“water saving”
Especially in the arid American West, we hear conservation messages that stress “saving” instead of “wasting” such as: “Overwatering hurts everyone.”[1] “Prevent water waste.”[2] “Save water indoors with these tips and technology suggestions.”[3] “Go waterSMART (Sustain and Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow).”[4] “Every drop counts!”[5]
In my mind, to “save” water in the West is a loaded term that unfolds into at least three current usages: saving water like money, saving water for extractive production, and saving water as a mark of civilizational development.
In the first usage, to save water is to “bank” water for a later time.[6] Roosevelt referred to saving in this sense as the creation of “great storage works.” The Glen Canyon and Hoover mega-dams today are perfect examples of this logic. How to use water becomes about “supply and demand.” As long as there is enough water behind the dam for this year, then everything is okay. Water that a person does not store for later, however, is “water waste,” or fiscal irresponsibility. Floodwaters, or even rainwaters, in this sense are “waste” if they aren’t captured as appreciable investments.
In the second usage, to save water is to “use” water right now that would otherwise go to “waste.”[7] This has nothing to do with saving water for later; this is about turning “wastewater” into usable water for economic production NOW. In this sense, a person saves “wastewater” by recycling it for crop production, drinking water, or suburban lawns. A community saves rainwater by collecting it from their roofs. A nation saves water by turning unused water in the “wilderness” or terra nullius (see frame: primitive accumulation) and using it for economic production or nation building. (See also “reclamation.”)
In the third sense, to save water is to “develop” water with techno-industrial infrastructure that can make the land produce excessively. Indigenous peoples, who allow water to flow through the water cycle, are thus “undeveloped” and “wasteful.” Here “saving” is akin to the white savior industrial complex, in which the US Bureau of Reclamation works with the Office of Indian affairs to “modernize” Indigenous water infrastructure. I should say that this form of saving is also foisted upon poor and rural settler populations as well with “undeveloped” infrastructure. Doubly confusing about this form of saving is its link to water technology as development. Such technology, especially extractive technology, may contribute to more consumption of water overall, yet still be hailed as “water saving” or “conservation” projects. For example, mega-dams are said to “save water,” when they actually make landscapes more arid and disrupt entire watershed systems. Furthermore, new types of canals, pipelines, and sprinkler systems may decrease water consumption per capita yet increase water consumption overall for a community as it expands and “develops” into arid landscapes.[8]
Part of me wants to abandon “saving” because it is so entrenched in the process of primitive accumulation. Given its widespread prevalence, however, this would likely be a missed opportunity. I have two ideas for shifting conversations in which “saving” shows up: (1) The trouble with all three of these usages is their ignorance of the water cycle. In turn, one suggestion is that we find a way to equate “saving” with maintaining the water cycle and then equate “waste” with disrupting the water cycle. Instead of “saving water” behind a dam, a person could save water from a dam, allowing it to flow once more to plants that would deliver that water back into the atmosphere and fall again as rain. (2) My second suggestion is to replace “saving” with “caring” for water. Caring opens up not only into Indigenous philosophies of mutual responsibility, but also into disability justice philosophies of care and consent. This link to consent, for example, could draw more attention to whether or not communities or landscapes consent to be “saved” by new (often colonial-capitalist) water technology.
[1] Reality Check - Fall Watering Restrictions (SNWA Video, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=V6ioGHZv3tY.
[2] “Water Waste,” snwa.com, n.d., https://www.snwa.com/importance-of-conservation/water-waste/index.html.
[3] “Indoor Conservation Tips,” snwa.com, n.d., https://www.snwa.com/importance-of-conservation/indoor-conservation-tips/index.html.
[4] “WaterSMART,” Reclamation: Managing Water in the West, n.d., https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/.
[5] Ria Convery, “Every Drop Counts” (Massachusettes Water Resources Authority: PRESS RELEASE, June 1, 2017), http://www.mwra.com/01news/2016/081916-conserve-water.html; “Water Conservation,” City of Forest Grove, n.d., https://www.forestgrove-or.gov/publicworks/page/water-conservation.
[7] https://www.snwa.com/importance-of-conservation/water-waste/index.html
[8] https://www.snwa.com/importance-of-conservation/conservation-facts-and-achievements/index.html
