Page 18 RAIN April 1978 WATER Killing the Hidden Waters, Charles Bowden, $9.95 from : University of Te as Pres P.O. Box 7819 University Station Austin, TX 78712 Killing the Hidden Waters and the following book, The l.ast Caravan , both talk of elf- ufficient cultures built on mutual aid " ... that eollap ed into a world where jobs come from alien eilie , energy comes from fossil fuels, water comes from holes in the ground that pour forth mil1ennia of rainfall in a man'. brief three 'core and ten." Clark deals with the collapse of the Tuarag ulture as a consequence of cxtreme drought whilt Bowden tudies the southwestern United tatcs and the impact that "mining gro undwater has meant for the people and the land." "The Papago , ignorant of hydrOlogy, bereft before the white man of so much as wheel, know in their hearts and lives a Icsson just becoming apparent [0 Americans. Watcr i energy, and in arid lands it rearranges humans and human ways and human appetites around its flow. Groundwater is a nonrenewable source of such energy. The e facts are the core of thc impact when gr undwater i. developed in such plal:cs. Humans build their societies around consumption of fo sil waler long buried in the earth, and these societies, being hased on a temporary re uree, face the problem of bei ng temporary themselves." Killing the JI,dden Waters traces different technulogical developments applied to human use 0 groundwater and human rcsponse to lhat us "Groundwater is essentially nonrenewable in the arid west because the economIcs that exploit it cannot abide a low rate of us . By ombusting non-renewable coal and nonrenewable oil and nonrenewable natural gas, they managed to lift nonrenewable water at incredible rates. By u ing water with abandon they can compete with more humid region . where it is basically a free good. Thi extractive process, like the looting of ore depo its, soil, forests and fuels, is the machinery behind the expressions 'conquest of nature' and 'the miracle of the deserts.' Rip away the veneer of weStern history and this consumption of resources links the enturies." - JM The Last Caravan, Thurston Clarke, $10.95 from: G. P. Putnam's Sons 200 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 A more contemporary version of a similar process is found in The Last Caravan. Thurston Clarke tells of the Tuareg, a nomadic people accustomed to the hardship of a demanding land and climate, and the causes, conditions and responses to the drought that ravaged the six countries that make up West Africa's sahelian region between 1968 and 1974. The collapse that occurred was a result of not only the severity of the drought but also the subsequent disasters that were caused by technological "im provements" wells and pumps, vaccination programs, and cash crops which upset the natural nomadic equilibrium. " An extended drought was the natural phenomenon that triggered the subsequent disasters: expansion of the desert, famine, and the death of many humans and animals due to starvation. During the ten ycars prior to the drought, thc human settlement pattern in the sahel's nomadic regions has been profoundly transformed by certain foreign economic and technological innovations. The innovations were largely responsible for turning five years of substandard rainfall into a total ecological collapse." The result has been the disintegration of a once distinct and self-sufficicnt culture and the skills and stamina of previous generations are being lost. Both Bowden and Clarke have done much more than presented facts and conclusions with these books. Thcy have given you a feel for the previous patterns of these people's lives and the tremendous changes that have transformed their physical world and also the unmeasurable cultural and spiritual losses that were a consequence. -JM Water Conservation Pamphlets, free from: Policy and Planning Division Water Resources Department 555 13th Street N.E. Salem, OR 97310 Toll free phone 1-800-452-2826 These home water conservation bulletins contain some of the best listings of water conserving appliances, toilets, faucets, etc. A bargain at the price. Only I wish energy conservation people would quit making the fraudulent comparisons that say electric shavers use less energy .than using a safety razor with the water running or that dishwashers use less water than washing dishes by hand under running water. Both comparisons infer that most people use that much water for shaving or dishwashing-rather than that being an extreme situation. In reality, most people use considerably less water and therefore energy. On the other extreme, we've been using about a quart or two of water a day to do dishes for the last few months. You just learn to do it differently when you have to haul water. -TB SEWAGE Toilet Victory A recent precedent-setting court decision in California ruled that health departments cannot deny permits for compost toilets or other alternative sewage systems unless it can actually show that the system presents a health hazard. Until now your porry was assumed guilty until proven innocent. People of the State of California vs. William Duncan McEwen, Case No. 2833-C, Anderson Judicial District, Mendocino County, CA, 21 February 1978. -Sent to us by Sim VanderRyn
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