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Water Scholars Book Club 2021 July Book. Follow along as we post book reviews, resource lists, and content each month to support learning about a particular water topic.

By Laura Frescoln, Iowa Water Center

Quick Summary of the Book: Robert McFarlane takes us on a journey to the “underland” as he explores locations around the world that lie beneath our feet. This voyage is exquisitely detailed through our human senses and a cast of characters he meets along the way.

Why we selected it: Water is a fundamental force in the formation of the earth and the underland. Through the authors eyes, the reader gets a sense of the water’s presence and importance both in the formation and evolution of our culture and the physical aspects of our world over ‘deep time’.

I love exploring. Every summer I choose a new place for my two daughters and me to break from routine and experience something new. I do admit though, that apart from some “cave tours” that provided a sense of security through the sheer number of visitors that participate, we have not considered exploring the vast underworld. For one, I am sure I would be traveling alone, abandoned by my less adventurous kids who have a strong desire to survive. Secondly, I do have some claustrophobic tendencies. In fact, I cannot wear a hood.

Despite these challenges to explore the “underland” myself, I was intrigued by this book and the author’s experiences. McFarlane attributes the reluctance of “explorers” to dive into this world as intuitive and societal.

“Why go low? It is a counter-intuitive action, running against the grain of sense and the gradient of spirit (Pg. 11)…An aversion to the underland is buried in language. In many of the metaphors we live by, height is celebrated but depth is despised. To be ‘uplifted’ is preferable to being ‘depressed’ or ‘pulled down’.” (Pg.12)

McFarlane uses “deep time” as a metric to understand the evolution of this world.

“‘Deep Time’ is the chronology of the underland. Deep time is the dizzying expanses of Earth history that stretch away from the present moment. Deep time is measured in units that humble the human instant: epochs and aeons, instead of minutes and years. Deep time is kept by stone, ice, stalactites, seabed sediments and the drift of tectonic plates. Deep time opens into the future as well as the past. The Earth will fall dark when the sun exhausts its fuel around 5 billion years. We stand on our toes, as well as our heels, on a brink.” (Pg. 15)

Considering the metric of ‘deep time’ is almost unthinkable and certainly overwhelming to us humans who have such short memories and focused attention on the present. The author recognizes this and writes…

“There is dangerous comfort to be drawn from deep time. What does our behavior matter, when Homo sapiens will have disappeared from the Earth in the blink of a geological eye?…We should resist such inertial thinking; indeed we should urge its opposite – deep time as a radical perspective, provoking us to action not apathy.” (Pg. 15)

McFarlane uses quotes from other notable writers and scientist to introduce and sometime emphasize relevant points along this journey. As he notes, we are in the Anthropocene age which is largely influenced by human activity.

“But the Anthropocene, for all its faults, also issues a powerful shock and challenge to our self-perception as a species. It exposes both the limits of our control over the long-term processes of the planet, and the magnitude of the consequences of our activities…The Anthropocene asks of us the question memorably posed by the immunologist Jonas Salk: ‘Are we being good ancestors?’” (Pg. 77)

In the chapters that follow the introduction, McFarlane recounts expeditions in Britain, Europe (including “invisible cities”), Norway, Finland and Greenland. The adventures that follow throughout the pages are a rich collection of vivid descriptions of the both the physical world beneath our feet and the shared world of the people around us and beside us. This community is made up of the guides/friends who accompanied the author, those who came before and left their mark and those still to come. This community added layers of color, clarity and complexity.

The following excerpts from the introduction gives the reader a glimpse of what can be expected in the journey ahead…

“The way into the underland is through the riven trunk of an old ash tree. …Near the ash’s base its trunk splits into a rough rift, just wide enough that a person might slip into the tree’s hollow heart – and there drop into the dark space that opens below.” (Pg. 3)

We soon discover that the old ash is but one of the many passageways into the underworld. Each entrance formed through “deep time” as a footprint marking the geological and human forces at play.

“…down in the labyrinth beneath the riven ash. The same three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter was is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful.”(Pg. 8)

Throughout the book as a whole, the author explores all three as he weaves humanity and the landscape together in a way that allows the reader to think, feel and wonder about the invisible world where few have traveled.

Water Scholars Book Club 2021 June Book. Follow along as we post book reviews, resource lists, and content each month to support learning about a particular water topic. 

In Tyler J. Kelley’s book, “Holding Back the River: The struggle against nature on America’s Waterways,” the author explores the history of the US attempting to tame its rivers through engineering and infrastructure policies, as well as gives an in-depth look at the people working to hold the water within the streambanks.

By Hanna Bates, Assistant Director, Iowa Water Center

Quick Summary of the Book: The investigative reporting of the author provides an in-depth look at the history of water infrastructure in the Midwest and the policies that sought to conquer and control our waterways. But as we face climate change, we may need to think beyond rebuilding old systems and considering a new mindset as we consider the power of our waterways.

Why we selected it: There has been increasing focus on the aging infrastructure that supports transport and commerce in the US with the introduction of the American Jobs Plan. This book explores the aging infrastructure that makes the water systems in the US navigable for commerce, particularly agriculture commodities. This book heavily focuses on the complexity of work the Army Corps of Engineers has to secure streambanks with levee systems along Midwestern waterways to minimize risk and damages. In 2019, Iowa was subject to breached levees that led to billions of dollars in damages due to flood waters in Southwestern Iowa.

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When I was a kid growing up in Southwest Iowa, I lived on a farm about a mile from town. A major divider between us and access to groceries, the post office, and school was the Nishnabotna River. One summer the river crested so high it spread into nearby low-lying fields, a nearby business or two, and eventually spread over the highway, our only access to town. What was normally a 10-minute drive would become an over 40-minute to drive in the opposite direction to find a dry road on a roundabout drive to access town. These memories came flooding back as I read through Kelley’s investigative reporting on policy attempts to tame the water that often fails nature or vulnerable populations along the water.

“You don’t own the land; the land owns you” – Faulkner

Kelley explores river management of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio rivers predominantly through the history of the Army Corps of Engineers and their purpose to maintain infrastructure on US waterways to support the navigation of commodities along with providing risk reduction for flooding disasters along waterways and coastal lines.

The author also explores belief systems regarding flooding and flood management that dictate decision-making for those along the river, often showing that our perspectives of water has not kept pace with the ever-growing threat of climate change and increasing rain events throughout the Midwest. The typical approach in the past is that when fields and homes flood, we rebuild again. Significant floods are considered rare, and so once an event happens some may assume that it will never happen again. The prelude opens with the story of a farmer in Southwest Iowa. Following a previous flood event in 2011, the farmer cancelled his flood insurance in 2018 and assumed that the protection measures in the area had been robust to protect his land. He states in the book that he would not anticipate a flooding event like in 2011 until after he was dead. Then the 2019 floods happened and there was little he could do except move the grain that he could from his storage bins and abandon his farm and home.

Throughout the history of water management, the author tells the stories of individual farmers as well as communities that are impacted by flooding disasters. The author describes that risk reduction for flooding is often on a cost-benefit analysis that does not necessarily always take in the disproportionate impact land ownership and access has on communities within a floodplain. A significant example of this was a 2011 flooding event that impacted Pinhook, Missouri and disproportionally impacted a small community of black farmers. To reduce the risk of flooding in higher density areas, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway was activated, which meant deliberately breaching a levee in the floodway. According to reports, residents of Pinhook were given very little to no warning or assistance to evacuate.

Through these stories and the policies that led to them, the author concludes with a focus on river geomorphology and argues that no amount of engineering and maintaining the infrastructure approach of the past can keep the river in place and tamed for our functional use. Rather, as the last chapter is titled, we must “retreat and fortify.” Kelley states that the best approach can be learned from nations such as The Netherlands, who take both a resilience and an anticipatory approach to watershed basin management. This takes a new mindset when considering flooding. Kelley states, “… give up something, or lose everything.” (193). An approach such as this involves thinking within a watershed approach for water management and taking in all voices of those within those watershed communities.

Communities can establish a balance between what the water will take and benefits the community may gain through trade-offs that the federal government can broker to protect them. To incentivize leaving land behind, policies could fund community-building assets such as parks and other recreational benefits. Lastly, this approach also means not being afraid to leave places and practices behind. These are things we may have emotional and cultural attachments to, which in the end, letting them go could mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Water Scholars Book Club 2021 May Book. Follow along as we post book reviews, resource lists, and content each month to support learning about a particular water topic. 

In David Owen’s book, “Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River,” every drop of water is spoken for whether it exists or not from the top of the Colorado River to the bottom.

By Hanna Bates, Assistant Director, Iowa Water Center

Quick summary of the book: David Owen, a writer for The New Yorker, takes the reader on a journey along the Colorado River, including the politics and law dictating how the water supplies cities and industries to the point where it runs dry in the Southwest. Access to water supply is often under contention between states, cities, and neighbors for who has the right to the water.

Why we selected it: Water availability is a significant topic as we move towards hotter climates and other environmental impacts that shrink available water supply, particularly in the Western United States. As of April, the federal government could issue a landmark water shortage declaration for upcoming water availability projections that could even threaten hydropower at the Hoover Dam. The State of Iowa is not immune to water shortages with the 2021 growing season expected to have ongoing drought issues in parts of the state that impacts productivity in one of the most fertile landscapes.

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It was not too long ago I took my first plane ride out West to Denver, Colorado. As I traveled across states, grids in Iowa changed to perfect irrigation circles in Nebraska and Colorado like a quilted patchwork of verdant circles within a background of a brown, dry landscape. Although a bird’s eye view from the sky of agriculture is an obvious view of how water is allocated out West, there is much more to how water is used that reaches cities, suburbs, and many other industries.

Owen’s storied journey along the Colorado River gives both a bird’s eye view from a plane tour and an on the ground perspective of how water is claimed and given utilitarian purpose to support infrastructure throughout the Southwest. Water availability for household use, electricity, farming, recreation, industrial uses, and entertainment (think water fountains in Las Vegas) are all categories the Colorado River is diverted to support. In this book, Owen explores the state and federal laws that led to how water is diverted for these purposes and how the solution is not always simple as shutting off the tap to certain water uses.

Each chapter in the book explores a region or an important focal point to the story of water in the West. Early laws and management often set the context for how water is managed in modern day. The approach to water, and to the environment in general, by policymakers in the early US was not to protect natural resources, but to tame natural resources for the purpose of putting it to functional use to support settlers and expanding industry in the West. Starting in the Rockies and Denver area, Owen describes the 143 years of complex water law that factors in use by public agencies and private persons wherein an individual can have water rights by seniority over others along the river. This includes stories of over appropriation within the book where the “paper” right to water is more than the “wet” water that is available for use.

Owen’s exploration of water efficiency in the book touches on the history of water as being seen as something that only has utility to humans and not the greater role that water has within an ecosystem. The book encourages the reader to think of themselves as citizens of a watershed to have a better approach to water management. Water conservation and being more efficient with resources is not always a simple answer to protecting water resources. Owen states, the more people tend to conserve in one area, they tend to spend it in another area. Additionally, the more efficient a process is, the more affordable it is, which results in greater use of that particular thing. For example, Owen states in the book:

“A few years ago, I made a serious effort to get better about turning off the lights in my house, and my wife’s and my electricity consumption went down by a noticeable amount. But our overall energy consumption didn’t fall, because the money we saved on our electric bills helped to pay for a big anniversary trip that we took to Europe, and that means that the real impact of our reduction in household electricity use was merely to transform natural gas into jet fuel. As we get better at doing things, we do more things.”

― David Owen, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River

The decline in water availability is often outpaced by efforts to conserve water. Lake Mead, a reservoir established with the creation of the Hoover Dam is the largest within the US. Almost 100% of the inflow comes from the Colorado River, but according to Owen, the lake levels have been declining at a staggering level. This not only impacts the recreation economy on the reservoir, but accessibility of the water for users downstream. The declines in water availability have led to contention among many Southwest states over the right to water, which often turn to litigation to protect their right to water to support growing populations and sprawling cities. Most importantly, by the time the river reaches Mexico, the river is a dry delta which highlights disparities related to water accessibility that expand beyond economics.

The book concludes with many potential solutions for how to address water availability, although the solutions are much larger than a single chapter at the end. Owen provides a thoughtful reflection on history reaching out the present to shape our mindset around water as something that should provide function for society, otherwise it should be considered a waste. The reader is challenged to consider the value of water outside of economic purpose. Water provides external value to the vitality of ecosystems within a watershed as well as connects people to a sense of place within their environment through play, recreation, identity, and improved mental health.

Up Next in June: Holding Back the River: The struggle against nature on America’s Waterways – Tyler J. Kelley