, recycle, and desalinize. When the crisis is defined environmentally (rivers need help) or culturally (Indigenous communities depend on the river for their cultural identity) different kinds of solutions are needed.
Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau spent a lot of time thinking about water and Nature
What Is Lake Michigan?
What is water? What is a river, or a lake? These are the questions that come easily to mind during a vacation week on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan. The lake water is constantly in flux, calm or stormy, blue or green, with waves going left or right, and water clear or murky. We can describe the water with words or pictures, but what, really, is that water?
A conference on "Steps Towards Discorvering the Intrinsic Nature of Water" will be held in Blue Hill, Maine, on July 31-Aug. 5, to address the question of what water is. My friend and colleague, Jennifer Greene, director of the Water Research Institute, is organizing the conference (click for details) along with Wofram Schwenk from the Institute for Flow Sciences in Germany, and David Auerback, a professor of fluid dynamics. They take their inspiration from the philosopy of Rudolf Steiner that there are lots of spiritual forces at work in our universe, and we can learn about them through careful observation of, for example, water.
Western culture has decided that water is a resource and not a spirit, and that bodies of water such as Lake Michigan are pools of resources to be exploited for the material benefit of people. That philosophy drives water development in a particular way, with debates about the details riding on the question of what strategies can yield the greatest benefits for the most people. Re-orienting water development towards a concern for the wellbeing of the lake itself requires a different way of conceptualizing what the lake is. That's what this blog, and the Water Culture Institute, are trying to do.
To get beyond our own cultural categories that tell us that Lake Michigan is a giant pool of resources, we can engage in a bit of cultural therapy simply by observing the lake and seeing what's out there. What does it look like? Does it look like a resource? Does it look mysterious? Sacred? What color is it? What is the shape of the water as it touches the air? As the waves crash onto the shore?
I engaged in a bit of therapy during the past week on the shore of the lake, in Lilly Bay, just north or Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. I spent a lot of time looking at the lake and as Socrates (I think) said about the river, you can't see the same lake twice. The colors and the waves are always in flux.
There's the classic blue, or "wine dark" as the Greeks described the color of the Mediterranean.
In the early morning there is usually a red glow from the rising sun, which I only rarely managed to see; 
and at night, the lake becomes black, except when illuminated by moonlight:
The sand on the lake bottom gives a tan, green, or yellowish hue when the water is calm, and the subsurface texture can shine through.
And there is a lot of white color along the shore, as the blue waves get transformed into white froth as they hit the shore...
