I'm Still Not Oprah!

Abstract

Three times before, I have shared my recommendations on books I think every water professional should read (kind of like what Oprah Winfrey used to do). In this column, I want to share a fantastic book—The Source, by Martin Doyle. It is different from any other book I have read on water because it looks at rivers through a different lens. The subtitle of Doyle's book—How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers—provides an indication of how a professor of river science and policy might view the symbiotic relationship between rivers and society. What I liked most about The Source is Doyle's fresh context for understanding how our relationship with rivers evolved to where we are now. All too often, we view things as they currently are and assume they have always been that way. Doyle, on the other hand, explains that rivers have served many changing and positive purposes throughout America's history. In fact, in The Source, Doyle takes us back to the source of how America came to rely on rivers as the fundamental building block of our society and how this reliance has evolved to what it is today. While history is certainly part of Doyle's story, it only serves to set the stage for America's needs and goals during different eras. The actors in this story are the institutions that have influenced how rivers are used and viewed. Front and center is America's federated government—with all levels playing key roles during various times in our history—and the other is America's private sector industry. But rest assured, this is not a dull recounting of building governmental bureaucracy or private sector expansion. Instead, it is the story of how these public and private institutions worked and struggled together on the use of rivers for positive outcomes for society. Stop for a moment and think about America's leaders in the late 1700s and their views of the land and rivers. Back then, the state of rivers was raw, unharnessed, and natural, and the vastness of America was unknown and unexplored. From that time forward, rivers have been the key to the expansion of America and its strategic physical and economic advantages. The Source tells that story. As America moved west, rivers enabled private sector commerce, and the government played a role in defining how rivers would be used for interstate commerce. These were critical factors in shaping America's economy into a single economy rather than a collection of independent state economies. Along the way, different rules were needed in the West than in the East. The riparian water allocation system of the East was not viable in the West, where water was scarcer. As a result, the prior appropriations doctrine of the West—viewing water as a property right—was created to protect water owners and facilitate national goals. Economic systems have been created because of the importance of rivers to society. Doyle walks us through different periods of America's financial prosperity and decline and shows how, after each decline, America's financial power shifted from states, to local municipalities, to the federal government. While Doyle does not say this directly, it seems logical that today's attachment to the importance of locally owned and operated water and wastewater utilities stems from the economic downturn of the 1890s, after which cities became America's economic engine, municipal bonds were introduced to fuel the engine, and utilities were built. As America and its economic systems and institutions grew, the use of rivers also grew. And just as a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy is not as crisp as the original, the quality of rivers eroded. As a result, society has become concerned about America's environmental integrity, and the institutions have responded. Doyle discusses how present-day institutions, like the US Environmental Protection Agency, along with various environmental acts and laws, provide the framework and powers to clean rivers, make water safe to drink, protect endangered species, and so on. These shifts in focus reflect America's goals in the present, including the importance of remaking our rivers. The Source shows us how important rivers are to the people working on them. Doyle's narrative takes us on his personal journey as he traveled to the places he wrote about, and the reader gets to know the people he met. This in itself is a story worth telling. Doyle's views on America's rivers are clearly those of a scholar, but his passion for this scholarship comes, I believe, from his intimacy with rivers. As a paddler of boats and kayaks, Doyle cares that we protect the natural state of rivers—not just because of their beauty but because, as The Source outlines, rivers enable everything else we desire.