“By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it,” –Wallace Stegner, Sound of Mountain Water
The intent of the Sweetwater Project is to explore the past and present realities of water in California and develop a collective vision of the waterscape we would like to live in. At the same time, the project’s aim is to experiment with ways to realize that vision. As the leading and sole explorer of this outfit, I am excited to follow where my passion and curiosity lead me, brainstorming and testing out solutions along the way.
So this is a project of learning, but also of action. I invite you to participate where you are inspired. While the blog on the homepage will be the entryway to the project, this site will also be a collection of resources so that you can learn or get involved should you find inspiration knocking.
With all of the “crises” and “problems” we face right now environmentally, and how easy it can be to get overwhelmed with the complexity of it all, it is my hope to demonstrate how an ordinary person, armed with curiosity and unanswered questions, can wrestle with a complex issue and participate in the process of solution-finding and problem solving.
As part of my exploration and what you can look forward to, the project will include research, interviews with water experts, and fieldtrips to all sorts of rivers and lakes, marshes and aqueducts. I am excited to answer such questions as how do you put a river underground? Why do we get our water in San Francisco from so far away? Where does water, at its source, originate from besides precipitation? And more.
Why water?
Water is life’s true and unique medium. That the only solvent with the refinement needed for nature’s most intimate machinations happens to be the one that covers two-thirds of our planet is surely something to take away and marvel at.” – Phillip Ball.
We are here because water is. It is pretty amazing that one of the most abundant molecules on the planet is one that can dissolve just about anything and is present and accessible in gaseous, liquid, and solid states. Just take a day and notice all the times you use water or that water was used to create what you are using and you will begin to appreciate what an incredible substance it is.
We drink water. Use water to clean. Are made of water. Grow food with water. And apart from necessity, water creates some of the most beautiful and inspiring parts of this planet. As David Carle says in his Introduction to Water in California, “Working together, H20 molecules pick up the colors of the sky, create the pleasing sounds of water and gravity working together, and shape our most beautiful landscapes.” Waterfalls. Rainbows. Perfect sunsets. Rivers.
And yet, in California, we hear about a lack of water all the time. One of the questions driving this project is, do we really not have enough, or are we not using it wisely? Stay tuned.
The Name
The name, Sweetwater Project, was inspired by a story I read about water that John Muir and his expedition tasted from the North Fork of the Owens River. That it tasted better than any he’d had, and that, twenty five years afterward, Muir and others from the expedition still referred to it as “that wonderful champagne water; though, comparatively, the finest wine is a coarse and vulgar drink” Also, the name was inspired by the first river I really got to know- the Sweetwater River- a river that runs through eastern San Diego County.