Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere

Samuel Taylor Coleridge went on to say, “Nor any drop to drink”, in his famous The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner poem. It is the story told by a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage as told to a stranger wherein the tale rambles through all the sensations of storytelling by invoking exhilaration, danger, boredom, serenity, and abject feelings of doom. My last name always drew me to the tale even though I’m not much of a sailor myself. The poem appeals to me because of its narrative tale and symbolism as much as anything. The juxtapositioning of doom, salvation and ingratitude is evidenced in the following of the albatross from the Antarctic ice jam to the freedom of the open Pacific followed by shooting the bird for food or perhaps sport. The Mariner cannot help but be a human who bites off his nose to spite his face. Such is the human condition according to Coleridge. And of course, once in the freedom of the balmy South Pacific, the Mariner succumbs to the doldrums and drifts aimlessly through the world to the point where he runs out of water to sustain life while being surrounded by the brackish substance of the sea that is water, but is tantalizingly unfulfilling to the human body just as the salvation of goodness is to the human soul. Knowing the difference between water and water is the stuff of human existence and is a powerful metaphor for our collective lives in turbulent times.

The politics of water has been a big deal to the civilized world for millennia. After all, access to the five basic elements of life; air, water, earth, fire and space, is the basis for everything. Human beings can live for weeks without food, for three or four days without water and about four minutes without air. Fire and space do not lend themselves to that analysis, but I think it is fair to say that only air is more critical for life than water. As we have all learned in the Twentieth Century, that needs further definition as clean air and clean water. The rights we humans feel the need to attribute to water are many, due presumably to its critical role in a prosperous and healthy life. The categories of water rights generally run to two fundamental concepts; that having to do with who owns the seas and the earth beneath the seas and then who owns that water that flows on or adjacent to our space or property. The nature of water is that it ebbs and flows. Nothing is more fundamental to the natural order from the tides to the water cycle. Water moves and it morphs based on temperature and other meteorological conditions. It takes all three basic forms from a a solid as ice, a semi-solid as snow, a liquid, and, of course, a gas as steam. Water is perhaps the most versatile element in that regard.

One of the unique things about the Wild West out here is that there is only about 170 years of experience in the property rights imbued in real estate. The east has had 400-500 years to sort out the property lines and the water that goes with them. That is a far harder issue in the West for two reasons, both the relatively recent parsing of all these complicated rights and the obvious fact that water is far more scarce out here in the arid Southwest that in the verdant East. The same thing that makes this part of the country so popular for retirees and people seeking more leisure in their lives are the characteristics that make the property and water rights so challenging. Riparian rights are some of the oldest rights under the common law of the Anglo Saxon legal rubric. Very few rights short of property rights themselves are more basic to the rule of common law and therefore to the basis of capitalism. Riparian rights entitle every and any property owner who has property adjoining any body of free-flowing water from the smallest seasonal stream to the grandest river to a common allotment of water rights. The titling of property that adjoins such free-flowing water cannot be sold without proper consideration of the rights of any downstream watershed properties. This is the common law that forbids anyone on a waterway from diverting or overusing water regardless of the climatic conditions which may otherwise reduce the natural water flow. If you need a gallon of water and there is only one gallon coming your way, you owe part of that gallon to your downstream friends. That’s all there is to it and you cannot convey your property without those same restrictions. Riparian water rights are a bitch…especially in a world undergoing severe climate change.

Today I had an irrigation system specialist come over to look at our sprinkler system, which I have never touched and know nothing about. It recently occurred to me as we have chosen to do a bunch of planting, that I should check into our irrigation system. Sure enough, my sense that it was not on was correct. When I opened the control box (located on the outside of the garage on the East side, where I have no reason ever to go) it was turned to off. So I turned it on and for the next two days we saw sprinklers coming on during the day left and right. There are twenty zones listed in that box, so it was all very random to me. What was ringing in my ears was the admonition from the ace cactus gardener who installed this magnificent cactus and succulent garden that I am trying very hard not to fuck up, that we be careful to NOT over-water and thereby harm these drought-resistant plants. Out here it is called Xeriscaping and it is a purposeful landscape designing technique meant to minimize or eliminate the use of water. Xeriscaping seems to be a direct result of Riparian rights concerns, not to mention the relatively expensive water use costs.

Do you remember the movie Chinatown? Ultimately what Jake (Jack Nicholson) got his nose torn open (by Roman Polanski) about was the stealing and diverting of water by Noah Cross (John Huston) who dealt a little incest to his daughter, played by Faye Dunaway. Out here its a tossup which is worse, stealing water or committing incest (my water, my daughter, my water, my daughter, my daughter’s water).

When I bought this house in 2012, I had the good fortune to have an architect sister (Kathy) and a contractor brother-in-law (Jeff) nearby to help with everything. It was an absentee landowner’s dream. Only they both fancy themselves good gardeners and have even attended advanced gardening courses together. She is more ornamental and he is more organic vegetable. Kathy got a sprinkler guy in to repair and replace the system as needed since the prior owner was a big-time farmer who clearly wanted to spend no water on this hilltop (and his wife’s xeriscape gave evidence of such) and despite having some fruit trees that would benefit from an irrigation system, it had been allowed to go to seed and was simply not used. Then Jeff and wife Lisa went about maintaining the property hiring their Mexican gardeners. They noticed that our weeding needs and critter coverage (especially rattlesnakes) were far greater than at their xeriscape property and the reason was soon concluded to be the damn irrigation system (thanks, Kathy!). Somewhere along the line the system got turned off and now I hope not to repeat the over-watering mistake…but I do want to irrigate as needed.

When I debriefed with my new sprinkler guy he told me my system is in fine shape (seriously, thank you, Kathy) and needed only a few minor fixes. He set-up the timer the best and least water-utilizing way he knew how from twenty years of xeriscape irrigation experience. I will be using only a relative thimbleful of my water rights, which is probably a good thing since I am on the top of the hill and owe all kinds of Riparian rights to someone downhill from here, So, water, water everywhere, nor nary a drop will I drink.