(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . We're Doing Water Wrong -- Strike for the Planet week 109 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-19 You can make a difference to the hurt being caused by climate chaos and the great extinction event in your town or your city! How? Reuse, repurpose, and recycle this information. You can push your local politicians to act. It will make a difference! This is the letter for week 109 of a weekly climate strike that went on for 4 years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story. For an annotated table of contents of the topics for all the strike letters, see this story. Meanwhile… STRIKE FOR THE PLANET Because SF has regional impact, we must act regionally on water. This week’s topic: We’re doing water wrong But we can fix it. We have to; SF can’t afford stillsuits for everyone.1 Sure, SF is a regional power, but what’s that got to do with water? We get our water from 167 miles away. It travels by aqueducts and pipelines through 7 counties and down 10,000 feet in elevation, crosses 3 major faults and innumerable smaller ones, and is the water supply for 2.8 million people.2 Our impact on water in the state is enormous. SFPUC Alright, but what does it matter if our water supply isn’t local? It wouldn’t matter if we were good stewards of the water, but we’re not. The ways in which we get and how we value the water are wrong and cause damage. How do we know we’re wrong and causing damage? Lawsuits are a good clue. Take the most recent one, where SF is suing the state to not increase water flow to support fish and the river ecosystems we’re taking the water from, even though they’re dying in the drought.3 Sounds evil, right? Then there was the one where SF sided with Central Valley farmers against using water to support dying fish and ecosystems.4 If a company acted like this, we’d call it greenwashing: pretending to care about the environment but only so long as it’s easy and suits us. In fact, there’s a theme in our water lawsuits — don’t change the amount of water flowing to SF no matter what’s happening in the state, in the rivers, or in the ecosystems we’re taking the water from. But we’ve got a right to what’s ours! We need it! Do we? To repeat, the water we use comes from 167 miles away, and crosses 3 enormous active faults, 7 counties, the Sierras, and the Coastal Range. It isn’t ours except by force. We are taking water out of the ecosystems that evolved around that water, and we are shipping it to another place entirely. We are stripping the water of all value except the value we put on it for our own limited needs, and entirely devaluing the ecosystems it is vital to. We are, in fact, acting exactly like a colonial power, extracting resources for our profit at the expense of the native populations. We are acting exactly like Los Angeles when it destroyed Owens Valley for water — a place that was known by the Natives as Payahǖǖnadǖ, the “place of flowing water.”5 We are water colonizers, extracting whatever water resources we want for our own use, damn (and dam) the natives (human and not)6, full speed ahead. But all that was a long time ago and there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Really? So if it’s in the past, it’s no big deal?7 Is that SF’s argument? Unfortunately, the “What’s done is done”8 or “What’s done cannot be undone”9 school of thought won’t fly here. As the legal system says, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”10 In this case, the laws SF is violating are not human-made and are absolute. Violate the laws of physics and we all lose. By pretending climate change isn’t happening, as we are doing in our continued water extraction from the Sierras, we are violating quite a few physics laws.11 Additionally, SF’s current water system is a perfect illustration of environmental racism. It hurts and continues to hurt those already most impacted by racism and genocide.12 This is not an image we want to have of ourselves, is it? But it’s not only humans that are hurt by our water grab. No, we’re destroying whole ecosystems in order to avoid remedying this original and ongoing crime. How? By taking this water, we’re killing the salmon.13, 14 One species, no big deal, right? But if that species is a keystone species, as salmon is, it’s a big deal.15 Destroy the salmon runs and you greatly impoverish and weaken the forests16, forests already under extreme stress from drought and climate change.17, 18, 19, 20 Kill the forests and you kill the major particulate producer that provides condensation nucleation sites; kill the forest, kill the precipitation.21, 22, 23 Kill precipitation and there’s less water. It’s a viscous cycle that spirals down to a lot of death and a net loss of resources. But we’re good with the water after it gets here, right? Not really. What we do with the water is also wrong. Individual water usage in SF isn’t bad when compared to most Americans or even most Californians, but we’re still using an unsustainable amount, especially in a megadrought.24 We, as a city, are still siding with big ag and its unsustainable practices over the health of ecosystems.25 And we still treat this water as if it’s not part of multiple living systems but instead something to be got, used, and flushed away.26 This is a colonizer’s mindset in action and at its worst. So how do we fix this? Maybe we need to be consulting and working with the populations who have actual lived knowledge of past megadroughts in CA. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 You know, the populations most hurt by our actions in getting the water to SF. Not only would this give us much better resources for living in a megadrought, but it would be the start of Restorative Justice to communities that have suffered from our water grab for the last 100 plus years. You know, the populations most hurt by our actions in getting the water to SF. Not only would this give us much better resources for living in a megadrought, but it would be the start of Restorative Justice to communities that have suffered from our water grab for the last 100 plus years. Maybe we need to be looking at what is equitable and physically sustainable, and not at what our city’s money and power can buy. Maybe we need to entirely rethink how we look at resources, jerking the discussion out of politics and into justice and science. A lot of recent arrests at the city level would argue that we as a city are far away from what works best for the greatest amount of living beings and more about what’s best for individuals in the short-term. This is not just or sustainable. Maybe we need to realize that native species are infinitely better suited to our locale and plant the natives that will support our ecosystem. 32 If Las Vegas can do it 33 , we can do it. If Las Vegas can do it , we can do it. Maybe we need to actually enforce regulations we already have in place to promote ecosystem health and resiliency, link up our green spaces and create many many more green spaces, and plant the coastal buffers we need to cope with sea level rise.34 Time is short! Do the work! Do you know how expensive not spending money to mitigate climate change and the extinction crisis is?35 The costs of acting are much less than the costs of doing nothing.36 Just ask the insurance industry.37 And the military.38 It’s easy math. Do your job! We’ve already shrunk the atmosphere39 and shifted the poles40, and now we’re pissing away the water. SF’s chances for survival are borderline at best, and require immediate action?41 You’ve taken oaths to act for the good of SF. You say you are bound by the Precautionary Principle. So act already. Start with water! FOOTNOTES 1. On stillsuits: “It’s basically a micro-sandwich—a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system. The skin-contact layer's porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body ... near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers ... include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt's reclaimed. Motions of the body, especially breathing and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck ... Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to ensure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won't lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day”. Frank Herbert. Dune . 1965. 2. Paul Rogers. “Drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir? San Francisco voters may get the chance in November to start the process”. San Jose Mercury News. 8 July 2012. https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/07/08/drain-hetch-hetchy-reservoir-san-francisco-voters-may-get-the-chance-in-november-to-start-the-process/ . 3. Dustin Manduffie. “San Francisco Sues State to Retain Access to Vital Water Supply”. Courthouse News. 14 May 2021. https://www.courthousenews.com/san-francisco-sues-state-to-retain-access-to-vital-water-supply/ . 4. Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler. “San Francisco, farmers team up to fight California’s ‘water grab’”. The Sacramento Bee. 10 January 2019. https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article224248020.html . 5. Allison Qiang and Nina Paus-Weiler. “Nine Women Who Have Impacted the Outdoors”. Outdoors. 8 March 2021. https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/history/nine-women-who-have-impacted-the-outdoors/ . 6. Daron Acemoğlu and James Robinson. “The economic impact of colonialism”. VOX EU/ CEPR. 30 January 2017. https://voxeu.org/article/economic-impact-colonialism . 7. Ta-Nehisi Coates. “The Case For Reparations”. The Atlantic. June 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ . 8. As Vidura tells Dhritarashta in the Mahabharata , Vidura Niti Part 5. 9. Lady Macbeth, Act 5, scene 1, line 68 from Macbeth by William Shakespeare. And do you really want to be quoting Lady Macbeth as your model for appropriate action? 10. Black’s Law Dictionary, 5 th ed. p. 672. https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/law-books/blacks-law-dictionary . 11. More on this is requested, but energy is the big one here, in a bunch of different forms. 12. These include the Miwuk, Paiutes, Washoes. from “History of the valley” by Restore Hetch Hetchy at https://hetchhetchy.org/history-of-the-valley/ . 13. Robyn Purchia. “Salmon dwindling while SFPUC fiddling”. San Francisco Examiner. 3 February 2021. https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/salmon-dwindling-while-sfpuc-fiddling/ . 14. Jeffrey Mclain. “Managing The Tuolumne River for Salmonids: Assessment of the 1995 Settlement Agreement”. California Fish and Game. 2010. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=47305&inline=1 . 15. “Predation and the Salmon Food Web”. State of Salmon. Accessed 26 May 2021. https://stateofsalmon.wa.gov/executive-summary/challenges/food-web/ . 16. “Forests Need Salmon and Salmon Need Forests”. Trinity County Nature Series. 30 November 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wILTTG7AU . 17. Peter Fimrite. “Bark beetles ravaging drought-stricken forests in California”. San Francisco Chronicle. 30 March 2015. https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Bark-beetles-ravaging-drought-stricken-forests-in-6165431.php . 18. Thomas Curwen. “Drought-stressed California forests face a radical shift”. Arizona Daily Sun. 30 September 2018. https://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/drought-stressed-california-forests-face-a-radical-shift/article_cef81d84-2ccd-5eb2-aa5e-efa44dd82265.html . 19. Julie Cohen. “Our forests are dying”. University of California. 9 June 2015. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/our-forests-are-dying . 20. Kurtis Alexander. “Report: California’s tree die-off reaches 147 million, boosting fire threat”. San Francisco Chronicle. 11 February 2019. https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Report-Drought-s-end-slowed-California-s-13607328.php . 21. Douglas Sheil and Daniel Murdiyarso. “How Forests Attract Rain: An Examination of a New Hypothesis”. Bioscience, Vol 59, Issue 4, pg 341-347. April 2009. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 . 22. “Rainforest Makes Rain”. California Academy of Sciences. 10 September 2012. https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/rainforest-makes-rain . 23. Nick Kilvert. “When trees make rain: Could restoring forests help ease drought in Australia?” ABC Science. 14 September 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-15/trees-make-rain-ease-drought/10236572 . 24. Yoohyun Jung. “This is how California’s water use has changed since the last drought”. San Francisco Chronicle. 16 May 2021. https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/This-is-how-the-California-s-water-use-has-16166902.php . 25. See the lawsuits section again. 26. See multiple prior Strike letters, especially those on blackwater recycling, bioswales, urban forests, connected green biohighways, native plantings, aquatic buffer zone plantings, the health of the SF bay, the Delta Tunnel, and re-surfacing our local streams. 27. Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques. “Impacts of Megadroughts on North American Native Cultures and Civilizations”. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2012 Annual Meeting. February 2012. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267542489_Impacts_of_Megadroughts_on_North_American_Native_Cultures_and_Civilizations . 28. Dan Bacher. “Salmon advocates criticize California Governor Newsom for promoting Sites Dam, voluntary agreements during drought”. Red Green and Blue. 23 April 2021. http://redgreenandblue.org/2021/04/23/salmon-advocates-criticize-california-governor-newsom-promoting-sites-dam-voluntary-agreements-drought/ . 29. Pheng Vang and Daphne Ding. “Native Americans and the Drought”. California Drought Watch. Accessed 12 May 2021. https://mcjcaliforniadrought.wordpress.com/native-americans-and-the-drought/ . 30. Ezra David Romero. “An Ancient Native American Drought Solution For A Parched California”. KVPR. 2 June 2015. https://www.kvpr.org/post/ancient-native-american-drought-solution-parched-california#stream/0 . 31. Action News. “Native American tribe using traditional methods to combat California drought”. ABC 30. 27 July 2015. https://abc30.com/native-american-drought-north-fork-mono-indians-california/887283/ . 32. See Strike letter week 27: Trees. 33. Sarah Goodyear. “These Cities Are Using Smart Tactics to Manage Water for the Future”. Next City. 20 October 2014. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/drought-resilience-water-saving-techniques-future . 34. Ryan Kost. “What we’ll lose at the water’s edge”. San Francisco Chronicle. 3 October 2019. https://www.sfchronicle.com/culture/article/As-the-blue-rises-14481022.php . 35. Eric Roston. “The Massive Cost of Not Adapting to Climate Change”. Bloomberg. 9 September 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/the-massive-cost-of-not-adapting-to-climate-change . 36. Starre Vartan. “The Cost of Tackling Climate Change Is Less Than the Cost of Doing Nothing”. Treehugger. 21 April 2020. https://www.treehugger.com/tackling-climate-change-will-help-economy-when-we-need-it-most-4865281 . 37. Andrew Hoffman. “Rising Insurance Costs May Convince People That Climate Change Risks Are Real”. Huffpost. 1 November 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/insurance-costs-climate-change_b_5bd0a8d0e4b04d1f9a5582d9 . 38. Sébastien Roblin. “The U.S. military is terrified of climate change. It’s done more damage than Iranian missiles.” NBC News. 20 September 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u-s-military-terrified-climate-change-it-s-done-more-ncna1240484 . 39. Damian Carrington. “Climate emissions shrinking the stratosphere, scientists reveal”. The Guardian. 12 May 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/emissions-shrinking-the-stratosphere-scientists-find . 40. Damian Carrington. “Climate crisis has shifted the Earth’s axis, study shows”. The Guardian. 23 April 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/climate-crisis-has-shifted-the-earths-axis-study-shows . 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