When I moved to Bloomington, it seemed like it was raining ALL THE TIME.And then I remembered that for the last decade of my life, I've lived in Georgia, which since 1999 has had more years in drought than out of it. A lot of places are rainy compared to that. Check out this map of the drought conditions in the United States as of last week. Like the middle of the country, Georgia has been pretty hard-hit.
As of September 11, 62.7% of the state (by land area) was at least 'abnormally dry.' 52.4% is officially in a drought, and 16.88% is experiencing an exceptional drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. The man-made reservoir that provides drinking water for the majority of metropolitan Atlanta, Lake Lanier, is currently over 9 and a half feet below capacity. Although water levels are not as low as they were during the historic drought in 2008, this year's levels are lower than three of the previous 5 years.
So of course Georgia's government is leaping into action about this, right? Implementing all sorts of sustainable, win-win, water-related policies like those highlighted in Roseland's chapter? Working proactively with community members and scientists to figure out how to live within the limits of watersheds?
Wrong.
Governor Nathan Deal's silence about the drought has been so deafening it was heard all the way in Los Angeles. Deal has not formally declared a drought in Georgia and has failed to reinstate many of the water conservation measures put in place during the 2007-2008 drought. Earlier this week, the LA Times ran a piece about how the business interests of "urban agriculture" (turf-grass and landscaping, which would obviously suffer under a water ban) and the political centrism of Atlanta (located between and a little north of the darkest red areas in the state map above) cause the drought-stricken farmers in the southwestern part of the state to be overlooked. The article goes on to quote a Georgia Environmental Protection Division official, who says, "A gallon of water saved in the metro-Atlanta area would fail to ensure that there would be adequate water for human consumption in the southern parts of the state."
Let's keep this statement in mind and take a look at the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin (the green one) of which metropolitan Atlanta is a part. Compare it to the drought map of Georgia. (The darkest red areas stand for 'exceptional drought.' It seems to me that water conservation efforts in Atlanta would absolutely improve the water situation in southwest Georgia (and Alabama and Florida). (And hydrologists cited in the LA Times article agree.)
Ok, obviously I'm from Georgia and so I care about this stuff. But why should you?
Disparities in the geographical distribution of political power and environmental degradation, elected leaders and community members who don't understand watershed dynamics, and underdeveloped legislative frameworks for addressing environmental/sustainability issues are not unique to Georgia. Arriving at sustainable management of water systems, or any other natural resource, is normally not easy. Usually tradeoffs are involved, status quos are changed, and people get angry. That's why Roseland's laundry list of neatly packaged, two sentence success stories about water conservation leaves me feeling unsatisfied and, well, a little angry. I have two main problems with this watered down, rose-tinted version of the journey toward sustainable communities. The first is that difficulties and mistakes are instructive and to leave them out is limiting, and the second is my belief that promulgating glossy, win-win sustainability stories does the field a disservice.
First, about difficulties and mistakes: Granted, there is some low-hanging fruit where municipalities can make changes that make everyone more sustainable and better off. But what about everything else? I know complexities such as political opposition, funding constraints, and geographical limitations exist, but I don't always know how communities address and overcome them. Adding these elements into descriptions of successful community initiatives would exponentially increase their usefulness, allowing us to critically analyze barriers to and solutions for sustainable transformations.
Second, I don't buy the assertion that "sustainable communities are not merely about "sustaining the quality of our lives--they are about improving it" (Roseland, 1). An improved quality of life does not look the same for everyone, and I believe there are people who will feel they have a decreased quality of life when they can't water their lawns or have to pay higher rates for higher water consumption levels (not to mention more major lifestyle changes). But by framing sustainable initiatives as always win-win, we weaken our position. We create the impression that sustainability isn't worth tradeoffs or hard fights, that sustainable initiatives are only for pie-in-the-sky sustainable ecotopias like Portland.
So, what can we learn about sustainable communities from Georgia's profoundly unsustainable reaction to drought conditions? First, looking at what other communities have done could be instructive, provided we have enough context and details to draw parallels and discern appropriate best practices. Second, we shouldn't wait for water conservation to provide benefits for the "urban agriculture" (ha!) industry or the legislators at the state Capitol. This is a fight worth fighting, an issue worth raising, a mess worth getting into. It won't result in a win for everyone, or even a sexy blurb for Roseland's next edition. But really, that's the reality of working toward sustainable communities.
