WATER CONSERVATION BEGINS WITH THE LAND

Rex Burress

Conserving water was charged with tensions during the California drought of 2015. At the start of year 2016, there is also high uncertainty about the possible flooding from El Nino, or if it will even come, plus debates about water storage and the use of wells. Amid the fervor of the water issues, few people take the time to consider the grassroots of conservation in all of our natural resource usage.

Today's water news came out of San Diego, recipient of recent January rainfall, where they are discussing ways of retaining water that runs off into the ocean quite quickly. Of course, summer fires in the mountains laid the land bare, and without roots to hold it together, soil will go with the flow. The slogan, “soil is the foundation of life,” is a generally accepted phase that gained emphasis after the great dust storms on the Middle American Plains in the 1930's.

Before the dust-winds of the Great Depression, land was plowed and used indiscriminately with little thought of future sustainability, and land conservation had not developed efficient guideposts. I was born into that era on a farm in the Northern Missouri hills, which was sheltered from that Great Plains dust bowl, and Dad brought his 80 acres through, although I remember he had to take a WPA job at the Trenton tomato factory in order to buy seeds and stables.

The “conquering” of America began with European settlers hacking a hole into the forests to prepare land for agriculture. Eventually, that 'hack' became so extensive that much of the Great America Canopy east of the plains was nearly decimated, much like the forests in England. The plow laid the land bare, and without the tree-leaf-root cover and soil conservation practices, the soil was swept by storm into stream sandbars and the muddy Mississippi Delta.

Needless to say, the 49'er gold mining stripped soil in the Mother Lode country, plus many mountains were eroded by hydraulic water pressure and the debris suffocated Sacramento Valley streams before protective laws were enacted.

Franklin D. Roosevelt rather got the conservation ball rolling with the Civilian Conservation Corp [In 1942, Roosevelt established the Great Plains Shelterbelt and 220 billion trees were planted to lessen wind erosion.]. The conservation ideology was further enhanced by Aldo Leopold and his book “Sand County Almanac.” A multitude of participants have contributed to the conservation movement, and even John Muir was noticing the lack of land management in the 1870's, when “The Father of National Parks” promoted land preservation.

My boyhood was centered in the riverbreak region of Northern Missouri during the 1930's and 40's. I became aware of nature and conservation while prowling those glacial-scoured hills, even though at first I was obsessed to find pretty pebbles and arrowheads uncovered by erosion. The clay hills that had been covered by trees and humus for millions of years to build up rich layers of soil until timbers were clear-cut and the erosive farming practices had allowed rains to strip off the topsoil. Dad was tuned to helping the area recover via seeding, manure spreading, and crop rotation, while our ditches were filled with brush to slow the run-off.”Mud unconstrained is dirt lost!” [Political: “Mud slung is dirt lost.]

The Missouri Department of Conservation has been a leader in soil improvement, forest management, and restocking wildlife. [They also made me a Nature Knight which paved the way for a nature career.] The MO Conservation Agents [Game Wardens] help farmers plan the building of ponds and planting, to the point that most farms have efficient permanent ponds attractive to wildlife. “Build a refuge and they will come!”

“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.” --Aldo Leopold

“No small part of the prosperity of California depends upon the preservation of her water supply; and the water supply cannot be preserved unless the forests are preserved.” --Theodore Roosevelt

“The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong.” --John Muir