Enough with the “mea culpas”

I suspect I’m not the only one who is “consuming” less news these days. For me it started well before Election Day, as I grew weary under the barrage of projections and poll dissections that passed as news. I don’t read newspapers to predict the future but to understand what is happing in the present in order to prepare myself for what the future may bring. The future will unfold on its own terms.

But I have picked up a few story lines about the last election.

One is that the results were all the Democrats’ fault, and consequently the losers need to engage in a thorough self-examination. (In some totalitarian cultures, the term is self-criticism.) As far as I can glean from the unending wave of mea culpas in the press, they have done so in spades. An overarching theme of this analysis is that Democrats have become a party of elites who look down on working-class Americans. The most oft-cited proof of this disdain is Hillary Clinton’s comment about a “basket of deplorables.” She made that remark in 2016, and it has been trotted out ever since. Yet, eight years later, in the election that just passed, we heard immigrants constantly referred to as “vermin” and political opponents derided as “scum.” On the table of insults, I do not know where vermin and scum rank in comparison to a basket of deplorables, but I do know this: those words were not plucked at random out of thin air; they have a long, ugly, and dangerous history of targeting – and then dehumanizing – particular groups; and those at whom they are directed need to pay attention. So do the rest of us. All such categorizations are wrong, but these two words should not be tolerated from anybody, let alone the president-elect.

Sometimes I feel myself in a kind of time capsule in which I am trying to delay a future that seems poised to change this country forever. Unfortunately, at my age time does not slow down for me. And while I don’t know what will happen after January 20th, the incoming administration has hardly been bashful about proclaiming its plans. As each day brings more appointments to major posts – Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy (and Dr. Oz) overseeing the nation’s health, Fox News pundits moving to Defense, Transportation, and Jerusalem – it sems like we are watching a giant nose thumbing at America.

And the guardrails on which we have long depended, from the separation of powers to a free press, are weakening. To my mind, the mainstream media did a credible job covering a difficult election. The problem – and it’s a serious one – was that the real fake news (if you’ll pardon my oxymoron) sought to obliterate the truth. For more on this, please see Michael Tomasky’s must-read article in The New Republic.

This election made clear the dissatisfaction of millions of Americans with the state and direction of the country. They voted on their sentiments, which is how it works in a democracy, and I accept that vote. But in this democracy, the opposition also has a critical role to play and the right to express itself. As a member of the opposition – and far more importantly, as the grandfather of eight (almost nine) grandchildren – I have no intention of forfeiting either that role or that right.

Rising from the doldrums on the South Side of Chicago

The only blues I’m singing is the Chicago Blues.

Here’s a concept: Organize and train a group of summer interns made up of high school and college kids and send them into some of Chicago’s poorest, toughest neighborhoods to ask the residents if they’d like to vote to raise their taxes.

This sounds like a recipe for getting a door slammed in your face. But it worked again this Election Day, when two neighborhoods on the city’s South Side overwhelmingly approved a modest tax increase to fund free community mental health clinics in perpetuity. They are the 7th and 8th neighborhoods to approve the clinics. The goal is to have one clinic in each of Chicago’s 19 neighborhoods by 2030.

Chicago began dismantling mental health programs in the city in the 1990s, primarily to save money but also, I believe, because the stigma of mental health persists across this country. How often do we still hear real sickness dismissed as “psychosomatic?” How often are we told to “get over it?”

Ikeeta Jackson, a single mother of two daughters, would like to disagree. “I believe the topic of mental health is still thought of as taboo and must be perceived as just as important as physical health,” she wrote.

“Especially since the Pandemic, I have seen my [South Side] community face the ever-increasing presence of drug and alcohol addiction, gang activity, unemployment, and the challenges of food deserts. . . .I see the effects [of] car jackings and gun violence.” Trauma, fear, depression sit on every street corner and lurk behind every locked door. It is little wonder that every one of the eight neighborhoods approved its mental-health referendum by margins ranging from 74 to 92%.

The journey has been neither easy nor straight. It began in 1991 when Mayor Richard M. Daley unveiled a plan to close the city’s mental-health centers. Twenty years (!) later, two community organizations finally convinced the state legislature to pass a bill enabling the creation of mental health centers that are wholly initiated, funded and overseen by the community.

At a time when public faith in our political system is trending toward non-existent, this program is a reminder of the power of democracy. The money is raised through a local tax referendum approved by the community and spent entirely within the neighborhood. Services are available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. A committee of residents oversees the clinic, whose funding is ensured in perpetuity. Everything is fully transparent. This is not a government handout. Not one dime of the tax revenue goes downtown or downstate.

Although this program is unique to Chicago, I think it can be a model for communities across the country. It is a story of building hope from the grassroots up – over 30 years – one step at a time.

Check it out:

• Institute for Community Empowerment
• Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers

Disclosure: Bob Gannett, the executive director of ICE, is a friend of mine, and I serve on the project’s Leadership Council.

Deportee

“All they will call you will be Deportee” (Woody Guthrie, 1948)

Peter Rousmaniere has been writing about immigration issues for 20 year, posting regularly on his blog, http://www.workingimmigrants.com. While it is now clear – particularly with the appointments of Tom Homan as “Border Czar and Stephen Miller in the White House – that Donald Trump fully intends to follow through on his campaign rhetoric of mass deportations, Peter believes that won’t happen “because it will within weeks turn into a debacle.”

For one thing, the press and public interest groups will expose the human suffering, especially the separation of children from their parents. More significantly, the cost to the economy will quickly be felt, and business leaders and the farm lobby, who depend on both skilled and unskilled immigrant labor, will make their voices heard. The ironic result could be a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But what, I asked Peter, of the pain involved in getting us from here to there? What of the damage to so many lives, not to mention to what's left of our own values?

He shared with me a letter he had sent to the minister of the Unitarian church of Woodstock Vermont, of which he is a member.

“Dear Leon

“I have a suggestion for Unitarians with respect to Donald Trump’s stated goal of mass deportations.

“Unitarian congregations can ally themselves with organizations that work directly with undocumented persons. An example is Migrant Justice in Burlington. I expect there are over a hundred groups in the U.S. who are very aware of their local unauthorized population.

“If someone is arrested by ICE, Unitarians can protest loudly and persistently. Quite possibly the arrested individual has a U.S. born child, hence an American citizen. Very many unauthorized persons have been in the U.S. for over a decade and do necessary work in their communities. These attachments can be highlighted. The media will respond.

“This kind of fast reaction strategy is roughly similar to how northern states organizations responded pre-Civil War when an escaped enslaved person was arrested for the purpose of returning the individual to slavery.”

Here is a simple strategy with almost universal application. Churches have often been in the forefront of immigration issues, ranging from welcoming Ukrainian refugees from the war in eastern Europe to sheltering the homeless and vulnerable across America. For many of them this is the message of the Sermon on the Mount, especially its first 12 verses, known as “the Beatitudes,”, which proclaim a religion of mercy, rather than judgment. And think of the countless other groups and organizations that have long been involved with working for years with migrants, immigrants, and other vulnerable peoples, who stand ready to help.

Now is a time for practical solutions. Almost all of us know someone who could be swept up in the promised dragnets. And here is a way we can help.

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue in America. It goes back to our roots . . . to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which Trump has said he will invoke to “put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY” . . . to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 . . . to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1921 . . . to the plane crash at Los Gatos Canyon in 1948.

Here is Woody Guthrie’s tribute to those who died at Los Gatos . . . and millions of others . . . as sung by the Highwaymen.

That’s America, with a “c”

In the late spring of 1969 at U.S. Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg, West Germany, a young second lieutenant, not long outside the ivied walls of Harvard College, was summoned into the office of his company commander. With the inferno in Vietnam and the growing unrest in cities and campuses across America, the major was concerned about the lieutenant’s attitude. Did he, perhaps, sympathize with the protestors? He called him over to the window, which looked out on the entrance to the headquarters, and put his arm on his shoulder. “Love that flag, boy,” he said. “Love that flag.”

We Americans have a fetish for our flag. We fly them by the dozens in small towns across the country. They shine on the lapels of politicians from the county seat to the halls of Congress. You must fold it in a certain way. You cannot let it touch the ground. Government agencies are prohibited from purchasing a flag that was not made in the United States from materials grown or produced in the United States. Our flag flies at every sports event from Little League to the Super Bowl, and woe to him who fails to stand at attention when the band strikes up the Star Spangled Banner. Schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it every morning.

And yet, we have the Constitutional right to burn it. This, to put it mildly, is not popular with a lot of people. All 50 states have adopted resolutions demanding that Congress pass a Constitutional amendment to criminalize burning our flag. Currently, a proposed amendment reads in full: “Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

Yet it was Antonin Scalia, the most conservative member of the Supreme Court, who cast the fifth and deciding vote that declared burning the American flag a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. The case was Texas v. Johnson, the year was 1989. Even Scalia wasn’t thrilled about the outcome: "If it were up to me,” he said later, “I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

Where else would that happen? This election is, among other things, to ensure that it continues to happen here.

So, here we are, Election Day Eve 2024, and none of us has a clue about what will happen tomorrow. Donald Trump has promised his followers that, if he wins, there will never again be such uncertainty on Election Day – which is one more reason to vote for Kamala Harris.

We are told that this is the most divisive presidential election since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected with 39.7% of the vote in a four-man race. He handily won the Electoral College, however, with 180 of the 303 electoral votes cast – this despite the fact that he got no (zero) votes in 10 Southern states because no ballots carrying his name were distributed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas. There is much talk these days about getting rid of the Electoral College, but I’m glad they still had it in 1860.

“The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie,” Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote in the introductory chapter to the 1619 Project. The land of liberty was built on a foundation of slavery. That is what makes this country such a complicated place. It’s what makes patriotism a far more complex emotion than just saluting the flag and falling in line. This election, I believe, is about embracing the ideal. It is also about embracing the lie. This is who we are.

That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris.

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”

Donald Trump, of course, is not the first American to use his public office as a private trough, and he will surely not be the last (although he does seem unique in the extent, vulgarity and avariciousness of his greed). Why, just last summer – July 16th, to be precise – a jury of his peers convicted Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) of bribery, extortion, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

My all-time favorite, though, is George Washington Plunkitt.

Plunkitt, whose words of wisdom the journalist William O. Riordon collected in a wonderful little book called Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, was a New York City Democratic politician who held a variety of offices for his entire adult life. Indeed, writes Riordon, “In 1870, through a strange combination of circumstances, he held the places of Assemblyman, Alderman, Police Magistrate and County Supervisor and drew three salaries at once – a record unexampled in New York politics.” He was 27 years old.

Beginning as a cart driver and then a butcher boy, he quickly became a millionaire. He had his hands in just about every cashbox he could fit them, but his major source of lucre was real estate. Some things never change.

Plunkitt lays out his philosophy right at the beginning: Chapter 1, “Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft:”

“Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There’s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I’ve made a big fortune out of the game, and I’m getting’ richer every day, but I’ve not gone in for dishonest graft – blackmailin’ gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. . . .There’s honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works.”

He might learn, he explains, that the city is about to build a park or some other public improvement, and so he quietly buys up the all the land he can get his hands on in the proposed neighborhood – land, he is quick to point out, that nobody had the least interest in before. “Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that’ honest graft. . . . and I’m lookin’ for it every day in the year.”

I could go on. In 1883 President Chester A. Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which required most federal government jobs to be awarded on merit, not political patronage. Plunkitt called the new law, “the curse of the nation. . . . What’s the use of workin’ for your country anyhow,” he asked? “There’s nothin’ in the game.” One of Donald Trump’s primary goals is to gut the Civil Service.

Tammany Hall was a thoroughly corrupt machine. And yet it did much good. Its base was the city’s millions of poor immigrants, whom it worked to assimilate, employ, house, and protect from the financial, industrial, and discriminatory excesses of the late 19th century. Plunkitt railed against the Civil Service Act as much because of its economic impact on his constituents as because of its limits on his “opportunities.” For him, “honest graft,” an oxymoron if ever there was one, meant using his position to improve the lives of his constituents as well as his own.

That piece seems to be missing from the former president’s repertoire. Plunkitt might admire Trump’s chutzpah for hawking the Bible for $99, but he would be appalled watching him keep all the money for himself. Plunkitt valued the lives of the poor and the immigrants, not just for their patronage, but because he was one of them. And George Washington Plunkitt, unlike Donald Trump, could make you laugh.

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• For those who asked about the 442nd Infantry Regiment, the Nisei unit I mentioned in my last post, I recommend Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown (who also wrote The Boys in the Boat).

First They Came . . .

Martin Niemöller, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, was a Lutheran pastor who initially supported Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. A Christian nationalist and antisemite, he soon turned against the Nazis when he saw that they were completely serious about rounding up their political opponents and purging undesirable groups. He was arrested and imprisoned, first at Sachsenhausen, where the early gas chambers were designed and tested, and then at Dachau, until his liberation in 1945 by the U.S. 7th Army.

It all happened so quickly. In federal elections held on July 31, 1932, the Nazis won 37% of the popular vote, giving them the most seats in the Reichstag, although far short of a majority. New elections were called for November 6th. Although the Nazis remained the largest party, their share of the vote actually declined by four percentage points. Time to act . . . they seized power, and on January 30, 1933, made Adolph Hitler the chancellor of Germany. There would be no more elections. Fewer than three months later, on March 22nd, Dachau opened for business. Its initial purpose was to imprison Hitler’s political opponents.

Twelve years later, on April 29, 1945, the sprawling concentration camp was liberated by members of 552nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. It is one of those ironies of history that the regiment was a segregated unit composed almost entirely of second-generation Japanese soldiers (Nisei), most of whose families were in internment camps of their own in America. After fighting its way across Europe, the 442nd Infantry remains the most decorated military unit in American history; its soldiers were awarded over 4,000 Purple Hearts and 21 Medals of Honor.

The year after he was liberated, Niemöller wrote his famous poem, “First they came . . .”, an agonizing lament for those, including himself, who had kept silent as the Nazis came to power and immediately set out to purge vulnerable groups.

I have updated his requiem. I pray it is not my epitaph.

First they came for the immigrants,
And I did not speak out – because I am not an immigrant.

Then they came for the people of color,
And I did not speak out – because I am a white man.

Then they came for the lesbians, the gays, the transpeople,
And I did not speak out – because I am straight.

Then they came for those with foreign accents,
And I did not speak out – because I was once an English teacher.

Then they came for the Muslims, and then for the Jews (yes, for both of them),
And I did not speak out – because I am a Christian.

Then they came for the indigent and the homeless,
And I did not speak out – because it was a beautiful afternoon for golf.

Then they came for me,
And who will speak for me?

Donald Trump and his followers characterize the groups in this poem as the problem with America, telling us that these people and their identity politics want to destroy this country. But these groups are America, just as you and I are – at least the America in which I want to live. It takes all of us to weave the fabric of our country. It’s an inspiring vision, and a strong fabric. And we must not shrink from speaking out.

The greatest scene from the greatest movie

“I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in there.”

This scene from Casablanca makes me want to stand up and cheer every time I watch it . . . and I have watched it a lot. I especially love the tears in the eyes of the German officer’s “girlfriend” as she defiantly joins in. It is also worth noting that almost all the extras in the movie were themselves actual refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. It had become very hard to get a visa. Today the scene seems particularly apt, a rousing call to stand up.

I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc

This is How it Begins

At the close of the constitutional convention on September 18, 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel stopped Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic” he replied, “if you can keep it.”

• Two years ago, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, called Trump’s actions after the 2020 election “treason.” “Get involved,” he exhorted his fellow business leaders, “speak out on issues like the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, the murder of George Floyd, and the widening income gap. . . .If we don’t get this right, the Western world is at risk.”

This month, the most influential banker in America (and a Democrat) is telling people close to him that, while he supports Kamala Harris (and would consider a position in her cabinet), he is not saying so publicly because of his fear that, as president, Trump will retaliate against his bank and his industry.

“First they came for the immigrants,” to borrow from Martin Niemoller’s 1946 requiem to silence, “and I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. . . .”

• In 2016, the Los Angeles Times endorsed Hillary Clinton for president: “American voters have a clear choice on Nov. 8. We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president. . . . Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation.”

• Four years later the newspaper endorsed Joe Biden: “Nothing less than the health of our constitutional democracy is at stake. . . .[T]he reelection of this president would be a calamity. . . . . He has pursued policies at home and abroad that have harmed working Americans, exacerbated inequality, weakened the United States and strained America’s alliances.’

• On Oct. 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the newspaper, told his editorial board, that the Times would not be endorsing any candidate for president. The board had already written its endorsement Kamala Harris.

"Freedom of the press,” A. J. Liebling wrote 64 years ago, “is guaranteed only to those who own one."

• In 2016 The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton: “No, we are not making this endorsement simply because Ms. Clinton’s opponent is dreadful. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is dreadful, that is true — uniquely unqualified as a presidential candidate.”

• In 2020 the paper endorsed Joe Biden because “Democracy is at risk, at home and around the world. The nation desperately needs a president who will respect its public servants; stand up for the rule of law; acknowledge Congress’s constitutional role; and work for the public good, not his private benefit.”

• Last Friday, William Lewis, CEO and publisher, wrote: “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election.”

What happened?

When Trump says “I am your retribution” to his cheering crowds, his words reverberate ominously in the country’s most powerful boardrooms and the editorial rooms of its once-independent newspapers.

I don’t believe that Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Patrick Soon-Shiong are any more cowardly than you or I. They have their interests to protect. Their actions affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people both here and abroad, and Donald Trump is offering them – in the most baldly transactional terms – carrots as well as the stick: deregulation and tax breaks and other incentives that will make their businesses more profitable, even as they make our lives more vulnerable.

But beware the stick. The man who many couldn’t take seriously eight years ago is now intimidating this country into silence. The fear of physical retaliation in the streets, of viral bullying on the Internet, and of using the power of the government to ruin your business and even throw you in jail has done all too quickly what we didn’t think could happen: shut down the voices of dissent.

The most insidious form of censorship is self-censorship.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Last of a series

Last of a series

“I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

- Langston Hughes

Quiz Answers

1.     Thames: Looking across Westminster Bridge to Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, which has been the site of the Houses of Parliament since the 13th century.

2.     Ganges: “Bathing in the Ganges is not only a sacred tradition during Kumbh Mela, but also a daily ritual for about 2 million people. The Ganges River is considered the purest and holiest water in the world. Many believe that a quick dip in its waters can cure any ailment.” On the other hand, “swimming in the Ganges River can be dangerous for several reasons: The Ganges is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. It carries a high level of untreated sewage, industrial waste, and agricultural runoff.”

3.     Mississippi: At 630 feet high, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is the tallest monument in the United States. Although it looks like one of the rare McDonald‘s single arches, it was designed to symbolize the opening of the West. There are 32 states and two Canadian provinces in the Mississippi’s drainage basin.

4.     Amazon: The Meeting of Waters (Encontro das Águas) is the confluence between the dark Rio Negro and the sandy-colored Amazon at Manaus, Brazil, where the two rivers run side by side for the next six kilometers.

5.     Saint Lawrence: The Chateau Frontenac hotel overlooks the Saint Lawrence in Quebec City. Samuel de Champlain founded the city in 1608, giving a French twist to its Algonquin name.

6.     Loire: From its construction in 1535, the Chateau do Chenonceau in the valley of the Loire River has had a colorful history, Queen Catherine de Medici, widow of Henry II, is said to have “managed France from her study, the Green Cabinet.”

7.     Euphrates: “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.” From the Book of Revelation, this is said to be one of the events that foretells the Second Coming.

8.     Rio Grande: Two thoughts: (1) the water in this river is “over-appropriated,” which is a big word for having more claims on the water than there is water in the river; and (2) this river may decide the 2024 presidential election.

9.     Mekong: (1) The world’s largest inland fishery, the Mekong provides 25% of the global freshwater catch and food for tens of millions of people; and (2) it still contains massive amounts of undetonated ordnance from barges that were sunk during the era of the Khmer Rouge and U.S. carpet bombing during the Vietnam War.

10.  Hudson: As an island, Manhattan is by definition surrounded by water. Of its three rivers, only one (the Hudson to the west) is actually a river. The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary, while the Harlem River to the north is a tidal strait. The Hudson River’s source is the wonderfully named “Lake Tear in the Clouds.”

11.  Danube: Listen here to the beautiful Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss II.

12.  Schuylkill: This is the famous “Boathouse Row,” a National Historic Landmark, whose 15 boathouses are the hub of U.S. rowing. Jack Kelly, father of Princess Grace who rowed out of the Vesper Boat Club, was the first oarsman to win three Olympic gold medals. A self-made millionaire in the bricklaying business, Kelly’s application to row in the Diamond Challenge Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta was rejected because he had once worked as a “labourer.” His son, Jack, Jr., won the Challenge in 1947.

13.  Yangtze: The Yangtze is the longest river in the world whose flow is contained within a single country. Just below the river’s Three Gorges is the Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station in the world.

14.  Nile: Either the longest or the second-longest river in the world (the Amazon is its competitor), the Nile’s two major tributaries, the Blue Nile and White Nile, meet at Khartoum, from which the river flows north until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria.

15.  Colorado: America’s most endangered river, the Colorado provides water to 40 million people in the U.S. and Mexico. It has not regularly reached the Gulf of California since 1960.

16.  Columbia: “The Columbia River Gorge is a spectacular river canyon, 80 miles long and up to 4,000 feet deep, that meanders past cliffs, spires, and ridges set against nearby peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range.” In 1986 it became the second National Scenic Area in the U.S.

17.  Zambezi: “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” asked Henry M. Stanley in 1871, after tracking down the Scottish physician, clergyman, and explorer who had been missing in Africa for over four years. David Livingstone was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders"), the world's largest sheet of falling water, which he more prosaically renamed Victoria Falls in honor of his queen. He eventually mapped most of the Zambezi in the belief that abolishing the African slave trade depended on the river’s development as a Christian commercial highway into the interior of the continent.

18.  Seine: In 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and her ashes thrown into the Seine. In 1803 Robert Fulton first successfully tested his steamboat offshore from the Tuileries Garden. On Feb. 14, 1887, Le Temps published this protest: “We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.”

19.  Volga: Mother Volga, as it is called in Russian folklore, is the longest river in Europe. In Cecil B. DeMille’s 1926 film, The Volga Boatmen, Feodor, the heroic boatman was played by William Boyd, who became better known as Hopalong Cassidy in the long-running film, radio, and television series. The painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga,” portrays actual boatmen the artist. Ilya Repin, saw on his travels through Russia.

20.  Susquehanna: On March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island on the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, PA, was site of the worst nuclear power plant accident in American history.

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Winners

Two perfect scores, Peter Willad and Harry Hull, were recorded on the rivers quiz. The median score was 15 correct, and the most missed rivers were the Amazon, the Yangtze, and the Volga. Thank you for playing.

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This concludes the series on rivers and water. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments immeasurably enriched this series. Thank you for staying the course. I am going to take some time off to attend to other things and to think about the future of the blog. I have enjoyed writing the two recent series, and I’m thinking of future ones on “Immigration” and “Individualism and Community.” I’m also considering other approaches. As always, I am grateful for your thoughts.

Jamie

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 44

44th of a series

“From history’s dawn to this morning’s, wells and streams, rivers and lakes, have meant life. Every great civilization has grown up around water. From the Ganges to the Mississippi, the Amazon to the Zaire, the history of rivers is the history of us. And there is no more unifying or naturally democratic force. Creeks formed in the highlands of every continent gather strength in their journeys to the sea. And as they flow, channeled by swerve of shore and bend of bay, they cleanse, nourish, and refresh all people – in metropolis and village, from the millionaire to the child who knows no other cup but the human hand. Today, this irreplaceable resource is in irrefutable danger. For too many, the liquid we cannot live without bears within it the cause of illness, even death. It doesn’t have to be.”

- U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Name that River

A Quiz: Many rivers are recognizable to us, either because of some familiar natural feature or, more likely, as a consequence of human intervention. Here are images of 20 well-known rivers, from the Amazon to the Zambezi, and a corresponding list of names. After all these weeks, see how many rivers you can identify. Answers and winners will be announced on Thursday.

To take the quiz, please visit this link.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 43

43rd of a series

They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
Yet let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

- Anonymous

And so, all these weeks later, we have come full circle, back to the idea that a river is the ultimate commons – owned by no one and used by everyone – with the unavoidable result being “ruin to all.” This, at least, is the message of Garrett Hardin’s famous “tragedy of the commons.”

Published 56 years ago, the essay has had an enormous influence on public thinking and policy making, ranging from resource allocation to social justice, from immigration to environmental protection to water.

Employing the image of a village’s communal grazing land in medieval England, Hardin’s tragedy is simply summarized:

1. The pasture is open to all.

2. It is to each herdsman’s benefit to graze as many cows as possible.

3. Therefore, the pasture must collapse from overgrazing.

We see examples of this everywhere, and nowhere more than in our streams and rivers, as we remove their water in unsustainable quantities and pollute much of what’s left. We know we can’t keep doing this forever, and yet, Hardin writes, we cannot do otherwise because “each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited.” As we consider the future of water – or climate change or politics or war – how often do we feel powerless in the face of forces we can’t control?

But think for a moment. How can it possibly be in our self-interest to destroy the very thing on which our well-being depends? What is the “system” that locks us into inevitable ruin? Why do we have to advance helplessly toward our own destruction?

What if Hardin was wrong?

When historian Susan Jane Buck Cox looked at the history of medieval England, the commons she saw looked nothing like Hardin’s image. It actually worked well. The herdsmen seem to have figured out what would happen if they let everyone do what they wanted – and so, unencumbered by Hardin’s theory, they joined together to regulate their commons. “Perhaps what existed in fact,” Cox writes, “was not a ‘tragedy of the commons’ but rather a triumph.”

Elinor Ostrom spent her career studying how people around the world manage their communal and natural resources. From Asian forests to Maine “lobster gangs,” she recorded data and talked to participants. What she discovered was an almost endless variety of ways communities work together to ensure the long-term sustainability of their commons. Her method of letting the theory emerge from the facts, rather than the other way round, led to Ostrom’s law: “A resource arrangement that works in practice can also work in theory.” In 2009 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.

In the end, Hardin’s pasture is not a commons at all; it’s only some grass waiting to be exploited. Nor are his herdsmen members of a community; they’re proto capitalists trying to stick it to their neighbors. In the short run, this may be good for a few of them; it’s hard to see how it’s good for anyone in the long run. Far from the tragedy of the commons, Hardin has depicted the tragedy of unfettered capitalism, where the only motivation is short-term self-interest and the only value is economic. For too long that is how we have treated our rivers and their water. We need to stop.

We live in a nation where private property is enshrined in our Constitution and in our culture. It has no place in our commons. It's time to restate the argument:

1. The commons is open to all.

2. It is in everyone’s interest to protect it.

3. Therefore, ruin is not inevitable.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 42

42nd of a series

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

- Mark Twain

In recent years, scientists have developed the knowledge and tools to restore our waterways to more natural conditions. It will not be cheap. Who should pay?

Here are three ways of thinking about it.

1. Justice. There is nothing remotely equal about our access to the nations’ streams and rivers. A few large users extract most of the water and discharge most of the waste – and they spend billions on lobbyists and politicians for the privilege. We need to stop catering to the economic and political power of those who do the most harm and listen more to the voices of those who leave the smallest footprints and – not coincidentally – have the least power. It seems so simple: the largest users should pay the largest fees and the biggest polluters should pay the biggest fines. We need to penalize bad practices, but, just as importantly, we need to reward innovative methods and technologies that improve the health our rivers.

   We can do it. Shortly after 9/11, Kenneth Fineburg devised a method for distributing over $7 billion to the Victims Compensation Fund, and he has arbitrated other large and complicated cases. In “The Bargaining Problem,” a short essay published in 1950, a Princeton graduate student named John Nash, of “A Beautiful Mind” fame, described a process in which participants are able to reach an agreement on allocating costs in complex situations, a concept for which he would win the Nobel Prize in economics and one which is widely applied today.

2. Federal Support. Rivers are a critical part of our national infrastructure. Because they do not recognize state – or any other political – boundaries, the federal government has the legal and ethical responsibility to protect them in perpetuity and to ensure that everyone pays their fair share. Under the Public Trust Doctrine, writes legal scholar Richard Frank, “certain natural resources are held by the government in a special status – in ‘trust’ – for current and future generations . . . and government officials have an affirmative, ongoing duty to safeguard the long-term preservation of those resources for the benefit of the general public.” It’s an investment in future generation, one we have deferred for far too long. And it’s hardly a new role for the federal government, which has been effectively intervening to protect natural resources for all Americans at least since Teddy Roosevelt’s “new nationalism” in the early 20th century.

3. Local Initiatives. In the end, the most effective stewards of our water are ordinary citizens, often volunteers, working in their own watersheds. Right now, local groups across the country have removed hundreds of dams, restored thousands of miles of stream habitat, and planted millions of trees, in a web of efforts that resonate far beyond their own watersheds. Elinor Ostrom challenged the conventional view that people inevitably pursue their own self-interest at the expense of the common good. She discovered several instances of people working together to establish rules to protect both the economic and ecological sustainability of the commons – not out of altruism but out of mutual self-interest. For those insights, she became, in 2009, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in economics.

A river is not simply a collection of goods and services to be exploited by humans; it’s an ecosystem of which humans are a part. But there is also something deeper at work. There are no wildflowers in Garrett Hardin’s infamous pasture, and by treating the commons only as a resource to be exploited, we confine its benefits to their utilitarian value. But what of other values? What of beauty? A sense of peace? An awakening of wonder? What of all the people who do little damage to a river’s health and for whom the river’s importance cannot be measured in economic terms? What of the wildlife that also depend on the river? What of the river itself?

We don’t own the commons. We are only the stewards. The health of our rivers – and of ourselves – requires the reawakening of public stewardship.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 41

41st of a series

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”

- Norman Maclean

Meredith Sadler designed and drafted the figure.

This image, which appeared in the second post of this series, was originally published in Waterkeeper magazine. It was part of an article by Bern Sweeney and me, much of which I will reproduce in this and the next post. In it, we tried to come up with a formula for allocating a river’s goods and services equitably and sustainably among its diverse users. By equitably, we mean that one person’s use of the river does not impair it for the use of others. By sustainably, we mean that we leave to future generations a river that is in the same or better condition than the one we inherited. 

Our premise is that, while almost everybody wants clean water, healthy wetlands, and unpolluted rivers, we depend on economies that have long despoiled all three. To stop, or even slow, the decline is really hard, but it pales in comparison to restoring a river to its more pristine past. At the core of the matter are its many human constituents, who resist cleaning up the messes they and their predecessors have made. For them, the commons is not a public trust. It is a public trough.

The result? Almost half of America’s streams and rivers are in poor condition, particularly the smaller watersheds that provide over 70 percent of the nation’s water. The cause, of course, is us. For centuries people have dammed and removed more water than our rivers can replenish and disposed of more waste, toxins, and detritus than they can process. No worries, we said, for everything goes downstream – until we discovered that everyone also lives downstream.

In Meredith Sadler’s image, you can see our efforts to identify a river’s primary consumers and polluters. It should not be surprising that the biggest consumers and polluters are also the most powerful players in the watershed. Way down at the bottom of the graphic are the passive users, who come to a river simply to enjoy its beauty and the peace it offers.

The significant improvements to stream health that came in the wake of the 1972 Clean Water Act confirm that, while watershed restoration is expensive and time-consuming, it can be done. The time has come to begin paying down the staggering debt we are leaving our children and our children’s children. To do that, we need a plan that is fair, sustainable, and enforceable, one that is grounded in science and economics, honors a river’s intangible qualities, and seeks to build partnerships among all the interests in the watershed.

The first step is for scientists to determine the scope of the problem, calculate the impacts of the various uses on a river’s ecosystem, and design a plan to return the nation’s watersheds to a healthy state. These days scientists can assess the damage to a watershed over time, isolate many of its causes, and suggest better practices going forward. The accelerating evolution of technology, which in the past was too often used to enable more efficient (and destructive) ways to extract and pollute water, has recently made possible cleaner technologies and innovative practices that cause less environmental damage, even as they improve the user’s bottom line. 

The second step is for economists to determine the total costs, which, needless to say, will be a very large number. But the costs of doing nothing are greater. It’s time to move beyond making minor changes to our lifestyles, hoping for a technological miracle, and kicking the can downstream. Indeed, if users had historically paid the real costs of using water, it would now be clean. 

The third step is to devise a system for fairly allocating those costs – with the ultimate goal being to ensure the health of our rivers and watersheds and to protect the communities and economies that depend on them.

Next post we’ll see if that is even possible.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 40

40th of a series

“The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes. . . .”

- William O. Douglas, Sierra Club v Morton (1972)

In 1972 Christopher Stone, a little-known faculty member at USC Law School, published an article titled “Should Trees Have Standing? – Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects.” Stone’s thesis was that non-human natural things, such as trees and rivers, suffered real harm as a result of human activities but had no legal remedy to protect themselves. They did not, in the legal terminology, have standing – the ability to show that they have been directly or indirectly harmed by an action. It’s hard to argue that they haven’t been harmed, but lawsuits had never before taken their rights into account. Only an aggrieved human could sue.

When I first read this article decades ago, it seemed, well, far-fetched. Stone himself called it “unthinkable.” But he traced over time the extension of rights from encompassing only self and extended family to all humankind; and he described the law gradually expanding to include children, women, the enslaved. “The fact is,” he wrote, “that each time there is a movement to confer rights onto some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable. This is partly because until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of "us" – those who are holding rights at the time.”

Finally, he demonstrated that inanimate things – trusts, municipalities, nation-states, corporations – had been defined under the law as persons for a long time – long before the Supreme Court said so in 2020 in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.

In 1972, the idea that natural objects could have legal standing was not as far off the rails as it seemed. For in that year, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Sierra Club v Morton that is now best remembered for Justice Douglas’s powerful dissent. Called “the most liberal justice ever,” Douglas wrote widely about the wilderness, and it’s worth quoting from his dissent, in which he cited Stone’s article:

“The critical question of ‘standing’ would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Contemporary public concern for protecting nature’s ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation. . . .The ordinary corporation is a ‘person’ for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, whether it represents proprietary, spiritual, aesthetic, or charitable causes. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes – fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”

In the ensuing 52 years, the idea of “rights of nature” has gone from the fringe to the forefront. Led by Pennsylvania attorney Thomas Linzey, many municipalities have drafted laws, the first being Pittsburgh in 2010; and several countries, starting with Ecuador in 2008, have written the rights of nature into their national constitutions, including New Zealand, India, and Mexico.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 39

39th of a series

“Most places don’t ever see people like this. Alaska gets a lot of them, I think. And we in the river towns get them, too.”

- McCullum (in Riverman: An American Odyssey)

Perhaps the two most memorable characters (other than Huck and Jim) – and certainly the most grotesque – in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the Duke and the Dauphin, two grifters who travel up and down the Mississippi swindling the residents of the small river towns, often leaving one step ahead of the sheriff or tarred and feathered on a rail. Both Ernest Hemingway and H.L. Mencken considered Twain’s novel a tour de force of American letters. “All modern American literature,” wrote Hemingway, “comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” It is, said Mencken, “one of the great masterpieces of the world.

It's also one of the most consistently banned. A month after its publication in February 1885 librarians in Concord, Mass., deemed it “trash . . . suitable only for the slums.” It has been condemned ever since, from the left as racist, from the right for its intimate portrait of a while boy and a black slave, and from all sides for its language.

It is also the story of a river and the people who live on its banks – reminiscent, really, of John Kirkpatrick’s reflection in Southeast Asia that “all aspects of life revolve around the Mekong.”

So too do all kinds of people wash up in river towns.

Dick Conant spent more than 20 years paddling alone in his overstuffed red canoe, covering thousands of miles of America’s rivers. An eccentric, a loner, a pack rat, Conant affected the lives of thousands of people in river towns, large and small. He was open to everyone and to everything, awed equally by the wonders of nature and those of his fellow man. He had no agenda. He just paddled and stopped and talked. For a loner, he was the most outgoing man you will ever meet. He remembered, it seems, everyone he met, and he chronicled them in his copious journals. And everyone – everyone – remembered him.

He met a New Yorker writer named Ben McGrath in a chance encounter in a small town on the Hudson River, and when Conant’s red canoe was discovered upended in North Carolina and its occupant missing, McGrath set out to recapture Conant’s life, by tracing his journeys and contacting as many as possible of the people whose paths he had crossed and whose lives he had affected.

The result is Riverman: an American Odyssey, a book that offers us an America quite different from Twain’s or Mencken’s. In town after small town we encounter, not Twain’s swindlers nor Mencken’s “booboisie,” but people as open, generous, and curious as Conant himself. And while they do not travel America’s byways in a canoe, each is an individual and, yes, an eccentric in his or her own way. It’s an America, much of it downstream and backwater, that we don’t hear much about these days, a country where people welcome strangers and celebrate differences.

I like to think of rivers as making those places possible, of rivers as connectors not dividers, of rivers as waterways that transport people and goods and ideas to distant shores, of rivers as taking us on journeys, not into the heart of darkness, but into the light.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 38

38th of a Series

“Water is the true wealth in a dry land . . . .[I]f you control the water, you control the land. . . .”

- Wallace Stegner

Property rights and the public interest

In 2022, in the midst of California’s three-year drought, the Merced River went dry. The river, which arises in Yosemite National Park and flows through the Central Valley, is essential to the valley’s farmers who produce over half the country’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

Subsequent reporting by The New York Times focused my attention on three astonishing facts: (1) the farmers who depend on the river’s water were the very people who drained it; (2) the river had been dry for four months before the state’s water regulators learned about it; (3) nobody broke any laws.

The farmers were exercising their legal rights, some of which go back more than a century, to their shares of the water. Consequently, during the drought the total number of allocated shares remained unchanged; but the total amount of water did not, and so the river went dry.

In the United States, nobody owns the water in rivers, streams, and lakes. These “surface waters,” belong to the people collectively.* But individual landowners and corporations can acquire the right to “manage, divert, use, or sell the water.” I don’t know about you, but the right to sell something you don’t own seems a bit sketchy to me. The only comparable thing that comes to my mind is the stock market, where you can buy and sell shares and options you don’t own. But on Wall Street, they are not considered a public good. Somebody owns them. Otherwise, it’s called a Ponzi scheme.

As with the stock market, beliefs about natural resources are often as important as the underlying fundamentals. So as long as people believe there is plenty of water, few will worry too much about its allocation. But beware when the rains stop, and the people keep coming, and the demand for water exceeds its supply. 

In this country, there are basically two systems for allocating surface waters:

1. Riparian rights, under which landowners abutting a stream, river, or lake have the right to take its water for their own use.

2. Prior appropriation, under which the first to use and claim the water establishes a right in perpetuity (“first in time, first in right”).

Generally, the East, where water has historically been plentiful, operates under the riparian-rights doctrine, while in the drier West, prior appropriation dominates. No permit is required for the former, and the landowner’s rights are not contingent on “using” the water. Under the rules of prior appropriation, however, permits are generally required, and permit holders can lose their right if they fail to “use” the water. “The only requirement for holding on to this privileged status [is] to keep putting the water to work. In short, use it or lose it.”

And that’s exactly what happened to the Merced River.

*Unlike surface water, individual landowners, corporations, or the public at large can own groundwater, including that which has been stored for millennia in deep aquifers, although state laws generally determine its allocation. Needless to say, the matter of water rights is a tricky business.

For a succinct summary of the issue, see “Whose Water Is It Anyway? Comparing the Water Rights Frameworks of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida,” by M. D. Smolen, Aaron Mittelstet, and Bekki Harjo.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 37

37th of a series

Five Years Later: Three Weeks That Changed Their Lives

“He recognized something essential about moving water, which is not merely a conveyance but an equalizer – an urbanizing force on the prairie and a rural belt in the city.”

- Ben McGrath, Riverman: An American Odyssey

On July 7th, 2007, 12 high-school students set off from Belleayre Ski Resort in the Catskill Mountains on the journey of a lifetime. Three weeks later, exhausted, exhilarated, and malodorous, they walked into New York City’s Central Park to the applause of families, city officials, and startled onlookers.

They had hiked and paddled over 200 miles, through wooded wilderness, open water, and paved suburb, following the route of the city’s water from its sources in the Catskill Mountains to the reservoir in the center of Manhattan, from Mountaintop to Tap.

Five years later, we set out to find them and to ask them what impact the trek had had on their lives.

TREKKERS

Asha Armstrong, New York Harbor School

Asha in 2007

I am currently a senior enrolled in the semester-by-the-sea program at Stony Brook Southampton. I am also an environmental studies major with a marine science minor. I am engulfed in trek memories. The trek perked my interest in environmental studies. Before the trek, my goal in life was to become an oceanographer; I have changed my focus to environmental science with a focus on marine science. In addition, I would like to pursue a career in environmental education, primarily with youth, instead of oceanography.

Leydi Basilio, New York Harbor School

Leydi in 2007

I recently graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a bachelor’s in communications. The trek changed my perspective about NYC water completely. So many families lost everything for us to have water, and I think that, out of respect, the least we can do is conserve that precious resource before it disappears. I am thinking about going into education now, and for life after City Year, I will be applying to NYC Teaching Fellows and Teach for America.

Natalie Bloomfield, New York Harbor School

Natalie in 2007

I am currently a junior at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. My most memorable moment on the trek was the view of the valley from the top of Slide Mountain. It was breathtaking. I will also never forget Margaret Smith Dolan and the horrors she lived through as a child, as her home and those of other members of the Neversink Valley were taken by eminent domain to create a reservoir to supply NYC with clean drinking water. After five years, I still remember the early morning hikes and Asha’s huge heart! Every morning she started us off with a song to lift our spirits. Before this trek, I never once questioned where the water I drink came from; but after learning what so many people gave up in order for New Yorkers to have clean drinking water, I am so conscious of preserving water.

Robert Loibl, Sidney High School

Rob in 2007

Sometimes I catch myself thinking back and wondering, “Did I really do all that?” It’s just surreal. The trip definitely helped shape my opinions about the connection between both major parts of New York state. It also solidified my views on the environment and its conservation. One recommendation I would give to anyone reading this is to go out and experience where you live. I lived in upstate New York for most of my life, but I didn’t really experience it until I went to the Catskills to hike the mountains and to the Hudson to row down the river. . . .

Marissa Morton, Sidney High School

Marissa in 2007

My favorite memory was when we sat in the middle of the forest by ourselves, with no clocks or cell phones, and were asked to reflect on how we felt. I remember feeling so relaxed, and I knew right then that I was where I wanted to be. The thing that stands out the most, after five years, is the friendship I built with Leydi. It is amazing that two people who grew up in completely opposite environments can have so much in common. I will always carry a special bond with my fellow trekkers. The trek honestly changed my life. I still tell stories about when I got home and went to the doctor, both my feet were broken from the impact of walking on pavement and about how we got stuck in the pouring rain rowing down the Hudson, and I brag about how we were able to walk down into the old aqueducts.

Sarah Pate, Sidney High School

Sarah in 2007

I am currently studying psychology and neuroscience at SUNY Albany, working on my undergraduate thesis in psychology to graduate with honors. Quiet times hiking or resting at night caused me to notice the little things — to notice what the world has besides shopping malls and highways paved through the forests.

Sarah Place, Sidney High School

Sarah in 2007

I am currently living in New Jersey and am almost finished with my B.S. in psychology. I remember most vividly hiking through the mountains in both cold misty rain and dreaded heat, having our tent flooded by a passing rainstorm while we slept, sailing down the Hudson feeling so incredible and free, staying the night by a shipyard and listening to the students at West Point chant from the other side of the river, making the most ridiculous concoctions for dinner and actually liking it, walking down abandoned train tracks, singing folk songs with Molly Mason and Jay Ungar, staying in the basement of a giant old house in the Bronx and swearing it was haunted, and finally arriving in Central Park where all our families and friends were waiting to see us. I can say with confidence that the trek changed my life. It taught me so much — from perseverance to teamwork to not taking myself too seriously. Now I have more courage to challenge myself and my limits, and if I ever have doubt, I many times find myself saying in my mind, “Hey, I climbed three mountains and rowed 40 miles; I can do this.”

Jeriel Stafford, New York Harbor School

Jeriel in 2007

Right now, I am in my senior year of college, pursuing a double major in applied math and statistics and economics. What stands out to me the most was that I got to experience a whole different world from what I was used to. Coming from the island of Grenada to living in the city of New York to living in the woods, all are different worlds, and I got to experience them all.

Trek Partners and Organizers: Stroud Water Research Center; New York Harbor School; Catskill Center for Conservation and Development; Riverkeeper; Catskill Mountainkeeper; New York City Department of Environmental Protection; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 36

36th of a series

“We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.”

- Hernan Cortes (1485–1547)

The bus ride from Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incan empire, to Puerto Maldonado in the Amazon rain forest, takes over 10 hours, although the distance is not even 300 miles, and you can fly in under an hour. Such is the precipitous majesty of the Andes, where travel can feel like falling off a cliff and landing in a different ecosphere. Set among the peaks of the Vicabamba mountains, Cusco is 11,152 feet above sea level. Puerto Maldonado lies at the confluence of the wonderfully named Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers, near the western edge of the 2.7-million square-mile Amazon basin. Its elevation is 600 feet. Its rivers flow northeast for 2,700 miles, part of the Amazon River’s long journey to the Atlantic Ocean. Averaging nearly seven feet of rain a year, Puerto Maldonado is as hot and humid a place as I have ever been.

In the markets, the fish have an incandescent red color – not the vibrant, festive colors of the flowers and birds of the rainforest, the macaws and toucans, orchids and passion fruit flowers –  but the sickening color of stunted development and death. For this red is the sign of mercury in the food chain, the byproduct of thousands of gold mining operations in the rainforest and along the rivers’ banks.

When I was there, about 15 years ago, most travel occurred by boat, and you could hear the discordant sound of heavy machinery long before you rounded a bend in the river and came upon a group of people, often a family with the children waist deep in the water, as the machine sifted dirt in search of gold. Mercury is used to adhere to the tiny gold pieces, which are extracted by vaporizing the mercury, which then ends up in the water and soil, absorbed by the insects, the fish, and the workers’ lungs.

I have long thought that the most diabolical fate to come out of the Industrial Revolution was that of a chimney sweep in an English city. Boys (and some girls) were taken from that country’s plentiful poorhouses at the age of six or younger, and shoved up chimneys into which only they were small enough to fit.

“The fate of these people seems singularly hard,” wrote Percival Pott in Chirurgical Observations (1775). “In their early infancy, they are most frequently treated with great brutality, and almost starved with cold and hunger; they are thrust up narrow and sometimes hot chimnies,  where they are bruised, burned, and almost suffocated; and when they get to puberty, become peculiarly liable to a most noisome, painful, and fatal disease”, namely cancer of the scrotum and testicles, from which they die. Thomas Hobbes did not need to look to a more primitive age to see human life that was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

What I witnessed on the Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers was a world away from England’s dark, satanic mills. Here, 30-50,000 miners work in one of the planet’s most biodiverse areas, amid the breathtaking grandeur and vibrancy of nature. And yet their often illegal operations are destroying millions of acres of rainforest, polluting the vast Amazon river system, and poisoning the people too poor and vulnerable to escape.

Maybe the next time we’re tempted to buy gold, we should think of those children in the river and remember the words of Martin Luther (1483-1546), that “every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 35

35th of a series

“They both listened to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, of perpetual Becoming.”

- Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

The Mekong: Letter from an Old Friend

Jamie,

Sara and I just returned from a three week trip to Vietnam (the area around Saigon – which they still call it) and Cambodia. 

It included a boat cruise on the Mekong River from Vietnam up to Siem Reap in Cambodia, with numerous stops along the way to see and experience what life along the river looks and feels like.

As we made the trip, your words about how rivers define life along their banks came alive. It was truly fascinating to see, and the experience was just so different from that of the major rivers –  Susquehanna, Hudson, Delaware, etc. – that I know. 

All aspects of life revolve around the Mekong. I don’t say that lightly. Folks eat the fish and vegetation, irrigate their fields, swim to get away from the heat, gather socially, drink the water, wash their scooters, clean their clothes, use it as a highway, live on and next to it, and more.  It was almost totally true in the rural areas and remains true for many, even in places like Phnom Penh.

Photo by John Kirkpatrick

Despite its importance to daily life, the river clearly has a growing plastic pollution issue and a basic pollution problem (many people put allium salt in a container of water to get rid of the silt and then boil the water so they can drink it). Keeping the river clean is clearly not a priority for the governments of either Vietnam or Cambodia. In fact, in large parts of rural Cambodia there is no recycling or trash removal, so roadways and vacant land can be full of litter. 

It was a fascinating trip, and the river captured my almost constant attention. It was stunning to see, given how important the Mekong is to the lifeblood of the people and how taken for granted it is by seemingly everyone. 

A long way of saying again, your words came alive on this trip.

---

Editor’s note: The 3,050-mile Mekong has been called “the world’s most important river.” Arising in the Tibetan highlands, it runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, before flowing into the South China Sea. It is second only to the Amazon in its biodiversity, and hundreds of millions of people depend on it for their survival, particularly on its fish. The Mekong produces one-fifth of the world’s annual freshwater catch and provides the entire protein consumption for 60 percent of the people of Laos and Cambodia.

Reinforcing John Kirkpatrick’s observations, Stefan Lovgren writes in Yale Environment 360, the Mekong is a “troubled” river. It “may look healthy on the surface but has grown increasingly sick from a wide range of problems, including dam building, overfishing, deforestation, plastic pollution, and the insidious impacts of a changing climate.”

The primary culprit, at least for the moment, is dams, primarily hydroelectric dams, with 13 on the Mekong’s main stem, 160 more on its tributaries, and hundreds more being planned. China, the country farthest upstream, has long been the worst offender, and its complete lack of concern over the impacts of its dams on the five downstream countries seems to have caught on in the rest of the neighborhood, where dam building is surging.

Dams on the main stem of the Mekong River, 2020

Still, “the Mekong is not dead,” says Sudeep Chandra, director of the University of Nevada’s Global Water Center. “We’ve seen huge environmental pressures causing the Mekong to dry up and fisheries to almost collapse. And yet we also see the incredible resilience of this river in the face of those threats.”

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 34

34th of a series

“I must compliment you on this series as the topic is of great interest and I am learning stuff as I read. Who knew we were selling our water to foreign governments? I also believe the Hudson is now a great deal cleaner than it was twenty years ago, although my friend who still swims in races under the George Washington bridge says it is not quite pristine yet!”

The Clean Water Act became law on Oct. 18th, 1972. Its impact has been extraordinary:

“Over the past half century, the Clean Water Act has brought our waters back to life – turning rivers and lakes from dumping grounds into productive, healthy waterways again,” wrote the National Wildlife Federation in a recent review of the EPA report, ‘Five Decades of Clean Water.’ “It keeps 700 billion pounds of pollutants out of our waters annually, has slowed the rate of wetland loss, and doubled the number of waters that are safe for fishing and swimming. Levels of metals like lead in our rivers have declined dramatically. Ultimately, the cost to clean our drinking water is lower because the entire system is healthier.”

In a political environment that now seems so long ago, the bill passed unanimously in the Senate and by a vote of 346-11 in the House. Richard Nixon, who gets so much posthumous credit for being an environmental visionary, promptly vetoed it. But later that same day, the Senate overrode his veto, 55-12. When the next day the House followed suit, 247-23, the bill became law.

So what’s the problem? Let me paint with a broad brush:

• The act regulated so-called “point-source” pollutants. These come from an identifiable source, mostly some kind of a pipe. That alone made a huge difference because industries and municipalities had long been discharging their sewage directly into our waterways. However, “non-point-source” pollutants, which materialize primarily as run-off across the land, are much harder to isolate and regulate. Agriculture, which was largely exempted from the original act, is the primary source of such pollution.

• What’s a river anyway? While the Hudsons, the Colorados, and the Mississippis get all the headlines, it’s the millions of small streams, many of them nameless and some even intermittent, that do most of the work, carrying the water into ever larger streams until they get to a big river and head for the ocean. More than 70 percent of our water is in those small streams, which remain largely unregulated.

• We have expanded our definition of pollution to include phosphorus and nitrogen, which cause nutrient overload that can quickly kill stream life. Agriculture annually discharges millions of tons of nutrients into streams in the form of runoff. This wasn’t contemplated in the original act.

• A lot of powerful interests have always loathed the Clean Water Act: business and industry; agriculture; developers; property-rights advocates, opponents of government regulation, and the list goes on. These groups use their money to buy a lot of things, including politicians.

• The Supreme Court has narrowed the definition of “the waters of the United States” several times, most recently last year in Sackett v EPA, and the current Republican party actively seeks to roll the regulations back.

In summary, the Clean Water Act clearly demonstrated that it’s possible to clean up our streams and rivers, that the benefits of doing so are universal, and that it pays enormous economic as well as environmental dividends.

We should be trying to strengthen the Act, not undo it.