In The Graduate, a near-classic movie of the late 1960's, actor Dustin Hoffman received adult guidance in hushed tones from Mrs. Robinson's husband: "Plastics!" he was told, with a confident air that the future was to be found there. In a less conspiratorial tone, we think the message for the 21st century is "Water!"
While land use, or misuse, represents the primary ecological challenge in nearly every jurisdiction, the flow and quality of water in rivers and streams are the ultimate measures of environmental well-being. In the face of growing human population and accelerating demand for clean water, human actions are lowering the quality of life for all living things:
- wetlands are drained, eliminating the ecological services that nature provides for free;
- vast tracts of land are being paved so that water runs off into sewers — never to replenish underground aquifers;
- timber clearcutting on hillsides leaves nothing to hold the rainfall so that it can supply the springs that keep plant and animal life going through dry periods;
- while strides have been made in reducing industrial waste dumped in rivers, chemicals flow freely from farm fields, golf courses, and suburban lawns, and oil from highways and parking lots drains into streams;
- hydropower dams built 50 years ago deprive rivers and streams of their natural biological wealth — most notably ocean-going salmon;
- stream diversions for irrigating industrial agriculture threaten the integrity of the water course by reducing summer flows to trickles;
- flooding is frequently attributable to human land-use choices.
These and other alterations in nature's landscape are putting many forms of life at risk of extinction, but there are also threats to human health. In a bizarre and under-reported news story from Milwaukee five years ago, a parasite in the city's water system infected some 450,000 people — 103 of whom died! The pathogen probably came from agricultural run-off or from urban sewage.
These signs of ecological negligence indicate that watersheds will likely become a focal point for environmental protection in the 21st century. Watersheds are formed by natural hydrological boundaries and they are probably the best geographical unit by which to give people a sense of place in the natural world. In truth, nearly everyone's ecological address is a watershed.
If, as one report has it, the people of Massachusetts spend more money each year on bottled water than on the protection of the state's watersheds, it is time to "listen up" — and indeed innovations in watershed management are emerging in many states. For example, New York City found it much cheaper to protect upstate watersheds than to build a massive filtration plant to purify its drinking water. In Massachusetts and Washington State, agencies are funding non-governmental organizations to empower them to become partners in watershed protection. In other cases, private groups — including fishers, hunters, birders and other wildlife enthusiasts — are pulling state agencies into watershed conservation. Increasing collaboration between governmental agencies and local groups is a theme running through all of these innovations.
We will continue to prospect for creative initiatives that point in the direction of deeper engagement with watershed management — initiatives which embrace public/private partnerships; and which are both replicable and sustainable.
Theodore M. Smith
Executive Director
April, 1998
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