Urban Watersheds Perspectives

Land Ethic

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

This is the boiled down version of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic as stated in his classic A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949. Leopold is widely regarded as the father of the science (art?) now known as wildlife management. During his long and distinguished career, he worked as a forester, consultant and educator.

But it’s his posthumous book and particularly the sections on the land ethic that have had the greatest impact on conservation. If followed, his land ethic would necessarily be a transforming philosophy affecting all areas of land management. Detractors would point out that his land ethic doesn’t take economic or sociological factors into account. Leopold would likely counter that argument by saying that our ability to survive depends on the land and that socioeconomic factors cannot be considered separately from the health of the land.

In writing this post, I don’t want to suggest (or be accused of supporting) abandonment of our air conditioned homes, irrigated lawns, etc. Or that we gather together in a circle singing kum-by-yah. But I do think that a longer view of issues affecting urban watersheds (and the environment in general - remember "everywhere" is in a watershed), would lead to smarter and healthier communities. And Leopold’s land ethic is a good starting point for that long view.

In closing, I’ll point out another of Leopold’s legacies particularly applicable to the science side of urban watersheds. One of Aldo’s children, Luna Leopold, was a leading hydrologist and geomorphologist who passed away in 2006. Luna argued for a transformation in the management of water resources – away from the traditional geopolitical/economic models – toward one that considered other factors (climate, geology, etc.).

posted by RANDY ALEXANDER

If you ignore this problem long enough, it will not go away

A little while ago, we received this reply to the post called "Water Conservation":

Expansion into areas such as Texas and Florida is inevitable. Water use is predominantly due to outdoor irrigation systems. Although I am in Florida and specializing in the water conservation efforts due to irrigation, I have had the opportunity to learn that Texas is or has passed a bill for new construction to require "SMART" controllers for irrigation systems.

Although there are many questions regarding this type of control, I feel ANYTHING is better than NOTHING and am pleased to see that the administrators have required this new device. Water use will continue to bring heightened controversy. If we all bring heightened awareness to conserving or reducing our usage we would be better off for a longer period of time. It's been proven for some time ... conservation works.

One of my family's long-held sayings stipulates that "if you ignore some problems long enough, they'll go away.  The trick is to know which ones will stay, no matter what."   

Apparently, water conservation is one of those issues that only becomes worse with time.  Water planning in Texas is treated at the state level, which in turn apparently says that as long as East Texas gets its normal rainfall, there is no need to conserve.   

More common-sense folk who live outside of the Texas capitol in West and South Texas know that liquor is for drinking, but water is for fighting.  These arid regions have long since found out that conservation is as important to their future needs procuring new sources.  (OK, read that "strain more out of the hydrologic cycle."  There is no such thing as a "new source" of water.....there are only new methods to divert it out of the hydrologic cycle to where we want it to go.)  At any rate, they have gotten good at conservation on a local level.  The City of San Antonio has a population of 1.14 million, and has an average per capita water usage rate of 142 gallons (see the article here).  San Antonio is recognized as a national leader in water conservation.   

It wasn't always this way. San Antonio used to be the largest city in the U.S. that had a single water source, which was the Edwards Aquifer.  A couple of dry spells created a series of events which resulted in San Antonio focusing on water conservation, and the city has done a good job.  It has also procured some other sources of water, so as to spread out the demand among several sources.   

The point is.....the first thing that San Antonio looked as was a conservation program.  (Reminds me of another saying:  "If you're in a hole that you don't want to be in, first stop digging!")   

Conservation is a relatively easy thing to teach.  Look at what we've already learned within the last 10 years: 

• We recycle plastics, glass, and paper in our household solid waste. 
• Many of us use energy-saving lights and devices to help save energy.  Like the idea or not, California has looked at eliminating one of the most inefficient sources of light, the incandescent bulb. 
• Hybrid cars have made great inroads in the automobile market, and still can do more. 

Water conservation should be looked at the same way, but like the other ideas listed above, it requires an external prod to get the idea to take hold.  The common factor in the above cases was a painful realization that the present situation cannot continue without some change.   

The water supply in Texas will soon get painful enough to prod conservation.  The water situation in Texas will only grow more painful.  These 2 articles (DMN, Sierra Club) reduce the issue of an additional water source for Dallas to a single question: Build an additional water reservoir or keep 25,000 acres of unique forested habitat which is of a type that is rapidly disappearing in the world?   

I don't care where you stand on that question...the fact that this dilemma exists says much about the pointedness of the water supply in Texas.   

posted by KEVIN CONNER

Majoring in the Main Thing

Planning, design, and engineering on an urban watershed often is a high-profile, messy process.  It’s fraught with all sorts of weirdness and “noise”.  In fact, one of the primary instructions that I have to hammer into my design teams is “focus and ignore the noise.”

I subscribe to 7 different listservers and broadcasts, and while I enjoy reading through them, the sheer volume of information can create a lot of noise.   For most people, getting drowned in this information isn’t helpful, unless there are solid, primary principles that they keep in mind.  (OK, I’ll admit, I like the volume of stuff, and like even more picking through it for current stuff to use in projects.)

What started this post was a cleanly written note called “Keeping the Main Thing, the Main Thing” by Steve Nelle of the NRCS in San Angelo, Texas.  Click this link to read the whole note: Download riparian_notes_22_the_main_thing.doc

OK, so what are the primary principles?  I’ll bet we can even disagree on this…..but in the interest of starting the disagreement, I’ll launch a list:

1.  Rivers need to be healthy.  For us outdoor types, this is beyond simplistic.  As my 12 year old puts it, this is a no-brainer.   The note I refer to above has a good definition of a healthy river.  It’s a scale or a continuum, though….not the yes/no toggle switch that unreasonable people promote.

However, for the sheltered, analytical types (Hey!  Don’t get defensive…..I didn’t say “engineer”!!!), let’s grow through a few of the reasons:

• First, a healthy river has room to absorb some of the urbanization impacts.  Riparian areas can provide flood storage, sediment trapping, water quality functions, and slow velocities so that a community doesn’t dump on the next one downstream.  Further, a healthy river with an appropriate riparian corridor can allow the river to geomorphically adapt to changing watershed conditions through altering its alignment and profile somewhat.  Often, this is restricted from major change in urban settings, but some wiggle room is better than none.
• Second, a healthy river sells better.  Economic development along the river is enhanced by good water quality.  The only major method to enhancing water quality is through river health, unless a community feels the need to build a treatment facility just for the river (and that only deals with a small part of the potential problems, anyway.)

2.  Rivers, streams, lakes….Ok, urban watersheds…….need to be an expression of community values.  OK, I need to clarify this one a little for myself.  This assumes that the community values do NOT dictate a rape, channel, concrete, and coverup of every stream corridor in the community.

Still, there is a wide range of how communities treat their rivers and streams, which are quite often deeply rooted in the community’s history and raison d’etre.  One community may take the approach of restoring its riparian corridors as much as financially possible, throughout its urban fabric.   The potential tradeoffs for this are real estate expense, restoration challenges, and others.  Another community may choose to treat its rivers based upon context….park-like where it makes sense, riparian woodlands where it makes sense, urban waterfront where it makes sense.  There are potential tradeoffs for this, too.

The need for being rooted in the community values has to do with implementation.  These are long-term projects, usually tagged with either large expense, vigilant effort, or both.  That means a “political champion” alone won’t do it…..it requires strong community support.  Done right, this is an issue that a political champion can get elected on.

3.  Corridors for urban rivers and streams must be approached holistically and weaved into the urban fabric on a number of levels.  This also means that costs cannot be measured on a single level. 

We’ve all heard the stories. A city approaches a funding agency, gets them involved, and ends up with a project that is perceived to be compromised worse than that amount that the city funded.   This happens more often than cities and the funding agencies would like to admit, too. 

It all comes down to an effective and rigorous method to quantifying river qualities:  flood control, economic development, ecosystem values, and others.

All in a singular method that is grounded in cost/benefit.

Working on it….more to come.

4.  Fixing our past degradation on rivers and streams is expensive, and therefore requires careful thought.  The corollary to that is that our past sins MUST be fixed, because rivers and streams ignore political borders.  Ergo, one community’s sins are impacting another. 

I’ll admit that this is taking a shot at half-baked master plans that produce pretty pictures without concurrent or follow-through studies to look at impacts/improvements that address all of the issues connected with the river or stream.   However, it’s important to know that we are dealing with systems, not singular issues.  A river or stream is a system that responds to stimuli and will actively seek a dynamic equilibrium in alignment, profile, sediment transport, erosion, accretion, and other factors.  You can spend a lot of money fighting this principle, but it’s like gravity……you never conquer it, you merely confirm it in the end. 

We have to address that damage that has been done.  And regardless of what your political views are, the U.S. will start refocusing inward on its infrastructure.  We haven’t done so in a number of years.  And rivers and streams are part of that infrastructure.

Any other “Main Things” out there?

posted by KEVIN CONNER

Water Conservation

I was reviewing the 2007 State Water Plan for Texas recently and was struck by the following:  water demand in Texas is going to increase by over 27.3% between 2000 and 2060.  Regionally, the increases are going to be stunning.  Demand in North Central Texas is going to increase by almost 140%.

As staggering as the future demand projections are, I found the differences in per capita water consumption from one city to another even more interesting.  For instance, in 2003, people in Plano used approximately 225 gallons per day.  Meanwhile, their Collin County neighbors to the north in McKinney averaged only 153 gallons per day.  This means that the average person in Plano consumed almost 50% more water than residents of  McKinney.  For those of you not familiar with this part of Texas, McKinney is only about 10 miles north of Plano and has somewhat similar demographics.  They both get their water from the same source – surface water from North Texas Municipal Water District. 

So what’s the difference?  All we can really do is speculate.

Is it that people in one city are more conservation minded?  Perhaps the local government in one city is stricter about enforcing water restrictions?  Maybe the answer is extremely complicated – a combination of so many factors that you’d have to have a PhD in chaos theory to decipher it?  We just can’t know for sure.  But it’s interesting to think about.

Can you imagine a time where water conservation becomes so important that kids from one town taunt their neighbors because they use more water?  “They may have beaten us by 3 touchdowns, but they don’t have low-flow showerheads in their locker room!”

Maybe not.  At any rate, conserve where you can and I promise I won’t taunt you.

If you’d like to see the Texas Water Plan, follow this link.

posted by RANDY ALEXANDER