05021 Bioregional Water Issues

The concepts of a bioregion as the basic location where people live, and the practice of reinhabitation of that life-place by its residents, are necessary to rejoin human beings into the overall web of life. Harmonizing with the natural systems of each bioregion is a necessary step toward preserving the whole biosphere. We define a bioregion by the unique overall pattern of natural characteristics we find in a specific place. The main features that we find throughout a continuous geographic terrain include a particular climate, local aspects of seasons, landforms, watersheds, soils, and native plants and animals. People are an integral aspect of a place’s life, as can be seen in the ecologically adaptive cultures of early inhabitants, and in the activities of present day reinhabitants who attempt to harmonize in a sustainable way with the place where they live. — Peter Berg

This document will make better sense if you skip ahead and read 06011 “Where are you?” before reading this document.

I don’t know what the bioregional water issues are in your life. I certainly think that you need to know what they are.

Three Necessary Understandings.

One: What is your bioregion? You need to know and understand this as well as you know and understand your particular address and neighborhood.

Two: What are the watersheds of your bioregion? Depending on where you live, the question may be “bioregions in the watershed.” Your watershed is one of the definitions of your home. You don’t just live in a dorm room or an apartment, you live in a dwelling located within a watershed.

Three: Watersheds, when operating properly, provide both goods and services to their inhabitants — human, animals, birds, aquatic, plant life, from the micro level on up. When we damage watersheds by pollution and over-utilization so that they do not operate properly, everyone suffers.

Discovery of your bioregional water issues involves questions like —

  • Where does your water come from?
  • Where does it go after being used for human purposes?
  • What are the threats to your bioregional watershed?
  • What are the patterns of drought for your bioregion?
  • How many people depend upon the water in your watershed?
  • Are there proposals on the table to move water from your bioregion to other bioregions?
  • Is your bioregion or watershed dependent upon water from other areas?
  • What is the pollution burden of your bioregion’s watersheds?
  • What pollution do you personally contribute to your watershed?
  • What invisible structures govern your watershed?

The issues are so important that we can’t stop with these somewhat technical questions. Let’s push the envelope a bit more and ask —

  • What is the meaning of water for you?
  • How does your commitment to the permaculture ethics reflect your understanding of your place in the watershed where you “live, move, and have your being”?

Many people live their lives as if their place in the geography of the planet was irrelevant. I hope you can come to an understanding of where you are in your watershed and bioregion. Empowered by this knowledge, you can be part of the process that will heal and restore a healthy bioregional watershed. This is a primary way station in the journey of your urban area toward resilience, persistence, and constancy in the face of the challenges of tomorrow.

Pop quiz: how many times thus far have I mentioned some version of resilient, persistent, constant? What does that suggest about the importance of persistence, constancy, and resilience?

Noted explorer John Wesley Powell wrote that a watershed is —

“that area of land, a bounded hydrological system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community.”

Here is a map — http://www.aqueousadvisors.com/blog/?p=301 — drawn by Powell in 1890 of the watersheds of the arid western United States. He testified before Congress that these watersheds should be the units of government for the area. Alas for the future, while Congress showed some interest, parochial interests prevailed and thus we have the map we have today, with the problems it has created..

If you look around, you can find a watershed map of your area. Look at it and examine the patterns of human settlement that overlay the watershed.

Water is fundamental to life. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t assume that someone else is going to take care of water for you. Everyone has a personal duty to be accountable for his or her use — and abuse — of the watershed in which they live, move, and have their being. We begin the process of healing when we come to understand that we are not separate from, nor in opposition to, the watersheds of our geographies. We are people of place, wherever that may be. As we understand that, we stop being the problem and start becoming the solution.