Column by George Sibley
water – October 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine –
Most of our founding fathers recognized a correlation between democratic practice and an educated populace. Washington urged the promotion of “institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge,” it being “essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” And Thomas Jefferson said, “No other sure foundation [than education] can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness.”
But who should do the enlightening? And how should it be done? If you detect a whiff of patrician noblesse oblige in Washington’s exhortation, you might find it even more explicit in the observation offered by Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who wrote Democracy in America 170 years ago while waiting for post-Revolution France to cool down enough for him to go back to being an aristocrat: “The first duty imposed on those who now direct society is to educate the democracy.”
There’s something a little paradoxical about that statement suggesting that a democracy was only possible if some set of “directors” would first educate the people for it. But given the nature of humans — less perfect than that of angels, as James Madison observed — why would those who “direct society” want to “educate a democracy” that might then relieve them of their directorship? Wouldn’t there be a natural tendency for “those who now direct society” to educate the people primarily to affirm their directorate?
Those questions began to nibble around the edges of my mind recently at a meeting of the Colorado Alliance of Water Educators (CAWE) in Pueblo late in August. Last winter the Colorado legislature authorized the creation of a Colorado Water Education Foundation — and also authorized the Colorado Water Conservation Board (part of our Department of Natural Resources) to invest about $1.5 million a year in this Water Education Foundation over the coming decade. The principal purpose of the CAWE meeting in Pueblo was to assemble a board of directors for this Foundation. That was duly accomplished, and if you are interested in the makeup of the board, or want more specifics about CAWE, I refer you to their web page at www.co-water-edu.org.
But I want to mull around a little more in the “why” of water education — in an alleged democracy — rather than the “what” of it. A few months ago I was involved in a much more modest, and relatively short-lived, effort to get some local home-grown water education going, over here in the Upper Gunnison valley. This seemed logical; the Upper Gunnison valley is certainly a place where there is a lot of “water action” these years. (See “The Gunnison Knot,” in Colorado Central Nov. & Dec. 1999.)
But one of the old men who showed up at our first meeting threw out a curmudgeonly question: “What difference will it make,” he asked, “if I go to all the trouble of understanding all this water stuff? What can I do with that knowledge? How will it change things in the valley if I know it?”
And where water is concerned, that’s a pretty interesting question, especially in Colorado where, at this point in our history, the allocation and use of water resources — the foundation of all life — is either a matter of economic exchanges (as water rights are claimed and bought and sold as private property), or a legal matter handled in water court (that branch of government that Jefferson perceived as the least democratic).
In fact, water governance in Colorado today probably fits pretty well into the Tocquevillean scenario of a “directed society.” The flow (and occasional ebb) of water in our lives is pretty much in the hands of bureaus, boards, utilities, conservancies, courts, and other agencies which are peopled by engineers, lawyers, managers, special judges and attorneys, special interests, and other agents that we never directly voted on. The whole structure of water seems to exist on another, perhaps higher, level of governance than the elected government.
Most of those agencies are represented in the Colorado Alliance of Water Educators, and now on the Foundation Board — and most of them are already involved in some form of water education, mostly at the public-school level.
Some of the resources provided by these agencies are excellent primers on the general topic of water and good “water citizenship,” although their use in the schools varies widely from district to district.
It’s a legitimate question, however, whether this is sufficient in “educating the democracy.” Students who learn something in school about the real value of water will probably grow up, as individuals, to be better “water citizens.” But is that all there is to “educating the democracy” about water? What about the growing cultural tension between water for growing crops versus water for growing suburban subdivisions? Questions about water for in-stream uses versus water for out-of-stream diversions? Questions about balancing economic and environmental concerns? And the big growing question globally about whether drinkable water is a human right or a market commodity?
Those questions are currently dealt with in Colorado — not always directly — primarily by “those who now direct society.” Is this as it should be? A lot of those who now direct the “hydraulic society” may think so, and a lot of the public might agree with them; they are, after all, the experts, and that counts for a lot in America.
But I am not convinced. I certainly would not advocate applying the democratic process to the design of a dam or water system. But the question of whether to build the dam at all — whether to develop more supply or to start managing demand — strikes me as a question the democracy needs to decide, and on which it needs to first become educated.
But what form should the education take, when we are talking about largely unexplored turf? “Those who now direct the (hydraulic) society” are good people, but many of them seem to start with the premise, “What we think the American people want, we will try to give them at whatever expense,” and there is growing evidence that this is not an infinitely applicable policy.
Our first little effort at a self-education process in the Upper Gunnison was kind of stillborn, but there are grassroots watershed groups growing up all over the state that are undertaking a broad form of local self-education on water issues. They have a voice on the Water Education Foundation Board in Chris Rowe, head of a Colorado coalition of watershed groups. That’s one of two “environmental” seats, out of 21 seats that include a lot of reps from the current directors of the hydraulic society.
There was mention in Pueblo of “probable turf battles” to come for the Foundation. I would expect this to be one of them: beyond fourth or fifth grade education on the water cycle, who will educate the democracy? And who should decide on the allocation and use of water in an age of serious scarcity?
Another interesting question: Will we the people, already a little spoiled by those who now direct the society, actually rise to the occasion and try to learn what we need to know to participate intelligently in our water-based society?
George Sibley will direct the annual Headwaters Conference in Gunnison November 8-10.
