Water and Food Sustainability

Well, my first week of class on water and food sustainability.

1.   In your view, what are the two most significant differences in the American public’s view of water management/utilization as described in the assigned reading (“Improving America’s Rivers”) and today?

The two most significant differences in the American public’s view is concern over economic and societal value in the early 1900s and environmental and safety hazards today.

Water management/utilization meant economic and societal value back in the early 1900s. This meant creating thousands of jobs to get people back to work after the Great Depression Era and being innovative to improve life. Dams were built to store water, avert and control floods, irrigation, soil conservation, improve navigation, and generate electrical energy. The “Big Dam Era” elaborates on the legacy of the Progressive Era water policy to maximize on the efficiency of natural resources. Flowing water could be manipulated to provide an abundance of water source for irrigation and urban use such as electricity. The Shasta Dam (1945) was built to control the temperamental waters of the Sacramento area, which meant supplying water to both agriculture and industrial empire in the Central Valley of California. Back in the 1950s Dams were “heroes”, a symbol of American achievement of the modern age of the West, American engineering at its best. Both the Hoover Dam (1930s) and Grand Coulee Dam (1938) are two examples of the seven civil engineering wonders of the United States. The Glen Canyon Dam was granted outstanding engineering triumph of the year in 1964.

Today there are international movements that oppose dams due to environmental and safety hazards. Flooding, displaced farmers, and block fish migrations. Dams reduce water quality and change the natural riverine flows forever. Dams are now considered to be short-sighted structures that drew fund away from other potential sounder technologies. Some people would like to destroy or decommission the dams and free the rivers. Unfortunately, people were not happy about water management system from the beginning and the negativity never ceased through the years. Several Indian reservations were impacted by the construction of federal dams on major rivers. Thousand of acres of Seneca land were taken along the Alleghany River for building of the Kinzua Dam; reservations in Arizona, Colorado, and California lost land to proposed flooding from dam building. The Bonneville Dam displaced Indian fishery and eliminated prized fishing site of Celilo Falls. Dams tend to create erosion of downstream channels, alter fish population and riparian vegetation, water evaporation loss, displacement of native people, dwindling scenic wonders, and urban sprawl. Another major issue of dams: age. Dam infrastructure is aging and raises concern about performance and safety. Water management systems were built over 50 years ago and need constant upgrading; unfortunately, America’s political system funds are given away elsewhere ignoring the original infrastructure that made this country thrive.

Times have changed for America also. Voters have changed their priorities and there is an increase demand on the federal budget and the role government plays on this country. After 50+ years the population is more concerned with political, economic, environmental, and social issues than building more power structures.

Reference:

Billington, David P., Donald C. Jackson, and Martin V. Melosi. 2005. The history of large federal dams: planning, design, and construction in the era of big dams. U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Reclamation. http://www.usbr.gov/history/HistoryofLargeDams/LargeFederalDams.pdf (accessed September 11, 2011).