Southern Oregon Pachamama Alliance (SOPA) recently completed its 6-part series, the Rogue Valley Water Solutions Summit. More than 200 people participated in the summit, which featured Indigenous wisdom keepers, panelists from across the Rogue Basin and state of Oregon, and citizens concerned for the efficient and beneficial use of the valley’s water. A good time was had by all!
Now SOPA is partnering with Water League to carry forth the adventure in 2023. Water League engages the public in the stewardship of Water and will support the next steps individuals and action groups want to take following the outcomes of the Rogue Valley Water Solutions Summit.
Together, we are kicking off 2023 with our first major event on February 4 in the Large Meeting Room at the Medford Library, 205 S. Central Ave. The time is TBD, but Save the Date!
We will be establishing our four group cohorts and selecting the leaders for each team during the Feb. 4 event. The action teams currently are:
- Rights Of Nature/ Indigenous Perspectives/ Public Trust Doctrine
- Funding & Legislation and Water Rights & Water Law
- Equity for Domestic & Industrial Water Uses
- Equity for Agriculture, Wetlands & Waterways
At the February event, folks can sign up for one or more teams they’d like to join. We will briefly discuss how the Water Solutions Summit organizing team arrived at these topics, what they mean to us and the environment, and how they are interrelated.
With this understanding, we’ll then enter a breakout session where each team will meet:
- to plan its regular meeting schedule,
- to begin formulating its mission (what it wants to accomplish), and
- brainstorm a few goals (3 to 5) to achieve to pursue that mission.
At subsequent meetings, members will identify concrete, measurable objectives for each goal and begin the work to realize them throughout the year. Each team will have a couple leaders, a scribe, and any other positions that members would like to establish. Members may invite new people to join in at any time and members can hop off as well.
Water League will provide the overall support and organization for the four teams and will be available to attend all team meetings to keep a central hub connection, hear needs and suggestions, and report on related actions of other teams. We’ll hold quarterly meetings of all four teams to catch up with each other, get project updates, discuss what’s succeeding and what’s not, find out where teams overlap and can collaborate, and provide support for the overall mission to solve common, but important, problems we face regarding our Water use, Water quality, our Watersheds, and Water future.
Together, we have standing to address the issues and ideas we have about Water; we can develop and deepen our relationship with Water, and we can assert ourselves as trustees for Water when and where we see the need.
Everyone is invited to this event, whether or not you attended the Rogue Valley Water Solutions Summit. Here are some links to review, if you wish, before attending on Feb. 4:
- SOPA’s Water Solutions Summit webpage (background material and recording of all sessions)
- Water League’s page on The Public Trust Doctrine — the frame in which we work to effect change
On NBC News: ‘Firmageddon’: Researchers find 1.1 million acres of dead trees in Oregon — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna59671
The die off of our forests is a terrifying result of declining aquifer levels as a result of the 1-in-1,200-year megadrought and over-extraction of Water from our rivers and groundwater for non-beneficial uses. Let’s come together this February 4 at the Medford Library to plan our year of action. Healthy trees are standing columns of water; however, tree-moisture in surveyed areas has been testing at just above kiln-dried lumber levels. Stressed-out trees are susceptible to diseases and beetles; crown fires can become catastrophic. Who has seen drying and dying trees this past year on your hikes and travels, on your own properties?
We need to take the reins and address this problem ourselves because officials who hold water in the public trust have never done well-enough by us as they have the mighty few who lobby them. Now the problem has become existential for the forests and soon it will be true for us as well: now is the time to act.
Joseph L. Sax, the leading scholar of the 20th century on the Public Trust Doctrine wrote in 1970:
“Private citizens, no longer willing to accede to the efforts of administrative agencies to protect the public interest, have begun to take the initiative themselves.”
Mary C. Wood, the leading scholar of the 21st century on the Public Trust Doctrine explains in 2014 why:
“Environmental law has failed us all. As ecosystems collapse across the globe and the climate crisis intensifies, environmental agencies worldwide use their authority to permit the very harm that they are supposed to prevent. Growing numbers of citizens now realize they must act before it is too late…An ancient and enduring principle, the trust doctrine asserts public property rights to crucial resources. Its core logic compels government, as trustee, to protect natural inheritance such as air and water for all humanity.”
Regarding the Public Trust Doctrine, Sax writes:
“The approach with the greatest historical support holds that certain interests are so intrinsically important to every citizen that their free availability tends to mark the society as one of citizens rather than of serfs. It is thought that, to protect those rights, it is necessary to be especially wary lest any particular individual or group acquire the power to control them.”
Let us come together in 2023 and take our stand together to hold Water in the public trust — our trust. Without us, then who?
Here’s a lovely article that discusses “The Overview Effect” that astronauts experience when they see the Earth as one living entity. The sentiment is what I hope to carry in my heart as we work together in 2023.
https://www.upworthy.com/astronaut-shares-big-lie-space