Living downstream

Posted 12/13/11

An interesting interchange at last month’s Project Review Committee meeting of the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) started us thinking about the importance of connections. The subject matter was a …

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Living downstream

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An interesting interchange at last month’s Project Review Committee meeting of the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) started us thinking about the importance of connections. The subject matter was a draft letter to be sent from the UDC to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regarding proposed natural gas drilling regulations. Some members argued that the letter, coming as it would from the UDC, should only refer to activities in the river corridor of the Scenic and Recreational River itself, not to anything that occurs elsewhere in the basin. They also objected to any agency attempts to regulate land use rather than water quality.

The opposing position was articulated by National Park Services Natural Resource Specialist Don Hamilton. “You can’t separate water quality, and the drainage to the bottom of the watershed, from the land use in that watershed,” he said. “Water quality is a product of land use… It doesn’t start at the water’s edge, and the water quality in the river depends on land uses that protect it.”

The letter was approved by the committee but eventually rejected by the full council (see “UDC grapples with comments on NYS draft SGEIS,” December 8.) But Hamilton was right. Non-point-source pollution—substances that seep directly into groundwater or are washed into bodies of water by storm water flowing over land—is a more significant cause of water degradation than point-source pollution—substances discharged directly into streams and rivers by industrial or waste-treatment plants. The chemicals that residents use on their lawns, flush down their drains and toilets, or that leak from their cars and lawnmowers; leaks, spills and emissions from industrial installations; and erosion and sedimentation from construction activities of all kinds, are the source of most water pollution. All of these are direct functions of land use. And when it comes to the quality of the Delaware or any other river, what happens to the tributaries—which drain areas far outside the corridor—may have as much of an effect as whatever drains directly into the river from the corridor itself.

Nor, when you come to think of it, can land use be entirely separated from the availability and quality of water. Possible land uses in an area in which there is abundant water will differ markedly from those in an area where it is scarce, as they will depend on whether the water is potable or not. That, indeed, is a big part of why some people are so concerned about the possible impact of natural gas drilling: if it goes wrong enough, we could lose some of our most essential land uses. Those could include not only residential and agricultural uses, but lighter commercial and industrial uses (think tourism, recreation, breweries and distilleries) as well.

More generally, though, the interchange illustrated a blind spot evident in many current discussions of public policy: the tendency to treat as discrete and isolated matters that are, in fact, inextricably intertwined. The issue of property rights is a case in point. Those who think of property and individuals as existing in isolation believe that property rights can only be fulfilled when everybody gets to do exactly as they please with the land they own. But this analysis ignores the fact that there are no boundaries that can keep the light, air, groundwater or viewshed pollution created on one person’s property from trespassing onto the neighboring plots.

Just as the Delaware River is composed of runoff from the entire basin, and is thus in effect downstream from the entire land area of the basin, so the property of each of us is, metaphorically, downstream from that of our neighbors. In the light of this connectedness, it is clear that a judicious application of property rights consists not in everybody doing just as they please on their own properties, but in all of us recognizing how everybody’s stewardship of their own land affects everybody else, and acting accordingly. In fact, this attitude can be seen as another manifestation of principles like “love one’s neighbor as oneself,” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Not such bad ideas to keep in mind, this Christmas season.

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