The Old Conservationist : Mná Wičoni

The outlet at Mittry Lake.

We are currently camped beside the outlet of Mittry Lake about twenty miles out into the desert north of Yuma, Arizona. The outlet is a short channel, not a great deal narrower than much of the lake, that is lined with rushes and a few palm trees. Just a few yards from our location is a flood control gate. The water is high enough that it is pouring over the small retaining wall and dropping three or four feet into the pool below. Next to the sound of the coots and the coyotes in the distance in the evening, the sound of water is the most dominant sound.

We love the desert and spend a lot of our time in the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran covers a large part of southwestern US, along with Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur in Mexico. It is the hottest desert in Mexico. When you have learned firsthand that water is the most precious substance on the planet - Mná Wičoni – the sound of water is the most beautiful sound in the world.

A little over a week ago we went to town to fill our two six-gallon drinking water containers. We had around thirty gallons of fresh (potable) water in our trailer’s fresh-water tank, but we like to have the six-gallon containers strictly for drinking and cooking. We gladly paid twenty-five cents a gallon for our water because we are in the desert and the only source of water is very deep wells. When we got home we had around 42 gallons of the precious commodity. The next day there was serious concern among campers and locals. The wells had gone dry. There was no water to be had for almost ninety miles. By this time the town, a popular winter destination, had over a half million or more people living in the town and camped in the desert surrounding it.

A success story. A dam, which was destroy a type of
salmon as well as the local environment and economy
was removed and the fish are now able to spawn again.

Have you ever been anyplace where the nearest water was almost ninety miles away? Have you ever been in a position where, if you don’t have your own water, you’re out of luck?! The wells recovered, but they have gone dry at least two or three times since that day. Will there be the day when they don’t recover?

It is amazing how far you can stretch 52 gallons of water – the maximum amount of water we carry. We do dishes with less than a half-gallon of water. Even then we pour the dish water into a jug which is kept in the bathroom for flushing the toilet. When we wash our hands in the bathroom sink, the grey water is collected and used for flushing. In short, most water, unless consumed, is used twice.

We had a short rain storm not long ago. One man we know was so excited that he went out in the rain in his underwear and bathed. I was sitting in Nitsitapiisinni when it started. We were well out into the Sonoran desert. I went out to put folding chairs away and watched the dust fly as the water hit the ground. I stood in the rain looking at the cacti and creosote trees around us. They wait patiently for many weeks for a drink of water like this. Mná Wičoni. Within an hour after the rain ended you could not tell, just to look, that it had ever rained. I want so much to give water to the plants, but I know that it is like feeding wild animals. To do so would do more harm than good. Plants in the desert have adapted and my interference would disrupt their natural water gathering ability. Then again, humans shouldn’t be doing things that destroy their sources of water.

Lahontan Lake in Nevada. Much of the water in
Nevada is like this lake - polluted by mining
and dangerous.

Near the town of Silver Springs, Nevada, about a hundred miles into the desert, there is a lovely little reservoir named Lahontan. To look at this pretty lake you would never know that it is so polluted that you can not eat any fish you catch. The same is true of Squaw Lake, which adjoins the Colorado River just upstream from the Imperial Dam, north of Yuma, Arizona and the Salten Sea, in southern California, is totally dead as a result of agricultural chemical run-off. A friend driving past this large lake commented on the strange sand. It turned out to be fish bones.

Aerial photo of the Imperial Dam north of Yuma. The
tiny dark line is what is left of the Colorado River

The owner of the dental office we go to in Algodones, Mexico has lived there his entire life. His family has lived in Algodones since the 1860s and his Grandmother would tell him about mighty Colorado River. That ceased after Hoover Dam. Now, the river that once was the wildest, most powerful river in North America is little more than a ditch by the time it gets to Mexico. After Hoover other dams were built. There are two, practically within sight of each other, just north of Yuma. They lead water into irrigation canals. When you pass just south of the Imperial Dam, the ditch with very little water is what’s left of the Colorado River.

This man is standing at the end of the Colorado River
where it enters the Gulf of California. Sad!!

Time and again throughout history it has been proven to us that we can not do better than nature. Time and again we have suffered the consequences of messing around with nature, trying to “improve”, and trying to selfishly make things better just for us. Example. The Mississippi River continues to break through the puny barriers we erect in an effort to control its flow and steal its flood plains for farming. I drove across Illinois and Missouri just after the last big flood where levee after levee broke under the force of the mighty river and thousands of lives were unnecessarily sacrificed to our greed. It was like driving over the longest causeway in the world with water almost as far as you could see.

We don’t even want to get started on air and water pollution or our undeniable contribution to climate change.

We seem to have no concept that we are not the most important creature on earth. We are one of the only creatures on earth that could totally disappear and not make a difference. In fact, earth would begin to heal without us. But the earth cannot survive without water. We do not have to be the worst invasive species on the planet. We can live in harmony with the world around us as we once did. If we want to survive as a species, we must reclaim many of the attitudes and skills we had as hunter-gatherers and stop destroying mother earth. We must stop polluting and wasting the most precious, life-giving substance on earth … water. Mná Wičoni! We must stop dumping our sewage into water. We must stop pumping water into the earth to extract oil. We must stop putting leaky oil pipes over, under and around our precious water. We must stop using it to sprinkle our lawns.

The Saltan Sea is totally dead thanks to run off of
agricultural chemicals. The white "sand" is
actually fish bones.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard visitors to the national parks say “I can’t wait to get home and have a long, hot shower.” Hopefully they don’t see me grimace. I think of the gallons and gallons of precious water they allow to run over their bodies for the sole purpose of experiencing a brief pleasant sensation. A disturbingly high percentage of us in the continental US and much of Canada have little or no idea of how precious water really is. Mná Wičoni – water is life.

As I sit here writing I hear the soft, melodious sound of the water. I’m right next to the source of my existence. Here in the middle of the desert is the true elixir of life. Without it I would die. Without it you would die. Without it the world will die. Mná Wičoni – water is life.