A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 30

in

30th of a series

Readers Weigh In, Part 1

“There are many ways to salvation, and one of them is to follow a river.”

- David Brower

  • I love your columns on water,” wrote David Yeats-Thomas, “and to show you I read them to the very last paragraph, I’d like to refer to and comment on this end note in your last column (#28): 

It’s worth noting that Nirvana literally means “blowing out or becoming extinguished, as when a flame is blown out or a fire burns out.” Armageddon, on the other hand, refers to the “place where the kings of the earth under demonic leadership will wage war on the forces of God at the end of history.” I have to admit that the difference between the two is completely lost on me.

“The same Britannica definition you mentioned goes on to give a more nuanced and positive meaning. Buddhism’s ultimate goal is to end (extinguish) the state of suffering, which causes nirvana. ‘(Nirvana) is used to refer to the extinction of desire, hatred, and ignorance and, ultimately, of suffering and rebirth. Literally, it means “blowing out” or “becoming extinguished,” as when a flame is blown out or a fire burns out.’

Somehow I think the end of suffering and the extinction of desire, hatred and ignorance is definitely a better goal in life than Armageddon.

  • In response to the post on John McPhee’s article (#25) about rafting the Colorado with David Brower and Floyd Dominy, Murray Fisher, founder of New York Harbor School and former Riverkeeper staff member, wrote:

“The Hudson River and New York City’s thirst for energy provide an interesting case study for this issue. Indian Point nuclear power plant is being phased out because of its negative environmental impacts and apparent threat to safety, etc. The effort to shut it down was led by Riverkeeper.

But what is replacing that energy generation?

A new hydroelectric dam being built on a river in Quebec on indigenous land. And then a 400-mile-long cable is being run underneath the Hudson River to NYC. 

“What's greener?

“There is no new ‘green economy,’ really. It’s a myth. Any production of energy has some cost to global ecology.”

  • “I’m confused by your last post about water and rivers,” wrote a reader about last Thursday’s blog. “Why are Trump’s comments so far off base? Is it because he thinks the river should be diverted? Isn’t that what we’ve been doing to rivers all along? Is the point that we’ve been screwing around with rivers for so long, that we’re on the brink of their being almost extinct?”

Just after I opened that email, I read a New York Times article, “California Farms Dried up a River for Months. Nobody Stopped Them,” about the Merced River, which begins in Yosemite National Park and provides water to the state’s Central Valley. During the three-year drought of 2020-22, farmers continued to exercise their rights of withdrawal even as the Merced turned into “a series of intermittent pool.”

“A dry river is a catastrophe,” said a spokesperson for Friends of the River in Sacramento.

It was once considered a contradiction in terms.