Ian A. Smith

Metropolitan State College of Denver 

[Adapted from Smith’s “The Role of Humility and Intrinsic Goods in Preserving Endangered Species: Why Preserve the Humpback Chub?” Environmental Ethics Vol. 32 No. 2 (Summer): 165-182. Copyright 2010.]

In the western United States, environmental groups like the Glen Canyon Institute have worked tirelessly to save several species of endangered fish along the Colorado River, including the humpback chub (Gila cypha). Partly on the basis of wanting to save these endangered fish species, the Institute has advocated that the Glen Canyon Dam in the Colorado River Basin be decommissioned. Without the dam, the Colorado River will warm up and become muddy again in Glen Canyon, which is good for the endangered fish species. However, removal of the dam is bad for the introduced fish species of the river, such as the striped bass, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and walleye which prefer cool, clear waters that the dam has been able to provide.

If the Institute is successful in having the dam decommissioned, then Lake Powell (which Glen Canyon dam created) and the associated tail waters of Lees Ferry, with their burgeoning introduced fisheries, will cease to be fisheries any longer. This is an economic disadvantage to decommissioning the dam – others include a severe reduction in tourism in the area, as the main source of tourism in the area is Lake Powell, and the obvious loss of a massive water storage area in the form of Lake Powell.

Critics of the humpback chub’s preservation point to these kinds of economic disadvantages to saving the chub via decommissioning the dam. They are also concerned that current efforts to save the chub are wasted, and so point to further economic costs of trying to save the chub. The Native Fish Work Group (NFWG), a group founded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is charged with saving the humpback and other endemic endangered species of the Colorado River from extinction. Their methodology is as follows: mature fish are bred at a hatchery, and the resulting hatchlings are transferred to various ponds in the Las Vegas area. Once these fish reach maturity, they are transferred back to the Colorado where they attempt to reproduce. Unfortunately, the transferred fish are hardly ever able to produce offspring that themselves survive to reach maturity and then reproduce on their own. This is because the offspring are eaten by introduced fish such as trout, bass, and walleye.  Consequently, the NFWG as it currently exists does not work to satisfy its stated aim of saving the humpback chub (Chessa, 2005). And so whatever money it takes to run the program is wasted.  In fact, it is hard to see how the chub will do well in the future without the removal of the introduced species in question. 

Continuing with their criticism, critics ask, “What good is it, anyway?” These critics are asking the environmentalists who wish to save the humpback chub what instrumental value the humpback chub has, that is, what value it has as a means to an end of some other entity. Canvassing instrumental reasons for why we might preserve the humpback chub, we seem to find none, the critic may argue. The kinds of instrumental value that the critic may consider are aesthetic value, ecosystemic value, and economic value.

Considering aesthetic value first, a critic may say that the humpback chub probably does not strike us as “cute,” or magnificent, or in possession of any other pleasing aesthetic characteristic, so a claim that it had any aesthetic value would be met with immediate skepticism. Or, in the parlance of biologists, the humpback chub is not one of the charismatic megafauna, like species of bear, whale, and cheetah that seem to have obvious aesthetic value.

A critic may also point out that the chub does not seem to have ecosystemic value. One way of broadly defining ecosystemic value is that it is the contribution a species makes to the functioning of the trophic structure (food web) of which the species is a part. One clear way that a species could have value in this way is if some other species within the ecosystem in question would be adversely affected if it became extinct. When posed with the question of whether the humpback chub has value in this sense, an expert on the recovery of the chub, Dr. Robert Muth, Director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said that the chub has no such value. His assessment was that the current trophic structure that the chub is a part has not been significantly changed as a result of its being in the process of becoming extinct, and is not expected to be significantly changed once it does become extinct, and so no other species have been or are expected to be significantly affected in an adverse way.

Additionally, the critic may point out that the humpback chub has no clear economic value. One clear way that the chub could have instrumental economic value is if it is used as a food source. Though it was true that the humpback chub and other endangered minnow species in the Colorado River Basin were once used as food by both Native Americans and early pioneers, the introduction of more desired species such as the trout have eliminated any interest in eating these minnow species. 

In response to the claim that the humpback chub has no clear instrumental value, the proponent of its preservation could shift the terms of the debate. When asked the question “What good is it, anyway?” the preservationist could turn the question around on the critic and ask, “What good are you, anyway?” The critic would regard this question as missing something. People see themselves as being valuable not only in an instrumental way, but also in an intrinsic (or inherent) way. That is, even though people see themselves as being valuable in various ways to family, friends, and colleagues, they view themselves as having value that exceeds and is distinct from their instrumental value. People, in short, see themselves as possessing value as ends-in-themselves, value that is not for the sake of anyone or anything else.

With the question “What good are you, anyway?” preservationists could try to show that asking whether something has just instrumental value misses something, namely that the thing in question might also have intrinsic value. If the humpback chub has intrinsic value, then having this value could help to show that the chub should be preserved.   

Several environmental ethicists have developed accounts of species’ intrinsic value.  Beginning with an overview of Lawrence Johnson’s account, Johnson generates an argument for the intrinsic value of species by starting with the claim that individual human beings have intrinsic value, and then investigates whether the reasons offered for that claim apply to species (Johnson 1991, 1992). Johnson answers the question of what makes a human being have intrinsic value by saying that it is the possession of well-being interests that makes an entity have such value. Well-being interests are those that conduce to the effective integrated functioning of an entity. Johnson argues that species have such well-being interests, and thus have intrinsic value.

J. Baird Callicott saw in David Hume, Charles Darwin, and Aldo Leopold a sociobiological account of why we humans intrinsically value others, or, alternatively, how others have intrinsic value (Callicott 1989, 1999). This story is about how our other-regarding sentiments like sympathy evolved to care first about our kin, then to care about nonkin, and then to care about whole nations. Callicott saw that this story of intrinsically valuing ourselves, others, and whole nations could be extended to intrinsically valuing other individual organisms, species, biological communities, and even the land that helps sustain those communities, for he believes that our other-regarding sentiments can be focused onto aspects of nature as well.

Giving a final overview of an account of species’ intrinsic value, Callicott (1992, p. 133-34) gives a concise outline of one offered by the father of environmental ethics, Holmes Rolston:

“…organisms defend their ‘own kind as a good kind.’ By this he [Rolston] means that all organisms…actively defend their lives, and strive to propagate their own species. Each organism has a telos, a built-in end…. Thus, each is an end in itself. Each, therefore, has a good of its own. This claim, that all organisms are ends in themselves with goods of their own, may be what we choose to mean by saying that they are intrinsically valuable....  Species and ecosystems also…possess Rolstonian intrinsic value. Each organism ‘re-presents’ its species. Each is a token of its type.  Its type is indeed its telos, just as Aristotle would have it. Each strives to be a good of its kind, and some succeed better than others. Remember Rolston’s key formula...: all organisms defend their “own kind as a good kind.” Hence, kinds – species – also have intrinsic value.”

References

Callicott, J. Baird. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic. SUNY Press, Albany.
Callicott, J. Baird. 1992. “Rolston on Intrinsic Value.” Environmental Ethics Vol. 14 No. 2 (Summer): 129-143.
Callicott, J. Baird. 1999. Beyond the Land Ethic. SUNY Press, Albany.
Chessa, Frank. 2005. “Endangered Species and the Right to Die.” Environmental Ethics Vol. 27 No. 1 (Spring): 23-41.
Johnson, Lawrence. 1991. A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and Environmental Ethics. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Johnson, Lawrence. 1992. “Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and Ecosystems.” Environmental Ethics Vol. 14 No. 2 (Summer): 145-157.

Anthony Brinkman
University of Nevada—Reno

In 2003, the voters of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the City of Ann Arbor approved a 30-year property tax increase to preserve open space and farmland at the City’s periphery. The mileage that funds the Greenbelt Program is expected to generate $84 million over 30 years. The program so far has preserved 703 acres at the cost of $11.26 million. Although it is still too early to tell whether they will have had merit, the promises of greenbelt advocates are attractive. More parkland and an end to urban “sprawl” top the list.  With growth focused inside the greenbelt, the argument goes, densities will rise to a level that can efficiently support mass transit, thereby reducing every ill from air pollution to road congestion. Higher densities, too, claim supporters, also provide more opportunities to walk and bicycle.

Greenbelt detractors, on the other hand, have grave concerns about the equity of the program. They argue that reducing the acreage of land available for residential development will negatively affect the inventory of affordable housing in an area already notorious for its high housing costs. “Anything that increases the value of real property is great if you already have a piece of the pie,” one citizen complained at a recent public forum on the progress of the Greenbelt Program. She was particularly concerned because the Greenbelt amenity will mainly abut high-income areas of the City, making already highly desirable properties even more valuable. “Same old story. The rich get richer.” More troubling to Isadore Freeman, a longtime resident of Pittsfield Township, is the inequity, as he sees it, of curtailing commercial and industrial growth just when it is arriving in Pittsfield.  “We have been waiting years to benefit from that growth!  The elitist swine across Ellsworth Road don’t care a nickel about us.”

Pittsfield Township, especially when compared with Ann Arbor, is not affluent and many residents struggle financially. The growth of its tax base has not kept up with its needs for services and employment opportunities have mostly been quite distant for residents of Pittsfield. “Just when we expected our roads to be fixed, they shut off the tap. How fair is that?” The swine, as it were, contend that the City plans to purchase property and development rights for the greenbelt on the open market. “If there is demand for a Walmart way out there, then Sam Walton can buy it out from under us,” an unnamed source in the City administration explained.  Of course, that assumes that the City does what the City plans. The possibility that the City may use its eminent domain powers provides an incentive for landowners in the path of the greenbelt to sell to the City and for developers to look elsewhere for property. Also, those not wishing to sell are likely to cut the best deal now, rather than later risk the chance that the ordered selling price from condemnation will be lower.  Even without the threat of condemnation, there are not many able to compete with the purchasing power of Ann Arbor’s program, Sam Walton not withstanding.

Interestingly, it is no longer just the purchasing power of Ann Arbor taxpayers that opponents of the Greenbelt must face, but also the dollars from their own pocketbooks. Recently, the US Department of Agriculture anted up $335,000 from its Farm and Ranchland Protection Program to subsidize the Greenbelt Program.

Copyright “Greenbelt” by P. Anthony Brinkman, 2010 National Ethics Bowl Case, Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.

Anya Plutynski
University of Utah
 
Water is the central limiting resource of the Western United States, the source a unique and elaborate body of law, the site of extensive dams and development, and the center of a history of divisive politics of the West. For the past 100 years, water has been developed to serve largely narrow utilitarian ends: agriculture, mining, and the ever-growing population of the West. Today, a new challenge faces those who manage and plan for water in the west: climate change. Scientists and engineers, as well as the NOAA, are already documenting change and planning for the stresses water variability and shortages might place on users in desert states such as Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
 
However, in western states with a libertarian bent, the law and politics of water and the politics of climate change make an especially heady mix. The very claim that warming is happening, not to mention that it is caused by anthropogenic activities, has divided politicians and scientists, policy makers and activists, along partisan lines. Many of those with the most power in state and local governments regard climate change abatement measures as a challenge to “western” values of liberty and free enterprise. Moreover, states are deeply divided because of a long history of tension over rights to water – from the headwaters of the Colorado to Mexico.
 
Scientists, lawyers, water users, stakeholders, leaders of environmental organizations, and leaders in state and local government have very different perceptions about the extent and nature of risks due to climate change, and how to address these risks. These differences in knowledge and perception will no doubt have substantial repercussions for water use and availability in the future.
 
The object of this case study is first, to summarize the state of climate science, particularly, it’s potential impacts on water resources in the west. Second, we will reflect on the political, social and logistical complications that these changes will bring for planning for water in the West. Third and finally, the object is to try to map out the causes of these very different perceptions, suggest ways in which scientists and policy makers might better communicate, about our values in planning for water resources, as well as our shared obligations in responsibility for non-human animals, ecosystems, and future generations.
 
Climate Science and the West: A Summary
 
There are, broadly speaking, three central challenges that climate change may present with respect to water in the West. First, variability in climate will increase; this means, roughly, that extremes temperature and precipitation will occur more often, and weather in general will be less predictable.
 
According to scientists at the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), in fact, this has already occurred on a local level. Models used to predict local weather in Utah, though they are always periodically updated, have had to be updated sooner than expected. According to Brian McInerny, Senior Service Hydrologist at the NOAA: “We’re seeing that [lots of precipitation] right now: it’s harder to forecast river flows because the spring weather is more variable. It’s different from average… if you use statistical means for forecast stream flows, you can look at the past, and predict the future. But if you change air mass composition and temperature is different, using [that] method doesn’t work … we are going to shift now to 81-2011 for the 30-year average. When you do that, your window has moved into more of a climate change regime, so the temperatures are warmer, so your averages are going to be higher. Nighttime lows are much higher.”
 
In other words, the models that the NOAA are now using as a baseline for weather forecasts in the mountain west have had to be shifted “up” to the most recent window of time, in order to incorporate the new variability.
 
The second challenge (at least at Northern latitudes) will be higher precipitation, falling largely as rain, rather than snow. According to Thomas Reichler, a Professor of Meteorology at the University of Utah: “There will be on the order of 10% increases in precipitation in winter over northern Utah, and roughly 10% decrease in summer. Those changes become smaller as you go toward the south.” Precipitation increase is tied to increases in temperature. Reichler estimates that temperature increases will be “on the order of 5 deg. F. The seasonal differences are not so large, in terms of temperatures – basically it just gets warmer, in winter as well as summer.”
 
Jim Steenbergh, Professor of Meteorology at University of Utah adds, “We have a range of scenarios for the next 100 years. Most of the climate modes predict warming in the 3-9 degree range over the next 100 years.” With higher average temperatures, more precipitation will fall as rain than snow, and there will, on average, be higher runoff from the Wasatch Range, for example, earlier in the spring season.
 
In summary, according to Steenbergh, “The changes in temperature we can expect in the next 50-100 years are much larger than anything that’s occurred since humans have settled here, even before Native Americans were on the land.  So, we’re looking at a pretty big change in terms of the climate of the state.”
 
Third and finally, and perhaps much more concerning, are what have been dubbed “mega-droughts.” According to Rob Gillies, Utah’s State Climatologist and Professor at Utah State University: “…with climate change, the projections for Utah are that we’re going into more extended droughts, of the like that happened in the past with the Anasazi... We going to look at the paleo records – from the tree rings, we look at the cycles of drought. From the data that we now have – we see that there is a cycle every three years, seven years, and one every 25 years.”
 
Reichler explains that these are droughts on a scale that we’ve not seen in the Western United States since occupied by Europeans: “There have been some paleoclimate studies trying to measure from proxy data – like from tree rings – trying to reconstruct the hydroclimate over the last 1000 years. They find that … the last drought that we had over the last 6 years – these events were more common than we originally thought in the very distant past – like over the last 1000 years. And, I think that this is what they dubbed a mega-drought.”
 
He continues, “Hydrologists usually prepare dams and reservoirs and so on for events that occur maybe once in 100 years – probably because they have an observational record that goes back 100 years. And, they think, maybe that’s something that may happen in the future in again. Of course, if you wait long enough, there may happen something that occurs only once every 1000 years. And, you don’t know when that may happen.”
 
Steenbergh explains: “That’s actually my biggest concern, for at least the rest of my lifetime, is the potential that we see one of these mega-droughts. That would, I say, be the biggest risk we have, in terms of our natural water flows. Over time, that climate change signal will be important. But, between now and 2050, the mega-drought is possibly the biggest issue. But, whether or not we get it in the next fifty years is a tougher call to make… You’re talking about a situation where it’s very difficult to recharge reservoirs for many years. In the past, when we’ve gotten into these droughts over a few years in the past, the reservoir storage goes down, and, the reservoirs do their job.  That’s what they’re built for – to smooth out the climate system. And, of course we all know that Lake Powell is reaching terribly low values. But we haven’t reached anything nearly as bad as what we see in the tree ring record.  So, we’re seeing a situation where our water resources would be stretched to the maximum.”
 
In sum, there are three problems: what I’ll call the merely “complicating” and the “zero-sum” problems associated with climate change in the west. Complicating problems include variability and unpredictability in climate and precipitation, higher temperatures, less precipitation as snow, and consequently, higher run off earlier in the season. One of the major effects of climate change and increased temperatures will be increased evaporation and evapotranspiration rates. Reservoirs evaporate large amounts of water. Also, ecosystems moving north may affect water variability and distribution.
 
Zero-sum problems are problems where the outcome is irreversible and on a vast scale; these include droughts on a major scale, droughts that require radical reconsideration of water use in the West. Such droughts have occurred in the past, and indeed, can be predicted for an arid state like Utah on a regular cycle, though, of course, predicting such “zero-sum” events is a challenge.
 
This leads one naturally to the question of uncertainties about the science, both of climate and water. It’s important to clarify two distinct senses of uncertainty: what I’ll call mere statistical or “magnitude” uncertainty and genuine scientific controversy. There are ample statistical uncertainties surrounding the modeling of climate and water resources. The trends described above, however, are not a matter of scientific controversy, according to almost every professional meteorologist in the U.S.
 
Jim Steenbergh explains: “We already have warming in the pipeline no matter what we do today. There’s no scenario, that I can imagine, where we’re going to start to get greenhouse gas emissions down to a very low level for at least a few decades.  So, we know it’s coming, and adaptation should enter into the policy mix. We should prepare for that. I don’t think it’s a burden of proof issue.”
 
So, what are the uncertainties in question?  First, there are uncertainties concerning the extent of variability and how it will affect the west.  How extreme the change of temperature will be, and how that changes precipitation is a matter of statistical uncertainty, though the trends toward increased average temperature are not. Much of this difficulty comes from scaling down climate change models.  Most of the research on climate change is done on a very large scale; that is, climate models are based on grid boxes that span several states; so, generating models that provide information about local conditions and responses to climate change are a challenge. Steenburgh explains: “Most of the climate models predict that as you move to the north, things will be wetter, especially during the winter season. As you move south, things are going to become drier. In most of the Western US, the climate models project that things are going to become drier in general in the summer.  But, the winter is the critical piece for water resources… it’s really a matter of whether the snow loss we’re going to see is going to be offset by an increase in precipitation… we actually do see in some of the climate models that northern Utah that things are going to be a little wetter.  But, we don’t have enough confidence in those projections that I’d be willing to stick my neck out and say that there’s going to be a zero-sum game.  Basically, it’s more likely than not that we’ll see a drier future.  But, we don’t have real strong confidence in those projections yet.”
 
In sum, climate is a complex system, with multiple variables, ranging from the albedo effect of dust collected on snow pack to larger changes in systems such as el Niño. A large part of the problem for the West, according to Rob Gillies, is predicting the movement of what is called the Hadley Cell. The Hadley cell determines whether one’s climate will be closer to that of New Mexico and Arizona, or Northern Utah or Idaho. Jeff Niermeyer, water manager and senior engineer for the City of Salt Lake, explains the function of the Hadley cell: “You know right on that border of being wetter or dryer, there’s this phenomena called Hadley cell expansion. And, that’s basically down at the equator – there’s all this energy, heat evaporating water – it comes up, it carves off, and goes up to the northern and southern latitudes. And that’s why if you go to Guatemala or Costa Rica, they’re very wet because of the moisture that’s falling out.  But, as the Hadley Cell goes northward, in our case, it gets dryer, and it descends over Northern Mexico and Arizona. That’s why they’re essentially deserts – because the moisture has already dropped out. There are these zones of high pressure that form and don’t have much moisture.”
 
Climate change, however, will change the distribution of arid lands, due to the Hadley Cell expansion. According to Niermeyer:  “Under the climate change model, that Cell is projected to advance – it’s going to expand up into Southern Utah, and maybe up into middle Utah... If that comes to pass, and we statistically have a lot less storm tracks coming, even if they may be wetter, then we’re going to have persistently longer cycles of drought, because we’re just not going to have those storm tracks coming to us like we have in the past.”
 
Snow pack melt provides a great proportion of the demand in the Western States, and, if that snow depth is reduced, or, we’re getting the same amount of moisture, but it’s falling in winter and it’s running off in winter, then without building some kind of storage, there simply will not be enough water to provide for demand.
 
While the scientists interviewed for this piece expressed no skepticism about the fact of climate change, there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty about the nature of impact. Moreover, the change in demographics in the West, both in terms of population growth, and possible changes in the variety of uses, challenge predictions about availability.
 
However, many people, (including lawmakers) especially in conservative states, such as Utah and Arizona, are skeptical of climate change itself. The fact that skepticism about climate science is a genuine reality has real import for the political process of planning for water in the west, no less than the variety of scientific questions about how much or how much less water there will be, when, and where.
 
That is, while well-meaning scientists have spoken out about coming challenges, their words are not being heard. There are a least three interconnected reasons: first, the historical context and contentious politics and heated legal battles surrounding water in the west; second, generalized skepticism about climate science and “liberal” academics in general; and, third, failed communication about both the relevant science and values. It will be suggested here that there needs to be greater efforts at reaching common ground, drawing upon a broad and inclusive set of values from across the political spectrum. (The fourth possibility, a simple failure of moral accountability, or, perhaps more charitably, a gap between thought and deed, is certainly plausible as well.)
 
Political and Social Context: Planning or Procrastination?
 
To a historian of the politics of water in the west, however, it would not be surprising that planning for dramatic changes in water use and distribution poses a number of challenges, legal, political and social. While the story of the evolution of water law in the west is certainly beyond the scope of this case study, some basic facts are worth noting.
 
The Colorado River Compact was established in 1922 to distribute water rights along the Colorado River, to the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) and Lower Basin States (Nevada, Arizona, and California). The Compact roughly divided water between the two regions, and states within each basin were required to negotiate among themselves. Unfortunately, the Compact did not quickly resolve issues of distribution; Arizona challenged California’s allocation, ultimately resulting in a Supreme Court Decision in 1963.  More recently, calls for renegotiation have arisen yet again, after it became clear that the original Compact assumed a much high average flow, as high as 16.4 million acre feet per year. Tree ring studies, however, have shown that over the longer term, the average is much closer to 13.2 million acre feet per year.  Subsequent low-reservoir conditions in Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and other shortage conditions throughout the southwest resulted in an interim renegotiation in 2007, distributing water based on the level of the reservoir at Lake Mead.
 
The west’s early development was primarily in agriculture and mining, two industries which continue to use the bulk of water many western states today. Between 80-85% of water in many western states is withdrawn for agriculture, particularly livestock; only 3-4% of the water is used for human consumption. While it’s common to think of California’s fruit and vegetable crops as exemplary of the agricultural practices of the western states, the primary crop in many desert states is hay (or, alfalfa); alfalfa consumes a large amount of water, and its primary use is to feed dairy and beef cattle.
 
How much water is required for a single pound of beef is a contentious figure, but the Water Education Foundation gives the rough figures of 2,400 gallons; this would be more than enough to provide for a family of four for a month of drinking water, washing, etc.. Mark Reisner, author of Cadillac Desert, argues, “In 1986, irrigated pasture used about 5.3 million acre-feet of water — as much as all 27 million people in the state consumed, including for swimming pools and lawns…. Is California atypical? Only in the sense that agriculture in California, despite all the desert grass and irrigated rice, accounts for proportionately less water use than in most of the other western states. In Colorado, for example, alfalfa to feed cows consumes nearly 30% of all the state’s water, much more than the share taken by Denver…. The West’s water crisis — and many of its environmental problems as well — can be summed up, implausible as this may seem, in a single word: livestock.” (Reisner, NYT, 1989)
 
Agriculturists and mining companies in the west hold a vast majority of priority under law with respect to water use; under prior appropriation law, whomever puts water to use first will get first allocation. This “first in use” law has strongly constrained changes in the ways in which water policy in the West may be adapted to large-scale change. No less so, debates about which states have how much water hinge on a long and contentious history of water law – the Columbia River Compact and it’s various problems will be discussed further, below.
 
Dan McCool, Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah, traces the history of water allocation in the west back to the late 1800s: “The problem with all of these give-away programs – and, they ranged from the 1872 Mining act, which gave away huge swaths of public lands, the 1862 Homestead act, the Timber and Stone act, which gave states lands that they lumbered, the railroad acts, which gave away large tracts of land, including land in Utah… All of this became an article of faith; that, we develop the west, and its rivers, for river navigation and transportation and agriculture and mining.  That’s what we do with water in the west.  It moved from that era’s version of an economic stimulus package, to an article of faith. A blind belief in this is the way we do it, and we’ll wrap all our laws around that. Everything from the prior appropriation doctrine to the law of the river, are all designed with that mentality in mind… Water is… for agriculture, mining, and navigation… economic rationality was tossed out the window. Very very little of this water development would take place if an economically rational criteria had been applied… the real problem are the traditional laws of appropriation and allocation… We do not have a water shortage – we have a mismanagement problem.”
 
In other words, McCool suggests that the history of water law in the west effectively institutionalized economically inefficient water policy. For example, most of the water in the state of Utah goes to agriculture, but agriculture only contributes to 3% of the local economy, at the highest end estimate. Most of Utah’s economy is dependent upon tourism, which, of course, is driven in part by its scenic mountains and rivers, which may be threatened by both water development and climate change. The problem, as McCool suggests, seems not to be not only a potential shortage of water, but also an archaic system of law and policy that directs water toward the most economically disadvantageous use.
 
To many, herding of cattle and sheep are part and parcel of a Western “way of life.” The Navajo have a long history of sheepherding in the four corners – over 100 years. Yet, this “way of life” is, relatively speaking, only a very short span of time, in the history of the rivers and ecosystems of the west. Thus, the challenge of climate change is not simply a challenge of for the scientists, technology, or even law and politics, but a challenge to shared history and cultural values. It is also in large part due to a deep political division, discussed below, concerning how scientific uncertainty is understood, and risk perceived.
 
As Dr. McCool makes clear, Western water law, a system established in the 1800s, prioritizes uses that are much less economically viable. The problem, in other words, is not that we have a resource that is fundamentally at risk. What is at stake is how and where that resource is distributed, and can be managed sustainably. What sustainability means, and for whom, is what is at question. More broadly, the legal and political consequences of allowing water to leave the state have a long history of contention, as is illustrated by the largely local-focused interests of Utah’s lawmakers.
 
Utah’s lawmakers, sincerely concerned with Utah’s interests, are interested in keeping the water in state. To this end, many Western state lawmakers promote more water development. Dennis Stowell, of the Utah Legislature, explains: “We’re not putting enough money into water projects – we ought to be doing more... I think one of the big things that I’ve pushed is that we should develop the Colorado River that’s running out of state. There’s more than 400 hundred-acre feet that belongs to Utah that goes to other areas. Some places to develop are Wayne County - the St. George pipeline. We should be using it [the water]. We should use it along the river. We ought to be using it for agriculture. We should do some big agricultural projects – for instance, orchards.  [We should develop] places where apples, nuts, can grow – new trees closer to the river. We have some big blocks that are in institutional trusts.  We should use those blocks of land and block up some more… There should be both underground and dams storage. There are still dams that we could do with minimal environmental damage. In the Freemont River and Wayne County, there are places where we can build dams… We ought to hold the water up here.”
 
Stowell’s concerns grow out of a long history of “water development” projects – projects to build larger and better dams to protect various state’s “rights” to water; this rights question can be traced to a poorly conceived compact dictating water rights in the west. This concern will become ever more pronounced, as population growth continues, and energy needs continue apace. Water and energy use are deeply intertwined; more energy requires more water, and vice versa. Solving this problem, especially in the arid west, where populations are expected to double or triple in some states in the next 50 years, will be no small feat.
 
Chances are, the long dispute over water rights among Western States is not over. In short, the problem of planning for water in the west has at least two dimensions along which conflict arises: between local and regional interests, and long and short term needs, of both persons and the landscape and rivers themselves.  What stands as a barrier to resolving these interests are a number of stubborn problems: I have mentioned the history and politics of water law, but one issue, which is addressing what scientific uncertainty means, and how we think about and perceive risk.
 
Ethical Dimensions: A Case Study in Our Obligations to Future Generations
 
Whatever the case may be, the arid climate of the west will force action: either new sources of water will be developed through huge infrastructure projects and technology to meet the growing demands of population and consumption, or demand must be brought in line with the arid climatology of the region.
 
Moreover, addressing climate change skepticism, either through better science education, better communication about shared values, or agreement on “downstream” needs, whatever our disputes about the science, would seem to be a first step toward better policy. It may be tempting to treat climate skepticism as merely a fringe view. However, in the western US, and particularly in conservative states, views such as this are not uncommon. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx) suggests that increased numbers of Americans believe that the potential impact of and thus urgency of climate change is exaggerated.
 
The central concerns of the skeptics in this debate surround impact of climate change abatement measures on the local economy and ways of life. Also, for many westerners, distrust of the federal government and libertarian politics are key values, i.e., a premium is placed on person liberty and minimal government.
 
How can one both act within the cultural norms and values of western states, and argue for long-term planning based on considerations of future generations? What are some arguments for a more “green” western economy? There are a variety of ways to argue for an environmental ethic; however, for many conservative politicians, no amount of value dialogue will change the bottom line: what they claim are the exorbitant costs of climate abatement measures. There is an active dispute in the environmental economics literature about just this question: what are the “true costs” of climate change abatement?  Some set the “discount rate” very high, and conclude that any outlay to offset future harms will impose significant costs. A discount rate is the rate at which return on current investment is required to justify expenditure of scarce resources.  Another way of thinking of a discount rate is the rate at which future dollars (or any measure of economic benefit) are “discounted” relative to present dollars. Since a dollar invested today is worth much more the further out in the future, most set the discount rate at roughly the rate of return on risky investments.
 
However, others argue that the discount rate should be low. When we consider how much we would be willing to pay to offset a potentially catastrophic risk, paying twice as much for energy, gas, or groceries may, for some, be perfectly fair and just, given the potential cost to future generations. The point to make here is that any claims about the “cost” of climate change, even though put in economic terms, is not a strictly scientific or empirical matter, but is also a value judgment. The values, for instance, of lost opportunity are difficult to measure—whether these opportunities are the enjoyment of beautiful lakes and streams, or, the possible value to medicine of rare plants.
 
In sum, the problem is at least as much a matter of how we “frame” the problem, as which tools we use to solve it. In considerations to do with offsetting possibly catastrophic outcomes, it may be better to think of this case as analogous to buying insurance, rather than investing in the private market. How much are people willing to pay to offset a potentially large risk, especially with respect to costs that will be borne by their children, or children’s children? Most persons (who can afford to do so) chose to buy insurance, in case of fire or natural disaster.
 
The difference with climate change is that it is a “creeping” problem – it’s hard to “see” the effects of climate change in one’s own lifetime, and to imaging the true costs, both to future persons and the environment. This failure of perception likely figures in climate skepticism as well as failures to meet planning deadlines (such as the most recent climate summit), even for those who are not skeptics. Procrastination is a temptation; and, in cases of creeping problems, procrastinating planning itself is easier than setting limits on present activities and pleasures that we take for granted.

David Groenfeldt, Water and Culture Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Santa Fe River was designated “the most endangered river in America” in 2007, by American Rivers , a national environmental organization (www.americanrivers.org). The flow of the Santa Fe River is completely impounded in twin water supply reservoirs just upstream of the City of Santa Fe, and the river that flowed historically, and is the reason the City was established there, is now a dry ditch in the middle of town.

A community that chooses a dry ditch over a flowing river is a good place to investigate cultural values.  What are they thinking?  How did this happen?  Is it “necessary” to dam up the entire flow of the river so the City can have enough water? On what basis do Santa Fe residents determine what’s necessary? How can we unravel what’s cultural vs. what’s fundamentally physical in Santa Fe’s opting to sacrifice the river that runs through town?  What are they sacrificing the river for? What is the calculation of competing values that is going on in the collective Santa Fe mind?

The Context
The Santa Fe River emerges from the 12,000 foot high Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the East of Santa Fe City and flows 46 miles in a generally southwesterly direction, to join the Rio Grande across from Cochiti Pueblo, just downstream from Cochiti Dam. The uppermost stretch of river starts on the backside of the Santa Fe Ski slopes and winds through the mountains and is captured by back-to back reservoirs. These two reservoirs provide water for the City of Santa Fe, amounting to about half the water the city uses each year. The other half of the water comes from deep wells in and near the city.

The second section of river extends from the lower dam through the city of Santa Fe, to the wastewater treatment plant where effluent is discharged into the river. This 10-mile stretch of river is normally dry, because the upstream dams are operated to impound the full flow of the river. The lowermost section of the river starts at the wastewater treatment plant and extends through beautiful canyons before emerging onto the Rio Grande Valley on Cochiti tribal lands. This section of river is normally flowing, thanks to the combination of treated effluent and natural springs further downstream, but the water never actually gets to the Rio Grande. About 2 miles from its mouth, there is another dam on the Santa Fe River, this one serving as an emergency spillway should Cochiti Reservoir (just upstream on the Rio Grande) ever fill up. The spillway dam was constructed without a gate so there is no longer a surface connection between the Rio Grande and its former tributary, the Santa Fe River. The only hydrologic connection now is through seepage of the Santa Fe River water that ponds up behind the dam.

Santa Fe’s Water System and Policies
The upstream dams that block the flow of the Santa Fe River provide 45% of the City’s water supply in normal years. The water is treated in a modern facility near the dams, and distributed from there to the city’s 38,000 water customers. The remaining 55% of the city’s water comes from groundwater wells along the Santa Fe River (20%) or from wells just north of town and piped into the city. Nearly the entire flow of the river is owned by the City, and stored in the reservoirs. That water is the City’s preferred source of supply, as compared to groundwater, because it is high quality and inexpensive to treat (since it is clean) and to deliver (by gravity).

Santa Fe’s water policies are based on Western US water law (hereafter “Western water law”) and is summarized in the phrase, “First in time, first in right.” Earlier claims to water trump later claims, other things being equal.  The most important  of these other things is putting the water to “beneficial use,” which has a legal definition but generally means an economically productive purpose. The intention was to ensure that water was put to productive purpose, as defined in the late 19th Century. Omitted from the law was any consideration of the water resource itself. Neither the rights of nature in general or the rights of a river in particular, were accorded a seat at the legal table. Also omitted from consideration were the rights of future generations. Both these issues, the rights of Nature and intergenerational equity, have become big topics in environmental discourse, but have yet to be incorporated into the policies governing how water is actually used in New Mexico, and most particularly, along the Santa Fe River.

The water supply system we see today, the dams and pipes and treatment plants, and the water policies in force today, are relatively thin overlays on a very deep history and even deeper prehistory of water use in the Santa Fe Basin. How is it that we have arrived at the present situation, where both the water in the river, and even the river channel itself, can be claimed as private property on which the public at large has no valid claim?

History of River Values
The story begins with the irrigated fields of the ancestral Puebloan peoples, presumably Tewa-speaking, who first harnessed the normally gentle flow of the Santa Fe River. With the Spanish conquest and the establishment of Santa Fe as the capital of El Norte in (or around) 1610, the agricultural use of water intensified. The Santa Fe River was tapped, as the first activity of settlement, by a growing network of canals (acequias) which provided the food for the growing capitol. More that 30 acequias were established,  irrigating around 2,000 acres of farmland, and diverting so much water that even in the 18th and 19th centuries, stretches of the river were dry during the summer months.
We know quite a bit about the values underlying contemporary acequia agriculture (Rodriguez 2007) and by extrapolation it seems safe to suggest that the Spanish viewed the river primarily as the lifeline for the colony’s food supply. The rights of nature were implicitly assumed: “The tacit, underlying premise is that all living creatures have a right to water”  (Rodriguez, p. 115). Another cultural core belief related to water as that its use  should be shared: “The principle of water sharing belongs to a larger moral economy that promotes cooperative economic behavior through inculcating the core value of respecto and gendered norms of personal comportment” (p. 116).

The 19th Century saw major changes in the cultural orientation towards the river. The emergence of the East-West connection known as the Santa Fe Trail, opened up new cultural influences culminating in American conquest of Santa Fe in 1846 and the formal annexation of New Mexico in 1848.
Some 30 years later, three events happened in quick succession that would forever change the relationship of local residents to agriculture in general and water in particular. The advent of the railroad in 1880 brought access to food staples from outside markets. That same year, the privatization of water began with the incorporated of the Santa Fe Water Company, and the first dam was built, about 2.5 miles upstream from plaza. Henceforth, water would be held as private property, or it would be quickly lost to others who did hold those concepts. Old Stone Dam could store only 25 acre feet of water, less that 1% of the current capacity of the city’s reservoirs, but a new era had clearly begun.

Just over a decade later, in 1893, work started on the much larger “Two Mile” Dam just downstream from the first dam, with a storage capacity of 387 acre feet. When the Old Stone Dam was filled in by flood sediment in 1904, the small loss in system capacity made little difference. Between 1904 and 1926, the Water Company stored and delivered about 400 acre-feet of water each year to its water customers, for both household and irrigation uses. As the population quadrupled from 5,072 in 1910 to over 20,000 by the end of the 1930s, more residents connected to the water system.  As water demand increased more and more, it flowed into acequias less and less. (Plewa 2007)

Agriculture remained the dominant water user up to World Water II. A survey in 1919 found 1200 acres irrigated by 38 ditches, but water competition was growing. In 1928 a new dam was completed five miles upstream, more than doubling the total storage capacity, and in 1943, a third dam was completed in between the other two. When Santa Fe soldiers returned home from WW-II they found most of their acequias dry and their water rights lost on legal technicalities. In spite of howels of protest at the time, and  legal appeals that are still in process, the reality on the ground was that the era of agriculture was over. The American approach, in the words of Sylvia Rodgrigues (p. 116),  “…replace(d) the ethic of sharing on the basis of equity and need with a zero-sum system of allocation based on prior appropriation.” From now on, the river’s water would be viewed as a means for continued urban expansion, rather than agricultural production.
In the post-WW-II years, the water claims of the acequia farmers became moot as the river channel eroded below the level of the old canals. The erosion of the river bed is a stark feature of the contemporary river, a result of the artificial on-off water regime and downcutting from unchecked stormwater flowing from the ever expanding urban hardscape. In the 1970s the City adopted a deliberate policy of encouraging the downcutting that was in any case already happening, as an inexpensive solution to flood control through the downtown.  In places the river has eroded 20 feet, lowering the entire water table out of reach of even the oldest cottonwood trees (many of which died as a result).

In 1994 the oldest, smallest, and furthest downstream of the three reservoirs, Two Mile, was decommissioned due to fears that the dam had become unsafe. Faced with costly complications, the entire water system along with the two upstream reservoirs, was sold by the private water company (which at the time was PNM) to the City of Santa Fe. The water system that had been wrested from local control a hundred years earlier, was now back under public management. The Santa Fe River was once again controlled by the people, and not by a private company.

The fact that the water management policies did not undergo any change with this change in ownership testifies to the persistence of the cultural values underpinning those policies. Whether the owner of the water is private or public, the best use of the water was not questioned; the water would continue to be used to support municipal development.

The Current Situation
The City’s “River Corridor Master Plan” adopted by Council resolution in 1995 called for releasing water for year-round flows, but the policy was never enacted. Five years later when the city initiated its first substantial water conservation program based on replacing conventional toilets with water-saving models, the sole purpose was to create a new source of water  to support development. Freeing up water so the river could flow was, according to numerous informants, not even an issue of discussion.  Recently (Fall 2009) a new water conservation program was established which will create new water credits to support additional development, but not to replace the river’s lost water.

Yet along with the “business as usual” approach to water policies, there are new values being reflected in future development plans. The City’s long range water supply plan, adopted by City Council resolution in 2008, echoes the 1995 Master Plan in calling for year-round river flows during normal years. The new plan shows how river flow could be accommodated using new sources of water (piped in from the Rio Grande) that would relieve the reliance on the Santa Fe reservoirs and groundwater.  Santa Fe’s mayor, elected in 2006, included the restoration of a “living river” as part of his political platform, and established a “Santa Fe River Commission” to advise the City on how to achieve this goal.

The river values of Santa Fe exhibit inconsistencies between support for restoring the river, along with reluctance to allocate water specifically for that purpose. The river provides a lesson in the realities of water ethics in the American West. Healthy rivers are considered highly desirable, and restoring them is seen as the right thing to do, but at what cost? Thus far, it appears that citizens are willing to reduce their water use in response to appeals for water conservation, but those appeals have not been linked specifically to restoring flow in the river. All water savings through conservation have been allocated to support additional development. Do the citizens of Santa Fe have a river ethic, or merely a water ethic?

For more about the Santa Fe River, visit the website of the Santa Fe Watershed Association:  www.santafewatershed.org.
Other Resources for the Santa Fe River:
Sustaining the Santa Fe River (article in Southwest Hydrology, Jan/Feb 2010, by C. Borchert, B. Drypolcher, and A. Lewis)
A Quick and Easy Recipe for Restoring the Santa Fe River (article in Sustainable Santa Fe 2009 by David Groenfeldt).
Local Traditions of Acequia Agriculture and Water Resource Use (article in Sustainable Santa Fe 2009, by Tara Plewa

[This is a slightly modified version of “NAFTA and Mexican Trucks: Pollution Problem or Economic Imperialism?” authored by David R. Keller for the 2003 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Reprinted with permission of APPE.]

The goal of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is to increase trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Since NAFTA took effect in January 1994, less restrictive standards for Mexican trucks entering the U.S. have significantly increased cross-boarder traffic. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency reports that truck traffic through Texas has increased 17% since the passage of NAFTA. This increasing number of trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico has sparked controversy on environmental and economic issues.

Trucks entering the United States from Mexico are not subject to the same emissions standards as U.S. trucks. Prior to 1993, Mexico had no emissions standards for trucks; when Mexico enacted standards in 1993, those standards fell well short of the standards for U.S. trucks. Trucks built prior to 1993 represent 80 to 90% of the trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico. U.S. cities bordering Mexico such as San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville are facing a rise in pollution levels rise that is partly due to the increased truck traffic, as a vast majority of truck traffic squeezes through these entry points.

Under the Clinton Administration, trucks entering the United States from Mexico were restricted to a 3 to 20 mile radius from the point of entry in order to reduce accidents and mitigate diesel emissions. However, a NAFTA tribunal ruled that this policy is not in accordance with the agreement and that trucks entering the United States from Mexico must have full access to the country. In late November 2002, President Bush acted on the tribunal’s ruling and lifted the 20-mile restriction, paving the way for Mexican trucking companies to have full access to the U.S.

Environmentalists and highway safety advocates claim that under such a plan, many of the highway safety and diesel exhaust problems restricted to border towns would be expanded to other areas of the United States. Air pollution in areas such as southern California would be exacerbated by an influx of trucks not required to meet the State of California standards. The Teamsters union also opposes allowing Mexican trucking companies having full access to the U.S., claiming that doing so would cost American jobs.

Advocates for full access suspect that the real reason of opposition is not based on health and safety concerns, but rather on an effort by United States. labor unions to retain economic hegemony over Mexico. In fact, these advocates claim, many of the standards for trucks entering from Mexico exceed United States standards for U.S. trucks and trucks entering from Canada. NAFTA expert Sidney Weintraub remarked in the summer of 2001, “I wouldn’t call it racism, but I’d call it a kind of economic imperialism.”

[This is a slightly modified version of a case study authored by David R. Keller and Jared Smith for the 2004 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Reprinted with permission of APPE.]

In the arid western U.S., water is the source of numerous highly antagonistic political disputes. Simply put, demand far exceeds supply, with tensions between competing interests escalating in dry years.

The Klamath Basin of Oregon is the site of such a conflict between farmers, ranchers, tribal fisheries, wildlife refuges, and federal agencies. Tensions heightened during the summer of 2001, when drought substantially lowered the level of Upper Klamath Lake.

In accordance with the Endangered Species Act, in order to protect a species of lake sucker fish, the federal government decided to cut off irrigation water to farms and ranches that depend on the flow from the Klamath River. According to The Oregonian, the economic losses for that year are estimated to be as high as $134–$250 million. Critics of the decision assert that the real threat to the long-term survival fertilizer which runs off from agricultural fields into the watershed and causes high levels of nutrients in the lake, not lower water levels.

Local native Americans and commercial fishing interests supported the federal government’s decision and opposed the farmers and ranchers, citing the need to maintain fisheries. In the spring of 2002, a group of ranchers formed the Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust with the goal of regaining their collective water rights. The alliance was praised by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and President Bush. A group of farmers and irrigation districts also sought an injunction in federal court to prohibit dam operators from depriving them of water.

Yet despite the conservation measures that were already implemented to protect the integrity of the riparian ecosystem, by September 2002, the lowered water levels and resulting warmer temperature of the river led to a devastating outbreak of crowding and disease which killed 20,000–30,000 salmon and wiped out the fishing industry for that year. It became obvious that there simply wasn’t enough water to cover the demands of both agriculture and aquaculture.

This led to increasing efforts to break the deadlock by purchasing water rights from coalitions of farmers and ranchers in order to develop a “water bank”—a sustained higher lake level in the Upper Klamath. Taxpayer advocates criticized this solution, pointing out that the plan cost taxpayers $189 per acre-foot of water, or six times the average regional value and twenty times the value of water from pastures in other parts of Oregon.

Klamath basin water rights have been tied up in litigation. While several court cases have established the jurisdiction of the Oregon Department of Water Resources in adjudicating the disputed claims, they have not indicated how that is going to be accomplished. The outcome is still uncertain, but one thing is for sure: the resolution depends on something other than the weather.

[This is a slightly modified version of “Alaskan Wildlife or Texas Tea?” authored by David R. Keller and Luke Peterson for the 2002 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Reprinted with permission of APPE.]

Drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been a source of contention among policy makers for years. In 1980 Congress expanded ANWR by 9.5 million acres, with 1.5 million acres (known as section 1002) set aside for the study of petroleum production potential. In 1987, 1991, and 1995 legal measures to drill in the 1002 area were proposed and defeated. The issue was raised again when President George W. Bush made drilling in section 1002 part of his national energy agenda.  The events of September 11, 2001 have resulted in intensifying the debate.

Proponents make three major arguments for drilling in ANWR: (1) In light of recent economic downturns and the unstable diplomatic situation in the Middle East, the U.S. must increase domestic oil supply in order to decrease dependence on foreign oil; (2) The area occupied by wells and drilling equipment has shrunk by approximately 60% since the development of the Prudhoe Bay oil field. Developments in drilling technology allow a single pad to tap multiple oil pockets at distances of up to four miles. These advances have minimized the environmental impact of petroleum extraction.  As evidence, production supporters point to the fact that despite fears to the contrary, the caribou herd in the Prudhoe/Kuparuk oil field region has increased in population; (3) Most Inupiat Eskimos in the area favor oil leasing for the economic opportunities exploration may provide.

Opponents of drilling counter that (1) even if section 1002 produces the maximum projected amount, oil consumption will continue to rise exponentially.  Conservation (such as increasing vehicle fuel efficiency), rather than expanding production, note the opponents, is the only long-term solution; (2) The negative ecological impact on the area outweighs any potential benefit from oil production, in the opinion of the opponents.  The plain of section 1002 provides critical calving area for a caribou herd five times as large as the Prudhoe/Kuparuk herd in an area one-fifth the size.  Development in this areas, the opponents contend, would push the herd into the foothills where calves would be prone to predation and starvation from scarcity of resources; (3) The opponents point out that not all Native Americans favor drilling. The Gwich'in Indians, for example, consider the area sacred. The Gwich'in also subsist on caribou and fear the negative impact that petroleum production might have on the herd.
The controversy remains unresolved. Since control of the Senate switched last year, Majority Leader Tom Daschle (Democrat, South Dakota) has vowed to defeat a bill passed in the House of Representatives that would tap ANWR.  On the other hand, Chairman of the House Resource Committee Jim Hansen (Republican, Utah) argues that in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks drilling in ANWR is more important than ever, and has urged the Senate to pass the House energy bill in the interest of national security.

[This is a slightly modified version of “Clean Air: Let the Market Decide?” authored by David R. Keller for the 2004 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Reprinted with permission of APPE.]

On October 15, 2003, the Bush administration announced relaxed regulations on antipollution upgrades to old factories, refineries and power plants. This revision affects 17,000 plants that lack the latest antipollution technology. On the old policy, plants were required to install new antipollution technology during substantial facility-wide rebuilds, but not when conducting routine maintenance. Therefore, proponents argue, plant owners actually had a strong motivation to avoid making substantial upgrades, thus hamstringing the installation of antipollution equipment and actually degrading air quality.

Supporters of the new policy also say it’s good for the economy. At a press conference held at a coal fired power plant south of Detroit, Bush said: “When we talk about environmental policy in this Bush administration, we don’t just talk about clean air, we also talk about jobs. We can do both.”

Environmentalists are highly critical of the new policy, asserting Bush is sacrificing public health for political expediency. Pennsylvania and Michigan—states Bush lost to Gore in 2000—were highlighted on his tour promoting the new environmental agenda, and where economic downturns have made job security one of the top issues for the next election. Moreover, industry has made significant campaign contributions to Bush and the GOP during the 2002 election—$14.6 million from oil and gas interests and $11 million from the electricity industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Opponents of the new policy say that it allows dirty plants to avoid making improvements and hence exacerbates pollution and acid rain problems. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina has called the new legislation a “gift to polluters.” Mark Van Patten, President of the National Wildlife Federation, says the rules allow big polluters to duck their environmental responsibilities: “By widening the loophole that has allowed old coal-fired power plants to avoid modern pollution controls for 30 years, this reckless action makes it more difficult to protect people and wildlife from the other major impacts of these power plants, including the buildup of toxic mercury contamination in the nation’s waterways and the mounting toll of global warming.”

Environmentalists argue that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be given more authority to enforce clean air standards, not less. A study done by the White House Office of Management and Budgets concluded that between 1992 and 2002, the nation saved somewhere between $120 billion and $193 billion in hospital costs, premature deaths and lost work days because of clean-air regulations. Consonant with free-market economic policy, the Bush administration counters by arguing that the new policy lessens governmental interference.

Supporters of the new policy state that alarmism about air quality is unfounded: air pollution has dropped 48% since 1970, and acid rain has dropped 41% since 1980. Yet, even as evidence seems to point towards a general decline in pollution, it is not clear whether this trend will continue under the Bush administration’s new environmental policy.

Initially, Attorney General John Ashcroft promised not to back off from lawsuits brought against refineries and plants that had violated the Clean Air Act during the Clinton Administration. However, on November 6, 2003, the EPA announced that it would drop investigations of 50 power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act.

[This is a slightly modified version of “Straights of Strife: Japanese Whaling, Cultural Relativism, and International Politics,” in Peggy Connolly, Becky Cox-White, David R. Keller, and Martin G. Leever, Ethics in Action: A Case-Based Approach. Copyright 2009 Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.]

Whaling began as a modest commercial activity, aimed at obtaining blubber for food and oil for lamps. Over generations the profession developed a beguiling mystique, captured by Melville (1992) in his story about Captain Ahab’s obsessive and calamitous pursuit of Moby Dick, a mottled sperm whale. The social fabric of sea-faring cultures around the world are woven with strands the yield and yore of whales and whaling.

The strenuous exertions of whaling in Melville’s day gave way to diesel-powered factory ships, satellite navigation, sonar, winches, and harpoon guns. The ruthless efficiency of modern whaling devastated whale populations in the twentieth century, pushing some close to extinction (Estes et al. 2006). Blue whales declined in number since 1920 by 96%, and fin whales by 92% (Eilperin 2006).

To protect the interests of commercial whaling in light of growing scarcity, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) was drafted “to establish a system of international regulation for the whale fisheries to ensure proper and effective...conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry” (op. cit. 1946). The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was formed to serve as the decision-making body for the ICRW. Membership in the IWC is voluntary, and commission composition varies depending on which nations decide to attend regular meetings, pay dues, and vote (Eilperin 2006).

Article VIII of the ICRW, drafted by Norwegian diplomat and professor of anatomy Birger Bergersen, the first chair of the IWC, exempts any signatory from prohibitions on killing and taking whales as it “thinks fit” for the “purposes of scientific research” (op. cit. 1946). Decades later, this seemingly benign stipulation would become a point of bitter contention between Japan and conservationists.

In 1972, the issue of commercial whaling and declining whale populations gained public attention at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment when delegates recommended a 10-year ban on commercial whaling (Eilperin 2006).

With many whale populations continuing to decline, in 1982 the IWC ratified a moratorium on commercial whaling which took effect 4 years later. Originally formed to further the interests of industrial whaling, this ban signaled a sea-change in focus from commerce to conservation (Rehn 2007). According to Phillip Clapham, a biologist at the Alaska Fisheries’ Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation, “The [IWC] moratorium is probably one of the greatest conservation success stories of the 20th century” (Morell 2007a). Thanks to the efforts of environmentalists, most marine biologists agree that certain species of whales have recovered and are even flourishing (Estes et al. 2006 [Onishi 2007]).

The 1986 moratorium also marked the origination of an intransigent divide in the IWC: those nations in favor of some kind of commercial whaling, and those nations categorically opposed (Jones 2007). The nations most conspicuously against commercial whaling have been Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and the United States. The nations most conspicuously in favor of commercial whaling have been Iceland, Japan, Norway, and Russia.

Japan has taken a leadership role as a pro-whaling nation and continued to hunt whale in spite of international prohibitions. Japan has publicly and forcefully defended its actions in the IWC. Under a scientific program launched in 1987 called Japan’s Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic (JARPA). Under this program, employees of Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR)—which receives $10 million per year in subsidies (Jones 2007)—have killed an estimated 6,500 minke whales, compared to approximately 2,100 whales killed worldwide between 1952 and 1986 under the Article VIII stipulation (Morell 2007a). Japan followed JARPA with a similar North Pacific program in 1994 where it targeted Bryde’s beaked, minke, sie, and sperm whale, and shocked IWC delegates in 2005 by announcing it would begin killing fin and humpback whales (ibid.), the latter a beloved symbol of success in rescuing an imperiled species from extinction. As Joji Morishita, chief spokesperson for Japan’s Fisheries Agency (JFA) division of international affairs, explained: “We don’t see it as endangered” (McNeill 2007). Predictably, Morishita’s defense of Japan’s decision was reviled in international conservation circles.

Japan’s announcement that it would kill 50 humpback the IWC’s Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (Morell 2007a), thousands of miles from port, only exacerbated enmity. In addition to verbal barbs tossed back and forth at IWC meetings between Japan and conservationists, tension also led to physical confrontation. In 2007, Japanese whaling vessel Kaiko Maru and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Robert Hunter collided, each blaming the other of ramming (Alford 2007).

While carrying out whaling operations, Japan simultaneously argued for relaxed restrictions in the IWC. Generally the Japanese have used three kinds of arguments in favor of whaling: resumption of commercial whaling for resource utilization, allowance of limited whaling under the auspices of “community whaling,” and whale hunting and vivisection for the purposes of scientific research.

First, Japan has been an unabashed leader amongst pro-whaling nations in the IWC, relentlessly calling for the revocation of the 1986 ban on commercial whaling. The anti-whaling tide that had been building since the 1970s showed signs of ebbing at an historic IWC meeting in the small Caribbean island-nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2006: pro-whaling nations passed a resolution overturning the 20-year ban on commercial whaling by one vote. The vote was inconsequential in terms of overturning the ban, since a 75% majority is needed, but nonetheless carried enormous symbolic weight. It was, in the words of Chris Clark, New Zealand’s environmental minister, “the most serious defeat the conservation cause has ever suffered at the IWC” (Eilperin 2006). Akira Nakamae, a Japanese commissioner for the IWC, confidently predicted, “The reversal of history, the turning point is soon to come” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 2006).

Yet the rising tide of pro-whaling sentiment stalled at the next IWC meeting in Anchorage: a majority of signatories of the ICRW re-affirmed the 21-year ban on commercial whaling (D’Oro 2007). Angered Japan representatives threatened to pull out of the IWC and unilaterally resume commercial whaling (Ryall 2007), precipitating fears amongst other IWC members of a return to the days when nations acted individually without regard for cetacean biology (Darby 2007).

Second, Japan has argued that some whaling should be allowed by the IWC under the umbrella of “community whaling” (Gold Coast Bulletin 2007; Townsville Bulletin 2007). Exemptions are made for aboriginal peoples who depend upon whaling for subsistence and survival, such as the Inuit. Japanese diplomats argue that their small fishing villages which dot the Pacific coastline fall into the same category, such as the isolated hamlet of Wadaura where whaling has been practiced for generations (Geelong Advertiser 2007). Expanded whaling opportunities would, in the words of Akira Nakamae, a Japanese commissioner for the IWC, help assuage “suffering in the villages” (Morell 2007b).

“Some people want to deny us the right to use whales as food,” said Yoshinori Shoji of the Japan Small-Type Whaling Association, remarked on a haul of 26 Baird’s beaked whales in Wadaura. “The impact of catching this number of coastal whales every year is small and we are only doing as our ancestors did, nothing more. Why are so many people trying to deny us our right?” (Ryall 2007). Shoji and others argue that the limit ought to be upped significantly. “There are about 5,000 of these whales off the coast here during the summer season,” he said. “We should be able to take more. There are 9 boat licenses in the local whaling association, but because of limits on catches only 5 are able to operate” (ibid.).

To others the analogy between Japanese and aboriginal community whaling is bogus (Morell 2007b). George Muller, a marine biologist from New Zealand, has cynically observed that it “definitely isn’t traditional to send an industrial whaling fleet 10,000 km to the other side of the world” (loc. cit. 2007b). In the view of Aleut Indian and Greenpeace spokesperson George Pletnikoff, Alaska Native subsistence whaling has been sustainable for thousands of years, whereas Japanese industrial whaling, despite whatever euphemism it is given, is unsustainable (loc. cit. 2007). Pletnikoff is offended by the commodification of whales by the Japanese (Pesznecker 2007).

Third, while working to overturn the ban on commercial whaling within the IWC and arguing for limited community whaling, Japan has been using the stipulation of ICRW Article VIII on scientific whaling (Morell 2007a). The Japanese have maintained that whales have recovered from dips in population numbers and are no longer in danger of extinction. In fact, the Japanese contend, whales are “overeating” the world’s fish and partially responsible for declining fish stocks (Seattle Times 2004). The ICR has estimated that whale consume 3-5 times the amount of fish caught by the world’s fishing fleets (Freeman 2001). Much of this fish is valuable as human food (Murase et al. 2007). This, the Japanese insist, is worthy of study both on scientific and economic grounds (Freeman 2001).

To this end, the ICR kills and cleans more than 1000 whales by “self-awarded” permits (Darby 2007) for scientific purposes (Morell 2007b). Many of these whales are culled from oceans of the southern hemisphere near Antarctica. Dan Goodman, a Canadian fisheries advisor and now an consultant for the Japanese government has defended Japan’s scientific whaling program as an essential component for Antarctic marine resources management (Jones 2007). Norwegian biologist Lars Walløe expressed trust in the Japanese program as “valid science,” adding that the Japanese provide useful biopsy samples. “Whether or not it is necessary for their study to take so many hundreds of whales every year for science, I cannot comment,” he conceded (Morell 2007a).

To many scientists, though, the most interesting and significant questions about whales can be answered through non-lethal methods such as genetic analysis, satellite tracking, and observation of individual behavior and group dynamics (Morell 2007a; Muller 2007a).

Others caustically condemn the Japanese scientific whaling program is a “farce” (Gold Coast Bulletin 2007), a shameless sham fabricated to exploit ICRW Article VIII as cover for commercial whaling (Pletnikoff 2007). Australian marine biologist Nick Gale, who has studied Japanese scientific whaling, has claimed that only 34 peer-reviewed research papers have been published after 18 years and 8,300 dead whales (Dyer 2006). The productivity of Japanese researchers is “remarkably low,” said Gales. “One would expect a far higher output of papers, certainly of the order several times more papers than they have produced” (ibid.). Muller has complained that “Japan’s so-called research has published no worthwhile findings yet” (Muller 2007b), while American marine naturalist Doug Thompson has remarked that the Japanese research program has not revealed anything that could not be gleaned from a introductory marine biology textbook (Jones 2007). Less reserved in word-choice is Daniel Pauly, professor fisheries science at the University of British Columbia. “It’s outrageous to call this science; it’s a complete charade” (Morell 2007a).

Morishita rejoined that Western scientific journals are outwardly biased against Japanese scientific whaling, but adds: “A lot of non-Japanese scientists are always calling for us to submit our data, and we present our research results every year to the [IWC] Scientific Committee and at other scientific meetings. If they think our data is so useless, I don’t think they’d demand it” (Morell 2007a).

Animal rights activists protest that Japanese whaling is cruel. Whales die a slow and agonizing death at the hands of Japanese fishermen. They do not die instantly but slowly, bleeding after they are harpooned and drowning as they are winched underwater (U.S. Newswire 2006). Morishita has flatly rejected causing undo distress to whales, claiming the Japanese technique is “the most humane way, it is proved by science” (Daily Telegraph 2007).

If the Japanese scientific whaling program has not produced much in the way of published findings, it has produced a lot of meat. Japanese officials admit that whale meat from the scientific research program ends up in markets and restaurants (Townsville Bulletin 2007), an inventory which reached 6000 tons in 2006 (McNeill 2007). This has led to skepticism that Japan’s scientific whaling program is actually about research. This distrust has led Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s Federal Minister for Environment and Water Resources, to call for honesty on the part of Japan about its scientific whaling program (Townsville Bulletin 2007).

Japanese authorities deflect condemnation of its whaling policies as “cultural imperialism” by Western nations (McNeill 2007), a lack of understanding of Japanese culture and traditions. “They eat dogs in China and Korea, lambs in Europe and the U.S.,” said Yasukazu Hamada, a Japanese lawmaker. “Why shouldn’t we eat whales?” (ibid.). Tsukasa Isone, captain of the whaling vessel Victory, mused, “To me it is strange that Americans hunt deer. But I don't tell Americans not to kill deer. Why should they tell us not to eat whale? (Larimer 2000). Shoji said he cannot think of a reason: “Why is the whale so special to some people? It’s a fishery. What is the difference between a sardine and a whale?” (Jones 2007).

Policy-makers have stated that the lack of cross-cultural understanding is not going to prompt the Japanese to change their habits. As Morishita has put it: “We’re not going to stop just because you don’t like what we eat” (Dolinsky 2000). Western media hypocritically represents Japan as some kind of villainous rogue nation, “unnecessarily display flashy pictures full of blood of slaughter work,” said Hideki Moronuki, head of the JFA whaling division. “What if we show a scene of...cattle being slaughtered to people who eat beef everyday?” Moronuki asked (Ito 2007).

Officials also assert that Japan has every right to use natural resources as it sees fit, and not let useful resources such as whales go to waste. “What right does New Zealand have to tell us how to use the global sea commons?” Nakamae complained. “In the high seas, we divide up all resources, so why not whales?” (McNeill 2007).

Actual demand for whale meat in Japan, however, is meager. Whale consumption declined to 15,000 tons in 1985 from 226,000 tons in 1962 (Onishi 2007). Now only 1% of the population regularly eats whale meat (Muller 2007b). “Times have changed,” said Mitsuo Matsuzawa, a Tokyo seafood merchant. “Whales used to be an important source of nutrition for generations after [World War II], when we had nothing to eat. Nowadays people buy and eat meat not as a main dish but as a delicacy or out of nostalgia for past dinners” (Ito 2007).

But the desire to eat whale meat did not diminish, Morishita clarified. “The supply was cut off. The Japanese didn’t have a say in the matter” (Onishi 2007). To familiarize Japanese children with lost tradition, whale is served in school lunches with ketchup or sweet-and-sour sauce to make the strong-smelling meat more palatable to children (ibid.). Excess supply is processed into cat and dog food (Bedi 2006).

Western conservationists and politicians maintain that embargos on whaling is a matter of principle, and exceptions for community and scientific whaling only set the stage for commercial whaling. “The minute you open the door to commercial whaling, how do you shut it again?” Turnbull has asked rhetorically. “That is the problem” (Townsville Bulletin 2007). The concern about repeating past history is confirmed by Toshio Kasuya, a former Japanese Fisheries Agency bureaucrat: “It is common understanding of ours that Japanese coastal whalers [used to take] two or three times the number of sperm whales they actually reported” (Eilperin 2006). Therein lies the concern for Western conservationists. In Pletnifkoff’s estimation, “without exception, every time commercial whaling has been tried, it has led to the severe depletion or near-extinction of targeted whale populations” (loc. cit. 2007).

Frustrated with the lack of IWC’s punitive powers, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has argued that Japan must be brought to trail in international court for violations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international law (Herald Sun 2007). Other diplomats such as Turnbull are hesitant, for now, to take such drastic action (Darby 2007).

As negotiators navigate the turbulent straights between the Scylla of conservation and the Charybdis of nationalism, the future of commercial whaling remains uncertain. For those watching from shore, the seemingly simple motto “save the whales” has gained new meaning.

References
Alford, Peter. 2007. “Japanese Whalers and Greenies Get Physical.” The Australian (February 14): 9.
Bedi, Bishen. 2006. “Dead Meat.” Commentary. Malaysian Business (Kuala Lumpur) (July 1): 50.
D’Oro, Rachel. 2007. “Anti-Whaling Nations Gain on Final Day.” Anchorage Daily News (June 1): B1.
Daily Telegraph, The (Australia). 2007. “First We Beat Them in Soccer, Now It’s Whales.” (June 19): 9.
Darby, Andrew. 2007. “Japan Refuses to Back Down on Humpbacks.” The Age (Melbourne) (June 2): 3.
Dolinsky, Lewis. 2000. Notes from Here and There. San Francisco Chronicle (October 20): A16.
Dyer, Paul. 2006. “Whaling Outrage.” The Sunday Times (Perth, Australia) (January 29): 23.
Eilperin, Juliet. 2006. “Pro-Hunting Nations Gain Influence in Whaling Agency.” Seattle Times (June 3): A7.
Estes, James A., Douglas P. DeMaster, Daniel F. Doak, Terrie M. Williams, and Robert L. Brownell Jr. (eds.). 2006. Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Freeman, James. 2001. “Japanese Claim Whales Eat More Fish Than Humans Do in Move for Full-Scale Hunting.” The Herald (Glasgow, U.K.) (June 7): 3.
Geelong Advertiser (Australia). 2007. “Double Catch Heralds Whale Season.” (June 22): 27.
Gold Coast Bulletin (Southport, Queensland). 2007. “Anti-Whaling Nations Up Pressure Over Hunt ‘Farce’: Japan in Sights as World Zeros In.” (June 1): 11.
Herald Sun (Australia). 2007. “Humpback Row Threatens Split.” (June 2): 4.
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. 1946. Washington D.C., December 2. http://www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/commission/convention.pdf; [accessed July 9, 2007].
Ito, Shingto. 2007. “Whaling Passions Muted in Japan.” Agence France Presse—English (June 1).
Jones, Nick. 2007. “Japan’s Whale of an Issue: Commercial Interests, Conservationists Clash on Hunt.” The Washington Times (February 16): A17.
Larimer, Tim. 2000. “Where Harpoons Fly.” Time Europe Vol. 156, Issue 15 (October 10).
McNeill, David. 2007. “Japan’s Whaling Chief Tackles Mission Impossible.” South China Morning Post (June 2): 11.
Melville, Herman. 1992. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale. Penguin, New York.
Morell, Virginia. 2007a. “Killing Whales for Science?” Science Vol. 316 No. 5824 (April 27): 532-34.
Morell, Virginia. 2007b. “Whales (Mostly) Win at Whaling Commission Meeting.” Science Vol. 316 No. 5830 (June 8): 1411.
Muller, C. George. 2007a. “Whaling Talks Could Backfire on NZ.” Opinion-Editorial. The New Zealand Herald (June 12).
Muller, C. George. 2007b. “Sustainable Whaling: Fishery or a Fallacy?” Opinion-Editorial. The Nelson Mail (New Zealand) (June 30): 14.
Murase, Hiroto, Tsutomu Tamura, Hiroshi Kiwada, Yoshihiro Fujise, Hikaru Watanabe, Hiroshi Ohizumi, Shiroh Yonezaki, Hiroshi Okamura, and Shigeyuki Kawahara. 2007. “Prey Selection of Common Minke (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and Bryde’s (Balaenoptera edeni) Whales in the Western North Pacific in 2000 and 2001.” Fisheries Oceanography Vol. 16 Issue 2 (March): 186-201.
Onishi, Norimitsu. 2007. “Whaling: A Japanese Obsession, with American Roots.” The New York Times (March 2007): A4.
Pesznecker, Katie. 2007. “As Delegates Gather, Greenpeace Forces Do Too.” Anchorage Daily News (May 28): A10.
Pletnikoff, George. 2007. “Japan’s ‘Scientific’ Whaling a Slap in Face of Conservation.” Opinion-Editorial. Anchorage Daily News (May 15): B4.
Rehn, Alison. 2007. “Oceans of Discontent.” The Daily Telegraph (Australia) (June 2): 82.
Ryall, Julian. 2007. “Whalers Cry Foul Over Attempts to End Slaughter as ‘Research’ Kill Continues.” South China Morning Post (June 23): 18.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 2006. “Japan Tried to Dilute Whaling Ban.” Editorial. (April 18): B7.
Seattle Times. 2004. “Japan Maneuver Fails to Undermine Ban on Whaling.” (July 20): A6.
Townsville Bulletin (Townsville, Queensland). 2007. “Whale Talks in Stand-Off.” (June 2): 16.
U.S. Newswire. 2006. “IFAW: Cruelty of Japanese Whale Hunt Unveiled in New Scientific Report.” (June 17): 1.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 1982 (December 10). United Nations, New York. http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf; [accessed July 9, 2007].

Mexican-American Water Politics

[This is a reproduction of “Till The Rivers Run Dry: Mexican-American Water Politics,” in Peggy Connolly, Becky Cox-White, David R. Keller, and Martin G. Leever, Ethics in Action: A Case-Based Approach. Copyright 2009 Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.]

Water politics is a function of two variables: supply and demand. Supply is determined by climate. Demand is determined by population size and the thirst of that population. Of these variables, demographers forecast increased global population growth and use of water, while meteorologists forecast, in many parts of the world, drought.

The western U.S., particularly the southwest, is the fastest growing region of the nation (Roberts and Dougherty). The region is also in the throes of an extended multiyear drought which scientists caution may be the norm rather than the exception. For example, the current drought pales in comparison to the drought of 900-1300 CE, suggesting cycles of aridity are normal feature of the region’s climate (Cook et. al. 2004). Convergence of climate models indicate that the transition to a more arid climate, reminiscence of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, is already taking place and will become the new climatology for the west within a matter of years or decades (Seager et al. 2007).

These conditions stand in stark contrast to the relatively wet twentieth century, when water policy was set. For example, the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which adjudicates allotment of the 7 basin states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), was negotiated on data from unusually wet years dating back to the 1890s. The faulty assumptions of the compact consequently make it inherently problematic (Dean). The year the compact was signed, American ecologist Aldo Leopold canoed through the Colorado River delta estuary with his brother and discovered a lush oasis teeming with life:

A verdant wall of mesquite and willow separated the channel from the thorny desert beyond. At each bend we saw egrets standing in the pools ahead, each white statue matched by its white reflection. Fleets of cormorants drove their black prows in quest of skittering mullets; avocets, willets, and yellow-legs dozed one-legged on the bars; mallards, widgeons, and teal sprang skyward in alarm. As the birds took the air, they accumulated in a small cloud ahead, there to settle, or to break back to our rear. When a troop of egrets settled on a far green willow, they looked like a premature snowstorm. All this wealth of fowl and fish was not for our delectation alone. Often we came upon a bobcat, flattened to some half-immersed driftwood log, paw poised for mullet. Families of raccoons waded the shallows, munching water beetles. Coyotes watched us from inland knolls, waiting to resume their breakfasts of mesquite beans, varied, I suppose, by an occasional crippled shore bird, duck, or quail. At every shallow ford were tracks of burro dear. We always examined there deer trials, hoping to find signs of the despot of the Delta, the great jaguar, el tigre (1960, pp. 142-43).

Now the Colorado flowing into the Gulf of California is nothing more than a briny trickle (Alexander), and the ecosystem that astonished Leopold is decimated. The Rio Grande has met the same fate; the river once described as “mighty” has become so weak it peters out even before reaching the Gulf of Mexico (Yardley).

Ecologically, the estuaries of the Colorado and Grande have been obliterated. In Big Bend National Park, the loss of instream flows from the Rio Conchos, the largest tributary of the Rio Grande, has threatened floral and faunal populations (United States Geological Survey). The research of Randy Blankinship, a Texas wildlife biologist, has shown that innumerable species, including white shrimp and mullet, have been deleteriously affected by the reduced outflow of the Rio Grande. Water hyacinth and hydrilla, which would normally be flushed away by current, have choked some sections of the river (Yardley).

The Colorado River and Rio Grande symbolize the complex ecological and economic codependence of the U.S. and Mexico. Economically, the future of agriculture in the Imperial and Rio Grande valleys depends upon the future supply of water, as does the growing industrial centers spawned by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which dot the length of the international border.

Water policy between the two neighbors was set in 1944 by the Treaty Regarding Utilization of the Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande, known colloquially as the U.S.-Mexican 1944 Water Treaty (Senate of the United States America). The treaty stipulates that the U.S. allow 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water (about 486 billion gallons) to flow from the U.S. into Mexico, and that Mexico allow 350,000 acre feet (about 114 billion gallons) of Rio Conchos water to flow from Mexico into the Rio Grande at the U.S. border. The treaty releases Mexico from meeting its obligations in case of “extraordinary drought or serious accident to the hydraulic systems on the measure Mexican tributaries” (op. cit., p. 11).

The California side of the Imperial Valley relies on water from the Colorado River, which produces $1 billion in food annually. Much of this water is delivered through the 82-mile All American Canal running just north of the border, which leaks so much water that Mexican farmers have been pumping aquifers and using it for irrigation since the 1940s. A proposal to line the canal and prevent leakage has triggered Mexicans to protest loudly, claiming that it will end farming in the Mexican side of the border (Rohter). “How can they take away the farmers’ water after all these years? asked a Mexicali merchant. “Americans always want more, but we are used to this” (Archibold). Mexicans warn that the proposal will force farmers to cross the border, illegally if need be, to find work on the American side (idem). Environmentalists have argued that if desertification occurs through the deterioration of Mexican farmlands and wetlands, air pollution would result and endangered species of birds and lizards be threatened (idem). Americans point out that lining the earthen canal with concrete is not forbidden by the 1944 treaty, and that Mexico already gets its allocation of water as promised (Kravets).

In Texas, border tension over water is no less acute than in California. The politics of water are much more pointed and pressing today than in 1944 when the Rio Grande Valley had only 1% of the current population (Weiner). By 2002 Mexico had fallen 456 billion gallons in arrears on its treaty obligations (idem). Drought exempted Mexico from delivering the water by the terms of the treaty, Mexican authorities claimed. “No water treaty can demand a country to deliver water that doesn’t exist,” one official said (Yardley).

Texans have not been so sure, their suspicions heightened by the dire consequences of drought on both sides of the border. Rumors circulated about satellite imagery showing water in Mexican reservoirs (Yardley). U.S. farmers contended that Mexican crops thrived while U.S. crops withered (Montgomery). During the 12 years that Mexico owed the U.S. water, an estimated 100,000 acres of farmland was permanently lost when farmers sold land they were unable to irrigate (Vindell). Culinary water became so expensive in some places that poorer Texans could not pay water bills and had their service shut off (Stroud).

Oddly, Texas water woes have not necessarily encourage conservation, as officials were not eager to prove that Mexican water could be done without. In the words of one top Texas water manager, “Do you plan for water that you should have during a drought of record based on full implementation of the treaty? Or do you throw in the towel and plan for a supply of something less than what the treaty says—and thus admit that you can get by without that water?” (Stroud).

The dispute has abated, in part due to forgiveness by the U.S. of 154,846 acre feet of water (Montgomery). The main factor, however, was not diplomacy but weather: several years of heavy rainfall have replenished water supplies which allowed Mexico to send more water down the Rio Conchos (Kraul).

One thing is clear: in the politics of water, ripples flow upstream. In a drought of the, the city of Brownsville, Texas, sued farmers when water never made it down the Rio Grande (Stroud). In Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, farmers downstream blame farmers upstream in Chihuahua of hoarding water (Weiner).

In the equation of water politics, demand will assuredly increase and supply will possibly decrease due to global climate change. Some have looked to divine intervention or luck to increase supply. One Mexican sorghum farmer prays to San Isidro, a patron saint, for rain (Weiner). Some doubt that prayer is the best solution, however. “For the longest period of time, the Rio Grande Valley has had a water policy in which we hope and pray for a moderate-sized hurricane every 8 to 10 years that would bypass the Valley, land in the watershed and dump in the reservoir,” the highest elected official of Cameron County, Texas, said. “That isn’t a water policy” (Yardley).

Most public policy planners feel solutions will have to be political and involve conservation. Part of the problem will be mitigated by lower use per capita as land is converted to residential from agricultural use. The 2007 Texas State Water Plan predicts that while the population of the eight-county Rio Grande Valley region will triple by 2060, water use will increase only 13 percent (Stroud). Yet officials concede there will still not be enough water. Referring to residents of the Rio Grande Valley, one San Antonia water consultant said, “They can convert all the irrigation water rights down there and they still won’t have enough” (idem). While conservation can help slake the thirst of burgeoning populations, politicians—and the constituents they represent—may come to the harsh realization that in naturally arid areas there may be limits to growth.

Rivers disrespect political boundaries. They will continue to flow from one political jurisdiction to another, straining relations between neighbors. As the governor of the state of Coahjuila speculated after the fin de siècle, “I think the struggle for water will be the gravest problem of this century” (Weiner).

As thirst grows worldwide, more squabbles—and war—over water are certain to erupt. As such, how should water fights be addressed? Should upstream users take as much water as they need independently of the concerns of downstream users, or must concession and compromise be the key-log of unjamming water disputes?

References
Alexander, Brian. 1998. “Between Two West Coast Cities, a Duel to the Last Drop.” The New York Times (December 8): G9.
Archibold, Randal C. 2006. “A Border Dispute That Focuses on Water, Not Immigration.” The New York Times (July 7): A13.
Cook, Edward R., Connie A. Woodhouse, Mark C. Eakin, David M. Meko, and David W. Stahle. 2004. “Long-Term Aridity Changes in the Western United States.” Science vol. 306 no. 5698 (November 5): 1015-18.
Dean, Cornelia. 2007. “That ‘Drought’ in Southwest May Be Normal, Report Says.” The New York Times (February 22): A16.
Kraul, Chris. 2005. “U.S. and Mexico Water Dispute Settled, Rice Says.” Los Angeles Times (March 11): A7.
Kravets, David. 2006. “U.S., Mexico Water Interests at Issue in Canal Case.” Daily Breeze (Torrance, California) (December 5): A8.
Leopold, Aldo. 1960. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, New York.
Montgomery, Dave. 2005. “U.S., Mexico Reach Settlement on Longstanding Water Dispute.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (March 11): 1.
Roberts, Sam, and John Dougherty. 2006. “Arizona Displaces Nevada As Fastest-Growing State.” The New York Times (December 22): A16.
Rohter, Larry. 1989. “Canal Project Sets off U.S.-Mexico Clash Over Water for Border Regions.” The New York Times (October 1): A1.
Seager, Richard, Mingfang Ting, Isaac Held, Yochanan Kushnir, Jian Lu, Gabriel Vecchi, Huei-Ping Huang, Nili Harnik, Ants Leetmaa, Ngar-Cheung Lau, Cuihua Li, Jennifer Velez, and Naomi Naik. 2007. “Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America.” Science vol. 316. no. 5828 (May 25): 1181-84.
Senate of the United States America. 1944. Treaty Regarding Utilization of the Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande, 59 Stat 1219. (February 3. Treaty Entered into Force November 8, 1945.)
States of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. 1922. Colorado River Compact. Signed November 24.
Stroud, Joseph S. 2006. “Valley Water Woes Grow.” San Antonio Express-News (August 18): 1A.
United States Geological Survey. 2007. “Baseline Assessment of Instream and Riparian Zone Biological Resources and the Establishment of Benchmark Stations on the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park, Texas.” Available at: http://tx.usgs.gov/bigbend/index.html [accessed June 2].
Vindell, Tony. 2005. “Texas Officials Plan Talks on Mexico’s Water Debt.” Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas) (April 6): 1.
Weiner, Tim. 2002. “Water Crisis Grows Into a Test of U.S.-Mexico Relations.” The New York Times (May 24): A3.
Yardley, Jim. 2002. “Water Rights War Rages on Faltering Rio Grande.” The New York Times (April 17): A16.