Missing Witches - April 25, 2024


We Are Undammed River Kin

Topics
banqiao dam failure dam removal efforts
MW Rx. 47 - Look Him Straight In The Eye MW Rx. 48 - Please Come Wipe My Tears

Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

125.48

Word count

5,436

Sentence count

247

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 Welcome to the spring season of the Missing Witches podcast, our kinship season, which is
00:00:06.140 dedicated to getting familiar with our familiars. This is where we take time to learn from our
00:00:12.260 more-than-human kin. In the fall, we'll do a season dedicated to people's stories again,
00:00:18.460 our classic Missing Witches stories, and throughout the summer, we'll have Witches
00:00:21.920 Found interviews and episodes of the RX, our list of people and of songs and other media
00:00:28.220 to learn from about craft and magic and resistance and re-enchantment is long and fertile.
00:00:35.260 But in the spring, we need to balance out against people logic by digging into soil,
00:00:40.820 learning about the plants and animals and rocks and winds and waters that are us too,
00:00:46.500 as we wind our wild ways through the hollow biont that we all are here on Earth.
00:00:51.840 These episodes were originally conceived of as tongue-in-cheek,
00:00:55.360 anti-capitalist motivational meditations, and we hope you'll take these offerings in that original
00:01:00.720 sense. Seed bombs hurled on the pristine, dying lawns of Mondays. Bless it fucking be.
00:01:20.560 Last year, Copco 2 came down. 0.98
00:01:25.360 the first of four dams along the klamath river that will all be removed by october 2024 in the
00:01:36.400 largest dam removal project in history after a long process of drawdowns both legal and physical
00:01:44.440 draining water preparing the basin bringing people together again and again to tell the
00:01:51.060 truth of what happened here over the last hundred years. When the land was taken and the dams went
00:01:56.700 in, concentric circles of scientists herding decades of research to show that dams are crumbling,
00:02:02.780 that they devastated whole ecosystems, that their reservoirs became methane gas pits and blue-green
00:02:08.600 algae machines, that they don't serve irrigation or drinking water needs or hydropower anymore.
00:02:16.460 Their main use these days is to maintain lakes for motorboating and lakeside property values,
00:02:22.100 which are plummeting anyway as the lakes that should be there,
00:02:25.680 drained, sat, rotted, and dried up.
00:02:32.960 After all these circles and cycles of despair and discussion and dispersal and destruction
00:02:38.940 spiraled and gathered and finally broke through, the plug was pulled,
00:02:43.500 the big red button pushed.
00:02:46.400 33 feet by 78 feet of concrete that had kept the Ward Canyon dry for 100 years came down.
00:02:56.160 And the whole river let out a rushing breath it had hurt to hold.
00:03:04.960 Breathe in and then let out a breath that comes pushing past the things you've been holding in.
00:03:10.000 because we are Undamned Riverkin.
00:03:19.640 Ward Canyon is named for Kitty Ward,
00:03:22.480 a Shasta native woman who married a white landowner,
00:03:25.860 one of many marriages which Sammy Jo Dufentorum,
00:03:30.160 cultural preservation officer for the Shasta Indian Nation,
00:03:33.820 suggests were arranged to keep close to the land.
00:03:37.600 Quote,
00:03:37.920 Gold was discovered near Wairika in 1851, setting off a grim and bloody chapter for the Shasta, who lived in the upper Klamath River Canyon.
00:03:48.380 While many were killed and some dispersed to nearby towns, a good number found refuge in the fertile bottomlands along the Klamath River, east of Wairika, under the leadership of a Shasta chief named Bogus Tom Smith.
00:04:02.780 bogus tom was instrumental in spreading the ghost dance a ritual believed to have the power to drive
00:04:11.920 white settlers away throughout northern california and oregon by the turn of the century this group
00:04:18.300 of shasta had stitched together a land base by obtaining allotments marrying into landowning
00:04:23.360 families and through outright purchase this was the tribe holding itself together by owning or
00:04:31.040 controlling these contiguous lands. Diefentorum's own grandmother, Kitty Grasshopper, married a
00:04:38.660 secession of white landowners, in part, Diefentorum suspects, so she could remain living on the land
00:04:44.920 and near her people. They paid a price, says Diefentorum, of the tribe's women, adding that 0.76
00:04:52.580 strategic arranged marriages were not uncommon. Here's to the women who held the land and their
00:05:00.160 people and their language and stories together with their bodies. Here's to Kitty Ward and to 0.69
00:05:07.260 the name she wore before Ward and to all the unnamed who poured their lives out in circle 0.67
00:05:12.480 dances and in unseen bedrooms to rescue whatever seeds they could for the future.
00:05:21.100 Quote, all those efforts to keep the community intact, guess what? The land was taken by eminent
00:05:27.560 domain. In 1911, California, Oregon Power Company, or COPCO, began acquiring land for the project.
00:05:37.260 A Shasta Indian woman named Kitty Ward, who had married a white rancher named Tip Ward,
00:05:41.400 was living in a log cabin located on the lower end of the Future Reservoir,
00:05:45.560 when John C. Boyle, a surveyor who would go on to become vice president and longtime manager of
00:05:50.400 Copco, delivered the news that she was going to have to move, end quote. She refused to leave
00:05:58.280 her home, insisting she would die there instead, but after a time was convinced to visit a ranch
00:06:03.680 nearby. Quote, she died of a cerebral hemorrhage in the process and never returned home.
00:06:15.720 Imagine the water this year returning to the canyon that bears Kitty Ward's name.
00:06:20.400 bringing her home.
00:06:25.180 Imagine the river unleashed.
00:06:33.180 Three more dams along the Klamath will come down by the end of the year.
00:06:40.320 From the American River's dam removal fact sheet,
00:06:44.300 there are more than 500,000 dams in the U.S.
00:06:47.920 Less than 3% are hydropower dams, and less than 17% provide flood protection.
00:06:55.020 85% of the nation's dams are more than 50 years old, which is the average design life of a dam.
00:07:02.460 At least 87 dams have failed in Southern Carolina during storms and hurricanes since 2015.
00:07:11.260 Hydropower dams and reservoirs are a source of methane emissions.
00:07:14.940 are greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
00:07:20.820 Seven dams on the Coosa River in Alabama
00:07:23.360 have caused more than 30 freshwater species to go extinct,
00:07:26.920 making it one of North America's worst mass wildlife extinctions on record.
00:07:33.600 But we come to you now at the turning of the tide.
00:07:39.600 More than 2,025 dams have been removed
00:07:43.400 with benefits for river health, fish and wildlife, and public safety.
00:07:54.500 My family lives on a small lake in the Laurentian Mountains,
00:07:58.140 on unceded Anishinaabe territory.
00:08:01.300 We are at the top of a watershed.
00:08:02.860 A tiny tributary flows from here into the Rivière du Nord,
00:08:06.860 which finds the Otawe, or Ottawa River, depending on which side you're on,
00:08:10.740 which goes to the St. Lawrence River
00:08:13.460 which goes to the Atlantic Ocean
00:08:15.820 which goes everywhere
00:08:17.720 all oceans are one ocean
00:08:20.600 with imaginary boundaries
00:08:22.360 and made up names
00:08:23.820 up here at our small lake
00:08:34.580 before the water winds slowly down the mountains
00:08:37.040 gathering snow
00:08:38.980 I imagine we can come close to knowing the feeling of a source.
00:08:44.840 We can reach for the feeling of a river undammed, not yet damned.
00:08:50.080 The way the river longs to wind and gather, heal and clean and run and run and run.
00:08:57.680 Playing with the rocks and the wind and the big fishes.
00:09:08.020 these running waters are our kin don't you think so can't you feel them in the way blood pours and
00:09:18.380 pumps through your veins the way tears overwhelm your eyes some days the way we learn about
00:09:26.280 navigating floating and steering spinning like a leaf tipping and writing into a gentle tenuous
00:09:33.580 balance just when things feel way beyond our tiny body control.
00:09:46.560 I want to reach for that kinship, that river power, and river knowing. I want to close my
00:09:53.840 eyes in the wind and rainstorms of the spring. Listen for the water that runs clean from the
00:10:00.140 source, undammed, circuitous, rich in its wandering, the source that keeps the keystone
00:10:08.380 species making their way like a light, flickering through every being in the webs between,
00:10:14.980 all the way through to the sea of us all.
00:10:18.260 the dams of the elwa were removed before the klamath and the salmon population is slowly
00:10:29.620 returning from 2020 to 2021 the population of coho salmon doubled and with them come nutrients
00:10:37.340 that return depth of life to every species on the river run quote 400 different species in the river
00:10:44.940 rely on the salmon. Scientists are even picking up their signal in the trees next to the river.
00:10:51.780 Marine-derived nutrients from the salmon just filter out into pretty much any corner of the
00:10:57.880 ecosystem you can think of. End quote. All over the web, weavers of all kinds are ripping out
00:11:05.000 old stitches to let blood flow and heal the wounds beneath, taking apart lies and distortions,
00:11:12.800 lessons and structures that no longer serve, dams and berms that kept us from our liminal places,
00:11:19.940 our nutrient-rich meanderings, old loved ones, and our more-than-human kin and our own
00:11:26.160 fertile, flourishing life ways that know how to serve more masters than the always-hungry maw of
00:11:31.740 capital. We are taking off the constraints of Puritan and other religious frameworks that see
00:11:39.260 us as weak, the playthings of the devil, just for being in these bodies, systems of thought
00:11:45.020 that miss the forest for the trees. We are running past and up, around, over and under.
00:11:54.120 We are breaking levees. We are coming free. In our coven circle, Nicole wrote,
00:12:03.240 To me, a witch is a label that was given out to, and since reclaimed by, those who defied
00:12:09.540 the institutional co-opting of the organic expression of devotion to spirit, which existed
00:12:15.500 among the people prior to the development of organized religion.
00:12:20.060 That is me.
00:12:22.080 I am more comfortable on the margins of society.
00:12:26.400 End quote.
00:12:29.080 Here is to the organic expression of devotion.
00:12:33.240 here's to the undamming of spirit
00:12:37.000 here's to those at the margin meeting places of the living
00:12:42.320 and rich nutrients of our folk tales, archetypes, ancestors
00:12:46.660 our loving mycelial dead
00:12:48.760 here's to bursting through
00:12:52.120 we have been ankles deep in the marsh
00:12:56.540 watching these concrete channels that separated us from them
00:13:00.740 As they age and show their frailty, we are here to steward the end of these cycles that have become dangerous.
00:13:10.080 Creating cesspools of toxic faith that don't connect with the needs of the living world.
00:13:20.740 I grew up mourning rivers, choked by pollution and centuries of concrete.
00:13:26.140 We lived to witness the biggest fish die-offs in recorded history.
00:13:32.780 My parents' generation lived through dam failures that washed away whole cities, whole schools.
00:13:41.880 And when they weren't allowed to witness them, because of constraints on the truth,
00:13:47.780 I imagine the world still felt them.
00:13:51.680 The largest dam failure in history happened in 1975.
00:13:56.140 when the Banqiao Dam broke and 230,000 people died.
00:14:02.760 And the state kept it a secret for decades.
00:14:07.180 State documents were only declassified in 2005.
00:14:12.860 Quote,
00:14:13.940 Workers stood along the top of Banqiao Dam,
00:14:17.360 some 150 feet above the valley's floor,
00:14:20.620 desperately trying to repair its crest
00:14:22.460 as rain from Typhoon Nina fell for a third straight day.
00:14:26.140 after battering taiwan the storm had moved inland where it was expected to dissipate but nina turned
00:14:32.600 north instead reaching the huai river basin on august 5th 1975 where a cold front blocked its
00:14:41.420 progression parked in place the typhoon generated more than a year's worth of rain in 24 hours
00:14:47.480 by the time the night fell on august 8th as many as 65 area dams had collapsed
00:14:54.460 But despite the fact that water levels at the Banqiao Dam had far exceeded a safe capacity
00:15:01.160 and a number of sluice gates for controlling water flow were clogged with silt
00:15:06.200 authorities felt confident they'd skirt disaster
00:15:10.360 After all, the Soviet-designed dam had been built to survive a typhoon
00:15:16.040 a once-in-every-thousand-year occurrence that could dump 11 inches of rain per day
00:15:21.380 Unfortunately, Typhoon Nina would prove to be a once-in-every-two-thousand-year storm,
00:15:29.820 bearing down with enough force to cause the world's deadliest infrastructure failure ever.
00:15:37.080 According to an account of the Banqiao Dam by a Chinese journalist writing under the pseudonym Yi Xi,
00:15:43.500 on August 8, as workers stared curiously at the retreating water level of the reservoir,
00:15:48.780 A voice in the dark called out,
00:15:52.740 The river dragon has come.
00:15:56.160 And suddenly the dam ruptured, unleashing 600 billion liters of water and destroying an entire village.
00:16:06.220 By August 17th, reports see 1.1 million people remain trapped by flooding,
00:16:12.140 with 50-60% of food airdropped into the area just floating in the murky waters.
00:16:18.780 it would take weeks for the water to drain.
00:16:25.480 Listen, the dragons are here.
00:16:30.200 The dams on the Ottawa River were designed for a 1 in 350 year rainstorm.
00:16:36.100 What is 350 years to a river dragon?
00:16:41.860 Here at the top of this watershed, I assert we are river kin,
00:16:46.420 kin to the dragon that cannot be contained.
00:16:48.780 who get stronger and more deadly the longer we deny their pathways.
00:16:54.060 And we're not going to live in that choking constraint,
00:16:57.460 with its sense of mounting rage threatening to devastate our banks anymore.
00:17:03.200 We are undammed, and our future is as yet unwritten.
00:17:10.140 Out here in the winding wild margins, we are part of a vast and many-tongued movement,
00:17:15.960 away from stifling systems that no longer serve.
00:17:19.840 We are reaching for each other
00:17:21.340 as rigidity traps come down
00:17:24.060 all across social and ecological systems.
00:17:28.660 In the surprisingly poetic
00:17:30.860 Evolving Conceptions of the Role of Large Dams
00:17:33.880 in Social Ecological Resilience
00:17:36.180 by Mia A. Hammersley, Christopher Scott, and Randy Gimblett
00:17:39.820 for the Journal of Ecology and Society,
00:17:42.700 quote,
00:17:42.980 Approximately 85% of dams in the United States
00:17:47.080 will reach the end of their operational lives by 2020.
00:17:51.860 As more dams age, the benefits of removing them before they fail
00:17:55.480 may outweigh the costs in order to restore the river ecosystems they have altered.
00:18:01.640 Dams have many negative effects on river and riparian ecosystems,
00:18:05.100 including habitat fragmentation, decreases in species richness,
00:18:10.220 Alteration of sediment dynamics and water temperature and changes in geomorphology,
00:18:15.260 all related to disruption of the natural flow regime.
00:18:20.360 They continue,
00:18:21.900 When a system is strongly connected, it is more resilient to external variability.
00:18:28.400 The more rigid a system becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes.
00:18:33.100 In institutional terms, older, more structured, and hierarchical organizations.
00:18:37.340 For example, large federal agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation are particularly prone to rigidity, making them even more prone to crises and reorganization.
00:18:50.320 A dam is perhaps the most apt metaphor to express this concept.
00:18:55.060 Dams become less stable over time and threaten to literally collapse.
00:18:59.340 collapse by decreasing the resilience of a river sociological system dams also make the system
00:19:07.760 more vulnerable to other disturbances such as climate change and growing water demand
00:19:12.840 the movement to decommission dams represents a way to remove an outdated and rigid technology
00:19:19.200 in order to eliminate these points of rigidity from the social ecological system that they have
00:19:24.840 faltered. End quote. A record-setting 325 river barriers were removed from 16 European countries
00:19:33.500 in 2022, while 65 were removed in the United States.
00:19:40.920 Beyond rigidities of thought, of movement, of social and ecological systems that have been
00:19:46.140 over-hierarchized and become brittle, you can listen for the waters that move,
00:19:51.300 and for the people who have kept faith with the river, dragons and all.
00:19:58.220 Amy Bowers Cordellis worked for tribal fisheries,
00:20:01.080 saw the largest salmon die-off in history at her summer job,
00:20:05.320 and became a lawyer to fight for the river and her people.
00:20:09.660 She says, quote,
00:20:11.640 Dam removal is not a test.
00:20:14.240 It will work because the water remembers where to go.
00:20:18.120 It remembers where it's been.
00:20:19.480 It remembers what it felt like to thrive.
00:20:22.860 As humans, we remember too.
00:20:25.300 We have in our ancestral blood that knowledge of what it was like to live on a healthy planet.
00:20:31.320 End quote.
00:20:36.260 We have in our blood the memory of a healthy planet.
00:20:40.840 We remember where to go.
00:20:44.980 Amy says, how we got through it was working as a coalition.
00:20:49.480 In A Roadmap to Restoring Rivers, James C. Ish writes,
00:20:55.460 The story of the Klamath River's restoration agreement offers an opportunity to create a template for other projects.
00:21:02.980 The bullet points are, one, continuous widespread stakeholder involvement.
00:21:08.080 Two, combining dam removal with watershed and river restoration efforts.
00:21:13.260 Three, building trust between invested parties.
00:21:15.900 Four, recognizing the long-term value and benefits gained by all stakeholders associated with a healthy river.
00:21:23.580 Five, creating governing bodies that can oversee the funding and progress of the removal and restoration.
00:21:30.460 And six, creating incentives for dam owners by transferring liability and permitting to willing parties
00:21:37.740 so the process does not slow down as a result of attempting to further economic gains.
00:21:45.900 These are steps in reconciliation with the river.
00:21:52.580 These are dance steps around the guilt and finger-pointing,
00:21:56.040 the biases of capital wanting to accumulate when it really needs to flow.
00:22:01.060 Get everyone involved, over and over.
00:22:04.480 All are welcome in the circle.
00:22:07.460 Don't just remove rigidities, but draw on history to actively restore life that was there before.
00:22:12.680 what did your ancestors ancestors know of flow planes flowers spirit of community
00:22:20.940 how can you reseed your banks in flood plains with life when evangelical or other systems that
00:22:28.240 were imposed to constrain spirit are gone when you have said not anymore and let your truth come
00:22:34.380 and rode its wave to somewhere new.
00:22:37.880 Build trust.
00:22:40.000 Draw out the truth of what healing will look like
00:22:42.720 in each other's languages and perspectives.
00:22:46.320 Find ways past the choking blockages
00:22:48.900 of century-old shame and mistakes
00:22:51.060 by focusing together on what it takes
00:22:53.340 to get the work done and the waters to run.
00:22:57.540 The loudest voices against dam removal
00:23:00.220 were those folks who had sunk costs
00:23:02.200 into homes along unnatural waterfronts, communities that had by now been around for over a hundred
00:23:08.680 years and felt rooted. But from the view of the river, of the canyons, of the people who had lived
00:23:16.420 in such close reliance and communion with the salmon for so many hundreds of generations that
00:23:21.460 they knew their genes were intertwined, dancing river helixes of relationality, who felt physical
00:23:31.900 pain watching the fish beat their heads against the dams until they died, just trying to get home.
00:23:38.820 From all those eyes, the powerboats and lakefront properties were always temporary.
00:23:46.020 Quote, for more than a hundred years, dams have stilled the Klamath's flows, jeopardizing the
00:23:51.600 salmon and other fish, and creating ideal conditions for parasites to spread. But now
00:23:58.380 these vestiges of early 20th century approach to water and power are being dismantled the world's
00:24:05.820 largest dam removal project is now underway on the klamath river by the end of 2024 four aging
00:24:13.220 hydroelectric dams spanning the california oregon state line will be gone 100 000 cubic yards of
00:24:21.660 concrete. 1.3 million cubic yards of earth and 2,000 tons of steel will be hauled out of the
00:24:30.280 river's path. Paul Mateer is a traditional fisherman and a fatuana which he describes as a 0.99
00:24:36.420 medicine man. He's been protesting the dams for years after a massive fish die-off on the lower
00:24:42.520 Klamath in 2002 catalyzed the movement to restore the river. That's still the water that runs through
00:24:50.240 my veins. We only want it to be taken care of, Pulmetier said. It's more than just a river to
00:24:56.660 us. It's more than just something that harbors fish, Pulmetier said. It's who we are as a people.
00:25:03.700 We're fix the world people, Carrick people are. End quote. The river is the life way. The river 1.00
00:25:12.320 is both how the fix the world people make their living and make meaning. Witches are kin to the 1.00
00:25:20.220 undammed river and declare our allegiance to fix the world people. We are looking for the helpers
00:25:27.400 and we are taking apart what no longer serves. Our covenmate Steffi, who studied river and flood
00:25:36.060 science in grad school, wrote, quote, I offer the idea of lateral and longitudinal connectivity in
00:25:44.120 river systems. Dams obstruct the longitudinal connectivity of rivers. I've spent a lot of time
00:25:51.320 studying the lateral connectivity of rivers, or the connection of a river to its floodplain.
00:25:56.820 Things like levees and berms can constrict our rivers and increase their destructive power
00:26:01.620 during storms. We can think of freeing a river by removing a dam, but we can also free a river by
00:26:08.600 removing levees, lowering berms, and other lateral obstructions. The river is allowed to slow down,
00:26:16.180 spread out, and add nutrients to the land when it can access its floodplain. There are so many
00:26:23.480 important nutrient cycles and other ecological processes that happen when a river can access
00:26:29.240 its floodplain. I also love exploring the magic and liminality of floodplains and riverine wetlands.
00:26:38.600 They can exist as both land and water.
00:26:42.400 And the plants that thrive in floodplains have adapted to existing in this liminal space.
00:26:47.580 They continue,
00:26:48.280 Our rivers have become disconnected, both longitudinally and laterally.
00:26:54.020 Specifically, where I'm from in Vermont, we have very rugged topography,
00:26:57.620 and the flattest areas to build our roads and our railroads have been in river valleys.
00:27:02.700 Because of this, road and railroad berms have been built up and have constricted our rivers.
00:27:08.600 In places like the Mississippi River Basin, berms have been constructed specifically to
00:27:13.880 prevent flooding, which certainly happens here in Vermont too.
00:27:17.880 When we constrict our rivers to a narrow corridor, it funnels the water into a smaller area when
00:27:22.520 it floods.
00:27:24.680 With our rivers confined to smaller channels and valleys, this increases the velocity of
00:27:29.160 the flow and increases the destructive power of rivers during major floods.
00:27:35.280 Not only does this lead to more property damage, but it also starves the floodplain of essential
00:27:40.000 nutrients and processes that these ecosystems need to be healthy and provide proper habitat
00:27:45.840 for wetland and floodplain-dwelling species.
00:27:49.280 Steffi continues with perspectives from disturbance ecology, and I feel the morgan in me rubbing
00:27:56.340 her hands.
00:27:58.780 Witches and the archetypes that guide our practices of latitudinal and longitudinal connectivity
00:28:04.600 stand in the waters of disturbance where everything is stirred up
00:28:09.120 and we hold our arms outstretched and bloody and listen for the story,
00:28:15.180 the trauma, the hope in the moment of illusions crumbling,
00:28:19.600 the life that lives in communion with death and disturbance
00:28:23.080 rather than trying to control and constrain it all until holding it back becomes impossible.
00:28:28.780 And the river dragon comes.
00:28:37.020 Steffi continues, quote,
00:28:40.200 In the U.S., we have had this European colonial mindset
00:28:43.440 that ecological disturbances need to be strictly controlled.
00:28:48.660 The indigenous people of Turtle Island worked and work with their landscapes,
00:28:54.600 managing them with disturbances, like fire,
00:28:56.980 because they acknowledge that disturbance is an essential part of ecosystems functioning properly.
00:29:02.960 The prairie and many western forest ecosystems in the U.S. and Canada rely on fire to be healthy,
00:29:09.480 and European colonization has led us to straighten and burn our rivers to prevent floods,
00:29:15.160 which just makes floods worse and more destructive in the long run.
00:29:19.440 Just like suppressing fires makes them more destructive.
00:29:22.420 There are so many wetland plants that transport their seeds via floods,
00:29:27.700 and floodwaters deposit nutrient-laden sediments on the landscape
00:29:31.160 that can add phosphorus and other vital nutrients to the landscape.
00:29:36.080 Disturbances are essential, though they cause destruction initially.
00:29:41.260 Not only does this help with nutrient cycling on the land,
00:29:44.640 but it also helps remove sediments from the riverine system
00:29:47.900 and can help alleviate nutrient pollutants in our lakes and other river outlets.
00:29:53.380 In the state of Vermont, there has been a big push to conserve river corridors and floodplains,
00:29:58.080 to help lessen property damage during floods,
00:30:01.100 but also to allow our rivers to move naturally and take up space
00:30:05.340 and be reconnected to their floodplains.
00:30:09.060 I work in conservation, and we focus on conserving and restoring wetlands,
00:30:13.140 mainly along river corridors, for wildlife habitat.
00:30:15.700 We help restore hydrology to altered landscapes and remove berms to reconnect rivers, along with planting trees and shrubs.
00:30:25.940 Overall, by conserving land along rivers and allowing the river to connect to its floodplain and move and meander, we can ensure proper habitat function in floodplain ecosystems.
00:30:37.620 And it can also make a real impact on the resiliency of our towns, given that our climate in the northeast is only getting wetter, and floods are becoming more frequent.
00:30:49.480 The current management focus in my state is just to give rivers the space they need to move, expand, and meander.
00:30:58.200 Occasionally, for streams that have been straightened, engineers can design new channels based off of historic imagery to mimic their old shape.
00:31:05.880 and over time the river will adjust back into its own equilibrium.
00:31:11.520 With river channel restoration, we are trying to free the river from the channel
00:31:15.500 that early colonization set it in, and allow it to find its natural path once again.
00:31:22.720 I sometimes like to think of restoration as a way to decolonize the landscape.
00:31:29.400 Removing dams and berms and levees helps decolonize our rivers, in a way.
00:31:35.880 End quote.
00:31:40.460 The process of finding our way back to the source continues.
00:31:44.820 The negotiations, the work of coalition building,
00:31:48.620 the work of gathering in eddies and pools,
00:31:51.600 and knowing our places in the floodplains of coming climate catastrophes continues.
00:31:57.120 But this year, the first of four dams in the Klamath has come down.
00:32:03.280 End quote.
00:32:04.320 After decades of waiting for two dams to come down on the Elwha River in Washington State's Olympic Peninsula and another decade of monitoring salmon populations, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe was finally able to open a small ceremonial and subsistence coho salmon fishery this past year.
00:32:24.080 And I lean my closed eyes toward this feeling.
00:32:28.520 I touch the lake here that's broken past its edges and is creeping up the stairs.
00:32:34.320 and it's urging i feel you all hello coven in the cauldron of the dark between our ears
00:32:42.660 i hear us pushing pushing past the concrete that has held us and telling our true stories
00:32:52.340 i feel it all our gathering power i see you telling the truth telling the truth
00:33:00.860 telling the truth about mistakes and attempts that didn't work about ideas that we've outgrown
00:33:08.840 and about abuse and those who protected abusers the complicated effluvial truth
00:33:18.120 you are out there taking down berms conjuring the drawdown calling forth the ceasefire
00:33:27.500 cracking through outdated walls and embankments
00:33:31.840 and getting into the reeds and weeds of mourning and stories
00:33:36.120 and letting ourselves become part of destruction ecology
00:33:39.800 a wave that heals even as it breaks
00:33:43.940 we are kin with a muddying nitrogen rich mess
00:33:49.760 we are telling the truth of leaving in the night
00:33:54.400 Telling the truth of our brutal, brilliant survival
00:33:59.820 We are undammed River Kim and we are the flood
00:34:05.120 We pledge our allegiance to the 100 million unhoused in the US
00:34:10.200 The 110 million forcibly displaced people in the world
00:34:14.060 As these old concrete systems fail, we are pouring out onto the streets
00:34:19.440 Massive movements of people have been pushed to crisis points
00:34:23.800 by the failures of rigid systems
00:34:25.620 and the walls are coming down.
00:34:28.300 And each wall will require negotiation,
00:34:31.700 peacemaking,
00:34:33.120 new ways of map-making,
00:34:34.820 and great depths of empathy.
00:34:39.200 We'll need to reach for a source deeper
00:34:41.480 than we might remember now.
00:34:47.120 There are lessons in the floodplain.
00:34:51.440 Steffi wrote,
00:34:52.600 The beauty of connected floodplains is that it allows the river to slow down and nurture the land during the flood.
00:35:05.660 The water can spread, drop nutrients, carry seeds, and in a way, find rest during a flood event.
00:35:14.860 To access our floodplains is to allow ourselves the space we need to spread out
00:35:19.700 and nurture our environment and slow down when we're undergoing great change.
00:35:26.040 While there is always a destructive component to the flood,
00:35:29.540 the plants and animals who dwell in the floodplain have adapted to this disturbance
00:35:33.900 and can grow from the aftermath.
00:35:37.740 On the day of the eclipse, I pulled an oracle card from one of my botanical decks
00:35:42.340 that symbolizes fortitude.
00:35:46.040 We watched the eclipse along the Winooski River floodplain in Burlington, Vermont,
00:35:50.680 and as we walked around the woods, I reflected on the box elders along the river.
00:35:57.020 Box elders are known for falling down and often are seen as messy trees.
00:36:01.900 When the soil is saturated during a flood, they can tip over, but they continue to grow.
00:36:07.320 they may not be seen as the strongest trees because of their tendency to fall
00:36:13.380 but they always right themselves and continue to grow sideways and out over the river
00:36:20.380 creating new habitat structures and holding the bank in place their strength lies in their recovery
00:36:29.640 when we connect our rivers back to our floodplains and restore our lost hydrology
00:36:39.100 we can allow these beautiful ecosystems to flourish and there is so much we can learn
00:36:45.540 from the plants and critters that inhabit this ever-changing space the entanglement of land and
00:36:52.440 water shows resilience, strength, beauty, and versatility. Floods are both beautiful and
00:36:59.880 destructive. When we are stewards to the land and allow our rivers to have space to experience
00:37:06.300 this natural disturbance, we protect ourselves and the plants and animals that call this ecosystem
00:37:13.020 home. End quote.
00:37:22.440 Once, in Utah, I followed what began as a dry riverbed in the desert.
00:37:31.920 There is a message about water, long before the water comes.
00:37:36.940 As the days went by, we walked deeper into the cavern, which water has carved in the redstone.
00:37:43.460 The water begins as a scritch, trickle, and hum, and slowly widens and comes up to your ankles, flickering gold.
00:37:53.420 The walls are marked with black lines above your head, showing where the water has been.
00:37:59.740 You could spend your life deciphering the markings of where water was before.
00:38:05.540 This was in the upper basin of the Colorado River.
00:38:09.300 A river which has been massively dammed to create the enormous reserves of water at Lake Powell and Lake Mead,
00:38:16.520 upon which 40 million people rely.
00:38:18.920 A river which is drying up, reservoirs so low they threaten to become dead pools.
00:38:32.980 We broke from the trail to follow a trod path, footpath, up the canyon wall.
00:38:39.420 And there were figures there, carved in the blood-red stone, coral stone, rust stone.
00:38:45.700 And we kept on following a sound.
00:38:48.920 sharp inhales of green and then we found it a natural singing bowl
00:38:56.300 a small hollow of black walls a black basin holding a sacred cup of water big enough for
00:39:08.300 us to sit at the edge with the moss and watch light hit the water that dripped from a secret
00:39:14.720 source above, high up at the floor of the desert above our heads.
00:39:23.360 People and animals have worshipped at this black bowl of life in the desert,
00:39:27.840 carved by ancient rivers, for a long, long time.
00:39:37.940 Water is always a river in a way, isn't it?
00:39:40.880 It gathers in atmospheric rivers in the sky
00:39:44.940 It winds through animals and humans and plants and clouds and the earth before it comes to you
00:39:51.740 It is an ancient traveler
00:39:54.560 And it will go through you too and give you what you could not live without
00:39:59.140 And you will carry on until you don't, but the water still will
00:40:02.660 Water makes the sacred and the serpent
00:40:06.900 It is one and the same
00:40:08.840 Water is an artisan of the holy
00:40:12.280 It carves sacred places out of stone
00:40:14.760 It nurtures sacred groves, sacred trees
00:40:18.660 It falls from the sky like a benediction
00:40:22.480 Breathe in and out gently
00:40:32.780 And picture the water in the air
00:40:36.340 In the clouds
00:40:37.800 in the plants and people around you.
00:40:41.980 See how life moves.
00:40:45.220 See yourself in the river.
00:40:48.500 See yourself in the matrix of rivers.
00:40:52.180 The headwaters, the floodplains.
00:40:57.240 All along the lines of longitude and latitude.
00:41:01.360 And in the distance, feel the dams holding tight.
00:41:04.760 the berms telling you where to flow
00:41:07.980 feel the arid dry places in your heart
00:41:12.720 and soul and body where the water hasn't run in generations
00:41:16.900 tighten all your muscles and feel the feeling
00:41:21.020 of a river contained
00:41:22.280 feel the rage of it, feel the serpent gathering its power
00:41:28.140 take a deep breath
00:41:31.680 and hold it in the place where you hold your deepest sorrow or shame.
00:41:42.800 And then light a match.
00:41:47.020 Set off the dynamite.
00:41:49.920 Imagine you are watching the fire travel down the line
00:41:53.100 and then watch the dam explode and crumple
00:41:57.900 and let your breath come out with a sound
00:42:01.540 like a roar as the water runs free.
00:42:07.380 You know, rainbow trout never grow into steelhead trout
00:42:10.920 if they can't swim their wild rivers.
00:42:13.360 You can't grow into your true power
00:42:15.320 when you are damned by limitations
00:42:17.080 opposed against your will or consent.
00:42:25.420 But we are the turning tide,
00:42:27.800 winding past old rigid systems
00:42:32.200 taking out thousands of tons of concrete
00:42:36.740 and carefully, one by one
00:42:40.680 replanting flowers and trees
00:42:43.840 all the oceans are one ocean
00:42:49.100 all rivers are connected
00:42:52.280 all people have a right to be free 0.99
00:42:56.080 We are undammed Riverkin 1.00
00:43:00.980 We have set ourselves loose 1.00
00:43:05.040 And we are on our way home 0.99
00:43:08.540 Blessed fucking be 1.00
00:43:13.420 You must be a witch 1.00