RIVER WATCHER
CLEAN WATER FOR AMERICA?
Rex Burress
The Environment Protection Agency has sought to protect U.S. water resources by establishing the Clean Water Act. Such a rule would seem commendable in lieu of the importance of clean water for life on earth, but the effort has caused intense objections from some land owners and users mainly because managing watersheds often encroaches onto private property.
Keeping water healthy for everyone through regulations to prevent unpermitted discharge of pesticides, fertilizer, sewage, or disturbing the soil around watersheds and established farms, hits directly at agricultural habits detrimental to waterways, habits that have been long established to extend profits. The sense of land ownership is partly an attitude of “I can do what I want with my land.” Thirteen states have sought an injunction to prevent the rule from taking effect.
Already California has had some 90% of its wetlands filled for industrial and farming purposes. Just take a look at the Sacramento Valley and see vast fields of cropland with very little space left for trees and wildlife. It is not at all like the Spanish reported in their 1820 exploration of Northern California, when they said its armored forces walked from the Sacramento River to the Chico area and had shade from oak groves nearly all the way. It will not be that way again, but hopefully some refuges can be retained. California Dept Fish and Wildlife Grey Lodge is a prime example.
The thing about water is that it is universal, and what flows through a farm goes on to other communities from stream to stream and reservoir to reservoir to finally reach the ocean before returning to the land in clouds. Much can happen to water in its journey across the land, and contaminating pollutants are not desirable.
In some places, it becomes a virtual dump-ground on the banks of a stream. “The water will wash it away.” There could be oil cans in that debris, or even worse, contaminates from drug rendering and other toxics that could flow into major reserves like Lake Oroville. I have seen garbage dumps started along Cherokee Road above the Feather River's Diversion Pool before a clean-up.
The first garbage dump for the town of Oroville, once called Ophir, was near the Feather River in what is now River Bend Park. Nearly all of the mining towns along the river used waterways for their waste material, and gold mining was mostly conducted in the gravels of rivers. It's a wonder that the watersheds survived, but nature is quite resilient and the scars have been covered by plants. The water, however, is sensitive to intrusion of contaminates.
Before “Recology” and garbage control, the Oroville dump grounds was recipient of dumped cans, bottles, and junk in addition to other wastes of ancient vintage stretching all the way back to the coming of Chinese gold seekers in the 1850's. That dump site was ravaged by collectors of antiquity, and trenches were dug right up to the time of park construction. Around the edges of the soccer fields you can still see slivers of shredded glass ware.
At the end of the drought year of 2015, there is concern that the State meets its water saving goals. It is a time of being extra careful that pollution doesn't leak into reduced streams. Clean water for America is for everyone.
“Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground or into the waters, they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected...” --Chief Seattle
“The irises in your eyes the tissue of roses the slow giant rocks in mountain hearts were all born flaming locked in the sun as it drifted like a light on dark water.”
--Lawrence Collins