Watershed, environmental poetry festival, 2023

Watershed, environmental poetry festival, 2023 me and others reading CPITS kid poems.

A day in the life

Knackered—I lost hours promoting the upcoming CPITS/CalPoets Symposium, Poetry Flash Watershed reading, & the Petaluma Poetry Walk. While getting poems for my PPW set, and I fell down a rabbithole. I will emcee with Brennan DeFrisco at Watershed. We still need a poet-teacher list and everybody is beyond late getting back to me. Feeling overwhelmed. While promoting poetry events, I discovered my Brownie Mary photo was stolen, and shared 32,000 times, sans permission on Facebook and Instagram. Oh, and the thief removed my copyright and name. Still don't have my poetry set organized. I need to do it ASAP because I won't have a printer after tomorrow. Then, I need to nail down some airline tickets, and also knock out two pieces of art in the next few days for an upcoming art show. Things are going too fast. Where’s Alice? said the Rabbit. It’s later than you think. Now if only I got paid some actual money for all this work. Or my Brownie Mary photo.

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 2018

23rd annual Poetry Flash

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

Stand up for the Earth

Saturday, October 13th

from 10 AM to 4:30 PM

at Civic Center Park,

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

in Berkeley, California.

watershed@poetryflash.org

Free to the public, bring low chairs, blankets, picnic on the grass.

Strawberry Creek walk hosted by Chris Olander begins at 10AM 

Meet at the corner of Oxford and Center streets. 

Featured readers: Iris Dunkle, Maya Khosla, Joan Gelfand,
plus eco-dance by Sharon Coleman with Barry Ebner on guitar at the grove.

Plus book signings and poetry writing and art events at River Village.

Readings:

We are Nature reading (open mike sign up at noon).

1:15 PM: River of Words youth reading an awards with Robert Hass, 

1:30 PM California Poets in the Schools student reading 

with Maureen Hurley, Brennan DeFrisco, and other CPITS teachers.

2 PM: welcome
Big reading: Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Leanne Sullivan, Maya Khosla, Joan Gelfand, CS Giscombe, Tonga Eisen-Martin, Forrest Gander, Ellery Ackers, Robert Coats, Iris Dunkle, Chris Olander, Gwynn O'Gara, and more.

4:30PM closing ceremonies, grand finale.

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival is a collaboration with Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate, 1995-1997, Poetry Flash, and the Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market, Pegasus Books, Moe's Books, East Bay Express, Poets & Writers, Berkeley Civic Arts  Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation.

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Rain, rain everywhere...

Before the long-term California drought, about 90% of East Bay's water historically came from the Mokelumne watershed in the Sierras.

The Camanche and Pardee Reservoirs, northeast of Stockton, are the primary source of water for the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) where it's piped across the Central Valley via the triple steel pipe Mokelumne Aqueduct to storage reservoirs in the East Bay hills, including the San Pablo Reservoir.

During the drought, EBMUD also siphoned a lot of water from the Central Valley Project) (Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed). In May, 2015, EBMUD declared an end to the drought emergency. BUT...

The New Melones Dam, one river south of the Mokelumne River (Stanislaus River watershed), in Sonora, is the last reservoir to receive water from the Lake Shasta-Central Calley Water Project. For the first time in over six years, the water level is rising ever so slightly in the New Melones Dam.

As of July, the New Melones Reservoir, the fourth largest reservoir in the state, was almost a quarter full. Then it lost about  2000 acre-feet a day during August-October, due to evaporation. 

By comparison Mokelumne watershed reservoirs, Camanche and Pardee Reservoirs are at 70% and 91% (still not 100%), but as of today, the beleaguered New Melones Dam is still only at 26 percent capacity (up from 24%).

Maybe someday soon we will no longer need to save the shower water for the toilet? However, saving water is a good habit, even during the storm. Bail and scoop. Bail and scoop.

Addendum: Some of Alameda County does get its water from the Tuolumne River watershed: the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir (and by extension, the Don Pedro Dam). There's a water temple in Sunol.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reservoirs/RES


Some history of our Northern California dams and the towns that were drowned to create them.
Underwater towns of Northern California

California water wars: It's not about the fish, Stupid. That's a red herring.

Note bene: This post is a response to Facebook people's knee-jerk comments on an article by Jack Stewart in California Political Review. You may want to scan the article and rabid comments before you read this particular diatribe, as I begin this fishy story in medias res. A response to Jack Stewart's opinion piece,  Well-being of Fish Valued Over CA’s Economy and Quality of Life

Smelts are a family of small fish, Osmeridae —Wiki

Let me begin this rant by pointing out the faulty logic in Jack Stewart's opening paragraph:"....all the rain falling on California will wash into the ocean, instead of being stored for the dry, hot summer to come." Even the tittle, Well-being of Fish Valued Over CA’s Economy and Quality of Life,  is a real knee-jerker. Talk about hyperbole! It's a lopsided opinion piece parading as naked news.

All the rain? Most of that rain falling in Northern California will wash into the ocean because Shasta Dam is full to capacity, and because the rain did not extend south past San Jose, where most of the reservoirs are located, it will not fill those dams.

Only a handful of reservoirs—only seven out of a total of 55 major reservoirs statewide—are nearly full to capacity. But more than 26 of the state's major reservoirs are under 40% full (and a dozen of those are under 20% full) because all the rain falling on California did not fall within their watersheds. Besides, many of those reservoirs are dependent upon snowmelt, not rain, so Stewart should've addressed global warming's impact on the shrinking Sierra snowpack instead of fish.

Lake Shasta June, 2014. It's now full, but more than 26 of the state's major reservoirs are under 40% full (and ten of those are under 20%). Only a handful of reservoirs, seven out of a total of 55 major reservoirs statewide, are nearly full to capacity.

The (rain) water that Stewart claims is being dumped into the ocean, in detriment of the farmer, in order to save, what he deems as a worthless fish, is being dumped from our northern California dams for flood control. It's overflow, Stupid.

There is literally no place to store all that water when parts of Northern California has received 200% to 300% of normal precipitation for the year. Do you remember the the great Central Valley floods of 1996? That's what happens when the flood control system (and the levees) fails.

But somehow Stewart has managed to construe a tall tale that makes a small fish responsible for all our water woes. He blames a lack of enough dams for our agricultural woes (not a lack of snowpack), he equates the decommissioning of defunct hydro-electric dams, the destruction of orchards, and the upsurge of Central Valley's fallow fields—on a fish. He blames environmentalists and smelt for a much more complex water picture than he can possibly grasp. Talk about a snowjob.

Let's take one idea: save all that water; how? Perhaps Stewart is unaware that there is no pipeline infrastructure to move the excess Shasta water to, say, The (Stanislas) New Melones Dam (which is at at 30% capacity. BTW, in 1944, Congress authorized the construction of 1979 New Melones Dam atop the old Melones damsite, to prevent flooding—from spring snowmelt).

Jack Stewart goes on to say "As for the water now filling the state’s reservoirs, billions of gallons will be flushed down rivers and out to sea in efforts to protect fish, rather than being used to irrigate food crops..."

Is he aware that most of California's dams are dependent upon Sierra snowmelt, and that 70% of northern California's water is already shipped to southern California dams? Does he know that Castaic Lake is funded by Northern California water? Or that San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara water also comes from the north? Clearly we're bogarting Northern California rainfall in favor of fish vs farmers.

Stewart is all over the place; he shifts his argument from Colusa County to San Joaquin County, and then illustrates his point with a photo of a very full Shasta Dam, when he should depict a photo of a Southern California Sierra foothill dam. Stewart opines, and conflates ideas but does not back up any of his statements with facts.

Of course, Stewart's shallow-minded wading pool readers have massive knee-jerk reactions. OMG, the sky is falling! And they curse the bad environmentalists and Governor Moonbeam. Instead, they should get off their high horses and get down on their knees and pray for more snow.

2016 rain map as of 3/30. The green band represents normal rainfall.
All that purple rain (sorry, Prince) in the north represents a deluge.
The brown, red & ochre spots are parts of the state still in drought,

Do you know where your water comes from?
Most of the Bay Area's water is from the San Joaquin delta.

Stewart writes that in recent years "trillions of gallons of water have been flushed through California rivers in recent years to protect fish." How about posting some supporting facts.

His statement is meant to inflame and enrage... Oh such waste. It's a crime. But think: is a dead riparian ecosystem better than a live one? The San Joaquin Delta is such a mess, thanks to over-allocation of water resources for upstream agriculture, that at times, it actually runs BACKWARDS, there's so little water in it. Now that's a crime against nature.

What's with the myopic thinking about diverting excess floodwater from the ocean, that's where the water is supposed to go, back into the ocean. We've already disrupted California's riverine and oceanic water systems to the point of massive fish population collapse, which in turn have triggered other massive species collapse. Not to mention the ramifications of the acidification of the oceans. Dead Sea ring a bell?

Smelt, salmon are not optional, nor are estuaries, which need fresh water to keep a massive ecosystem alive. Which, in turn, keeps us alive. 

I won't mention the problem of soil salt intrusion. Most of the Central Valley is at sea level. Flushing the rivers removes pooled agricultural run-off and halts salt intrusion. What's good for the smelt is good for the river. And that in turn, is good for the farmer. It keeps the soil and the water table sweet.

Has Stewart forgotten about what happens when the runoff from agriculture pools and stagnates? If the rivers aren't flushed, then the land becomes poisoned. Think toilet. Can I say Kesterson? Let me help you spell selenium poisoning.

Then, there's the downstream water table effect. A Contra Costa County friend, Robert Lee Haycock, stated that actively pursuing the death of of our great estuaries is not the answer. Smelt, or no smelt, fresh water still needs to flow out the Golden Gate. Saltwater intrusion is already a problem for East Contra Costa County's water table—Antioch's drinking water that comes from the San Joaquin Delta system, has been compromised. 

We've pretty much killed the San Joaquin River, not to mention, the demise of the King River, the Tulare Basin, and Colorado River, which no longer even flows to the Sea of Cortez, which has led to the near extinction of myriad species. (And has severely impacted the fishing industries.)

There is no longer a Mojave River, thanks to the 1971 Cedar Springs Dam which created Silverwood Lake in the San Gabriel mountains (part of the California Aqueduct which siphons water from Northern California too). From there, Northern California's water is shipped to Lake Perris and onto San Diego as well. 

And this unregulated water usage at the detriment of California's vast ecosystems is not just a Central Valley issue. On the back side of the Sierras, Owens Lake is no more, thanks to LA/San Fernando Valley, also responsible for Mono Lake's shrinking water surface. The Owens River is no more, LA/San Fernando Valley waterworks killed off the agriculture. Mulholland, et al, turned  the lush Owens Valley INTO a desert. Now that's ironic.

About the Damn Dams

CA has a thousand major reservoirs, many are flood control dams —Wiki

As to those few dams from the 1900s, that are being decommissioned, most are not even water storage dams, but outdated, inefficient hydroelectric dams no longer in use, and the water is not used for irrigation, etc. The dams are also silted up. Not to mention, old. As in cracked. To repair those Klamath hydro-electric dams, and add fish ladders would cost more than to tear them down. Of course, Stewart froths on about how it's a crime against humanity.

The Klamath is a mighty river, and those four hydroelectric dams should never have been constructed in the first place. The dams destroyed the massive chinook and coho salmon, steelhead (and rainbow trout) runs. Just like Klamath Falls, Oregon. Vast waterways were destroyed for "hydroelectricity." (But it was also the era of wilful destruction of native cultures. Destroy their food source. Destroy them. Don't call it genocide.)

Also, a minor detail, is Stewart even aware that all the good dam sites are taken up. Where does he suggest we put these new proposed dams? Or the crackpot suggestion to raise the height of Shasta Dam? There seem to be people living out there. Oh well...

Stewart never addresses the real problem, that we've outgrown and stripped our resources. (And the era of free federal funds for large dam projects is gone.) It's not about the evil Endangered Species Act, it's not about stupid smelt vs. the farmer.

I won't mention that we need those smaller fish to survive in order to feed the bigger fish, and that includes oceangoing fish...like salmon. And we've pretty much destroyed most of the salmon runs in California with a plethora of inefficient dams—especially those defunct hydro-electric dams slated for demolition.

Stewart states: "As a result [of the smelt?], nearly a million acres of the most fertile farmland in the world have been taken out of production, orchards are being bulldozed."

Most of those fallen orchards Stewart laments the loss of, are of recent vintage, and should never have been planted in the first place. Has he driven down I-5 lately and seen where speculative agri-farmers planting these orchards? On dry hillsides with thin soil. Are we talking of small farmers here, or agribusiness?

Pistachio and almond orchards are being planted in unprecedented numbers because they yield a much higher monetary return than, say, growing local food. (California nuts (the edible kind) are not primarily sold in California, but to the rest of the world, including Turkey, and the UAE).

Let's look at those pricey pistachios (one of California's top-ten crops): In 2012, a drought year, a record pistachio crop of over 550 million pounds (249,930 metric tons) was harvested, as compared to 1976 where 1.5 million pounds (680 tons) was gleaned. The average pistachio yield in 1982 was "1,468 pounds per acre," which ballooned to over "3,806 pounds per acre in 2010.... California comprises 99% of the total [US pistachio harvest] with over 294,000 acres planted in  22 counties."

The "annual “farm gate value” of pistachios represents more than $1.6 billion to the California economy..." That's after costs have been deducted. (American Pistachios) We grow enough pistachios to feed the entire world. And we do. And pistachios take water. Let's see, at $12 a pound,  250,000 metric tons is 551,155,655 pounds x 12 =  $6,613,867,860. It's not easy being green.

Now let's look at almonds (California's second largest agricultural commodity). "California produces 82% of the globe's almonds, harvesting 800,000 acres of the tree nut across a 400-mile stretch from northern Tehama County to southern Kern County" [read: dry desert land]. And "About 70% of California's almonds are sold overseas" [mostly to China], and "...the state will harvest its third-largest crop this year [2015] at 1.85 billion pounds" [down from 1.88 billion in 2014].

"That's more than three times what the state was producing in the late 1990s." Or  to put it into another perspective, that's "... twice as much almond acreage in California as there was two decades ago..."  (LA Times, 2015). Oh, and almonds are an extremely thirsty crop, more so than cotton. When I computed raw almonds @ $10 per pound x 1.85 billion pounds = ? Google answered with a smartass answer: what does a trillion dollars look like? No wonder almonds and pistachios are so green. And I don't mean that in a good way.

“The governor’s executive order said to the agricultural sector that it must only submit ‘plans’ for future drought,” he explains. But while the industry makes up only two percent of the state's economy, " agriculture is responsible for 80 percent … of all the water that’s used here in California." Hertsgaard has found that some of the biggest farmers of pistachios, almonds and walnuts, known as “thirsty crops,” are actually expanding operations and reaping record profits. At the core of the problem is the water pricing system in California, Hertsgaard says. Experts say water is still relatively inexpensive, so more of it is being used more than necessary.   —Agriculture is thriving in bone-dry California, and that's not a good thing (PRI 2015)

Most of the bulldozed nut orchards Stewart is referring to, were planted in the dry southern portion of the state within the past 20 years—where sagebrush, artemesia, and opuntia normally thrive. (Then there's the water-hungry alfalfa equation, hay being sold, not to our dairy industry, but to China and the UAE because of, well, for enormous profits...just like those greeny pistachios and almonds.)

According to California Agricultural Production Statistics, our number one agricultural commodity is milk? And we're selling all our hay ($1.3 billion's worth) down the Yangtzee River? What about the happy California cows? (See Saudi Arabia buying up [drought-stricken] farmland in US Southwest.. to grow alfalfa hay). (Jan, 2016).

It's a good thing that grapes are our third largest agricultural commodity. It's enough to drive you to drink. The cows, too.

I have not derailed. Yet. We were talking about smelt vs. water earlier, and something in Stewart's loose leaf argument sure is beginning to smell fishy. The center does not hold.

Much of the southern Central Valley is desert because we've already dammed and removed the major water sources. We've destroyed massive riparian ecosystems. Saving more water for crops in marginal farmlands won't reverse the desertification process once its begun.

The entire Central Valley was one vast marshy ecosystem/wetland: 16,000 square miles, one of the largest wetland ecosystem on the west coast of North America. All gone now. Twelve of the 29 native fish species are gone, smelt are endangered. Smelt are a major food source for other fish and marine animals.

What the hell is a smelt?

The Delta smelt, Hypomesus transpacificus, found in the Sacramento Delta, is a major food source for salmon, striped bass and lake trout. Like salmon, many species are anadromous, living most of their lives in the sea, but traveling into fresh water to breed. —Wiki

"The tiny delta smelt is a bigger deal than you think.... In the case of the delta, we're talking about a once-magnificent place that is in serious trouble. It is 16,000 square miles of wetland and open water -- the West Coast's largest estuary -- and the end point of about 40% of California's precipitation. When the Spanish arrived centuries ago, it was teeming with fish, crawling with bears and beavers, its skies periodically darkened with migrating birds."  (It's small, but it's a keeper - latimes, 2007

"The tiny delta smelt is one of the best indicators of environmental conditions in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, an ecologically important estuary that is a major hub for California's water system — and an ecosystem that is now rapidly unraveling." (Delta smelt - Center for Biological Diversity).

A smelt is an indicator species.

I agree that water needs to go back into the water table, and I don't mean by fracking. Agribusiness has already siphoned significant amounts of artesian water from the ground. Much of the Central Valley has sunken from 12 to 28 feet within the past five years.

"A spot near Corcoran, in the Tulare basin, sank 13 inches in an eight-month period" and "...UC Davis said farmers are pumping an additional 6 million acre-feet of groundwater this year, compared to 2011, the year before the drought started...." (SacBee, 2015, Central Valley sinking fast in drought, NASA study shows).

Garry Hayes, a professor of geology at Modesto Junior College, said, "The sucking of the water in the underground aquifers may be the worst part of all. Hard to replace, if ever, and yet running short too. There aren't a lot of good choices into the future."

Does Stewart think that we can ever undo that kind of colossal damage? Pump the compacted soil back up so it can again store water? Those collapsed aquifers will never, ever be replenished, as the ground has sunk. So the repercussions of the latest drought, in this case, are forever.

Ditto that process of over-taxing our water resources and destroyying ecosystems on the back side of the Sierras. Owens Lake, drained dry to supply LA, is an alkali sump. Ditto Mono Lake—we've diverted its fresh water supply too. When the wind blows, the air is toxic with alkali dust. Silicosis has become a chronic health issue for folks living there. (The Eternal Dustbowl, L.A. Weekly, 2006)

The amount of alkali dust billowing over Mono Lake the other day was like a vast white curtain, a death shroud that stings the eyes and irritated the nose and lungs. But I digress.

Owens Lake (10 x 17.5 miles long) held a significant amount of water until 1913, when most of the Owens River was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Now it's the largest single source of dust pollution in the U.S. Image from the International Space Station —Wiki

And that rampant disregard for, and destruction of our water resources continues, with Nestlé pumping vast amounts of water out of Southern California which it sells right back to you, courtesy of the BLM. Crystal Geyser and Nestlé are siphoning off trillions gallons of Southern California water on public lands (pretty much for free), and then selling it back to us at a dollar a pint. So, do you buy bottled water? It too, is part of the problem.

"Nestlé is draining California aquifers, from Sacramento alone taking 80 million gallons annually. Nestlé then sells the people's water back to them at great profit under many dozen brand names." (Nestle Continues Stealing World's Water During Drought 2015). And in the San Bernardino National Forest (read; Mojave Desert), a similar scenario is unfolding: that's 24,820,000 gallons a year that Nestlé bottles—for free. 

Nestlé should not be allowed to remove our public water with little to no oversight from the BLM, its siphoning off 705 million gallons of water per year from California’s groundwater water supply. "If the Forest Service renews Nestlé’s San Bernardino permit, it would not just be a catastrophe for California, but for the whole country -- because it creates a precedent that even in times of scarcity, corporations have a right to profit from our most precious shared resources." Sign the petition here: (SumofUs)

And Nestlé isn't the only water czar.

Calistoga based Crystal Geyser is mining whatever little water that would otherwise replenish Owens Lake, and bottling it as well. "According to the Inyo County Planning Department, Crystal Geyser would extract water from three existing on-site wells in the shallow aquifer up to 360 acre feet per year." That's something like 117,306,515 gallons a year. (Crystal Geyser plans bottling plant expansion, 2012).

And like Nestlé, Crystal Geyser is mining more Northern California water as well, in Shasta County. "Residents whose homes and wells border the Mount Shasta plant worry that Crystal Geyser’s facility could leave them dry, and contend that some wells ran low when Coca-Cola was pumping there." It also raised an ethical question: "Should bottlers be able to pump unlimited amounts of water for sale during a drought?" (Resident group files suit over Mount Shasta water bottling plant, La TImes, 2015).

Mono Lake, alkali duststorm (due to the low lake level), Earth Day, 4/22/2016

Water conservation begins at home. It's not about farmers, or our drinking water vs. the little fish. That's a red herring. There's money to be had. And a lot of it. It ain't easy being green.

As H. L. Menken said, "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." Now he was one smart feller.

Almonds or apricots are not the main water guzzlers. Alfalfa, used to feed the cows, is. So, dairy/beef is our biggest agricultural water user.

What percentage of California’s water is used by agriculture?

• 80% based on the developed water supply 
• 52%: based on the total water supply of a dry year 
• 29% based on the total water supply of a wet year   

—Blaine Hanson Department of Land, Air and Water Resources University of California, Davis

  It's not an Us vs Them (agribusiness, fracking) vs (consumers) equation.

We all eat food, we drive cars, All of us here, in California, almost 40,000,000 of us—we ARE the problem. Deferring blame to the farmer (or the smelt) is not the answer. Yes, we need to kick Nestle's buttnuts, and ban fracking, and quit driving cars, but I'm rather fond of eating. Not willing to give it up. The farmer is the man.

So, I'll save every drop of water I can. Because I can.

Finally I get to test drive my Irish rainboots after three dry years. Esnorkeleamos!

Finally I get to test drive my Irish rainboots after three dry years. Esnorkeleamos! I dug my old leaky Goretex jacket out of the Goodwill bag (it's seen precious little action in the past ten years). The rainboots were new three years ago...but they never got any real action at all. Never buy rainboots during a drought cycle. The rubber's still good. Can't say the same for the jacket. 

And such lovely Wellies they are, with heathery plaid wool on the outside, but they're more like riding boots than Wellies. No handles. A little tight in the calves. So I wore capris and knee braces. Very fetching with my plaid boots.

Water under the bridge. It was about a foot deep under the underpass at Lakeview Road at Lakeshore, Oakland. Luckily the road is humped there, like the old carriage roads, so the center was only under a few inches of water.

I had to get food, gas, etc., (someone tried to hack my account.—so I had to go to the bank.) It was a breeze driving on 580 & 80. No cars.

Ashby underpass had a floater bobbing about. I guess the car didn't hydroplane. Just deep enough to drown a car. Kermit the Frog is dying of laughter on the dashboard.

The rich brine-laden air at the Richmond Costco gas station was like being on the high seas. Envigorating.

Did you know there's an Adopt A Drain program? My cousin was helping friends sandbag their house in Novato. Deep water on the horizon. People were out adopting drains. I think it's an excuse to play in puddles.

If we get an average amount of rain within a calendar year, and the snowpack holds until April, then it stops being a drought—which, of course, does not mean that we have enough water in our reservoirs. No snow pack = no summer water. We'd need weeks of steady snow to get enough water to break the drought.

The average yearly rainfall in Seattle is 36 inches, compared to 24 inches in San Francisco, Half Moon Bay 29", Berkeley 27", San Rafael 35", Kentfield 48", Occidental 57", Healdsburg, 42", Calistoga 41", and Santa Rosa gets 31 inches of rain per year. Then there's Cazadero at 100 to 200 inches.... Woodacre gets 38" so Forest Knolls is probably 45". The US average is 37 inches.

Contrary to what you may think, unless the Pineapple Express visits the Sierras, especially the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and the Mokelume River watershed, and suddenly turns cold, and snows, we ain't out of the drought yet. No rain at all in the Truckee River watershed. Tahoe's down by more than 85 feet.

There may be ten Mississippi Rivers' worth of rain stored in that long atmospheric river (nice one KQED), but the storm's dumping its payload in the coastal hills. It needs to rain lots in the southern Central Valley too. Not wash out to sea. We’ll only be able to say whether the drought is really over months from now. So don't flush.

Storm on Tam

Our first big storm of the year was merely a "wee drap" in the drought bucket—except on Mt. Tamalpais. There was a deluge. The Pineapple Express dumped over 23 inches in less than 24 hours! The mountain stole all the rain (why we need trees—to tickle the clouds). Apparently the Stinson Beach parking lot got a year's worth of rain all in one go. That's more than San Francisco's annual rainfall of 21 inches. 

Talk about a cliché: when it rains, it pours. Make that a deluge. If Mt. Tam snagged the lionshare of the storm—nearly 24 inches, I wonder what Cazadero Ridge and Seaview Ridge snagged? (Someone said 20+ inches). When it comes to rain in epic proportions, Cazadero never disappoints. On the other hand, Willits (one of the seven towns about to run out of water along with Healdsburg and Cloverdale) only got 6.6 inches. A drop in the bucket.

Meanwhile, the South Bay got almost no rain at all (a half an inch,) nor did the rest of California—from Sacramento on south. Drought means salt water intrusion in the freshwater Delta. Which translates to poor water quality in the South Delta which feeds water to the Bay Area, including Santa Clara County and East Bay cities like Fremont and Livermore; the Central Valley and Southern California. We're still in drought mode, folks. Batten down, and carry on with that rain dancing thing that you do.

added 2/17
see take 1. Deluge

RIP Jack Gilbert

Joy Harjo, Bob Hass & Linda Gregg

I met Linda Gregg backstage at the Watershed Poetry Festival in Berkeley in September—Bob Hass said, Maureen, do you know Linda Gregg?

And my jaw hit the floor.

I told her about an after-school softball game I watched at Lagunitas School—the Gregg twins were on 2nd & 3rd base, Billy Joe Bianchi hit a home run and when they ran, they were so freckled and golden, I was in awe.

Someone was up at bat. Maybe it was Liz Haas. Or one of the Farley boys. I remembered them from catechism class.  I think it was Lagunitas vs. Nicasio. It was a foul ball that rolled right down the third base line and turned out at the last minute, so everyone had to retrace their steps.

I was about 6 or 7, so baseball was a mystery to me—but Billy Joe was my neighbor (family friends). So, I watched the game and cheered  as he brought them all home.

Linda was a little blown away by the baseball story—expecting something more modern, perhaps—her role as a major poet and me as sycophant—instead it was about a childhood softball game.

As it turned out, her sister was in the audience, too. So I got to meet the Gregg twins together again. I always want to call her Alma, but that's the name of Linda's seminal poetry book—if women can have a seminal books, that is. But perhaps her sister was Linda's Alma. Louise lives in Tomales. The weather has taken its toll on her. She favors the same plaid shirts as did her father. Tough no-nonsense women, the Gregg twins. 

Linda & Louise Gregg

Linda had just come from seeing Jack Gilbert. She said that he wasn't doing well. His mind may have taken flight. But he always knew her. A bond that deep.

I'm racking the brain as to how the story is possible as they are 10 years older than me but Lagunitas was such a small place in those days and I started school early—perhaps they also started school late, to make the timeline work.

Or, they were already in high school. I remember someone saying they were 8th graders—and that seemed like such an impossible distance in time, I couldn't fathom it. Maybe Carol Manning remembers it better.

STREAMSONG

I grew up within the melody range of streams
Our watershed creeks were named Arroyo & Barranca
for things bone-dry but our streams ran year-round,
a raging torrent in winter, a small song in summer
where minnows nosed the rocks in shallow pools
and snapped up damselflies and larvae
Sometimes I'd catch fingerlings in my palms
I'd build rock dams to deepen the pools
and then cup my hands to scoop them up
One spring I caught three small salmon fry
and kept them close in a mayonnaise jar
i marveled at their olive spots, their mouths groping
the way their silver undersides
flashed and wove water into threads of light
but we were going to my aunt's for the summer
so I screwed the lid on tight and toted my troutlings with me
I caught flies, small insects, I fed them hamburger
After a few weeks of city living, two went belly-up,
I gave them fishy funerals by the seashore
But one fish survived the long ride back home
The pools on Barranca Creek seemed so small
after seeing the world like that,
my fish was well traveled, so I set him free,
I slipped him into the cool depths
of the wine vat that was our spring-fed water tank
The daddy-long-legs on the cover
bounced in unison as if to say yes!
I never told my grandmother where I'd set him free.
I was perfecting the art of omission of truth.
Daily I hiked up the hill, maybe it was guilt that drove me
or perhaps I wanted to prove the adults wrong,
that the fish could live with us after all
But I never thought to the future,
or that I had interrupted a lifecycle
I kept tabs on that little fish
as he nosed at the bright algae
growing on the walls of the tank,
I marveled at the way
a shaft of sunlight sliced the darkness of his pool
and he'd swim towards the light,
but the tank couldn't sustain him
By summer's end he was gone,
melted back into the water
and I drank him in, salmon wisdom
returning home to natal grounds.

9/29/2012

This piece was written for Watershed Festival—I was a featured poet on the Strawberry Creek walk. I read this piece to the creek with other poets.

17th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

17th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
Saturday, September 29, 10:00 a.m.

Strawberry Creek Walk • Meet at Oxford & Center Streets in Berkeley.

Creek Walk poets: Chris Olander, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Maya Khosla, Rebecca Moos, Maureen Hurley, Rebecca Moos, Kim Shuck

 
A walk from Strawberry Creek on the UC Berkeley campus to the Watershed festival led by poet/eco-educator Chris Olander with poetry readings by poets and commentary by creek restoration experts, featuring Chris Olander, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Maya Khosla, Maureen Hurley, Rebecca Moos, Kim Shuck, Tim Pine (UC Berkeley), Kirstin Miller (Ecocity Builders).

Festival Main Stage • Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park
Robert Hass • Joy Harjo • Michael McClure • Brenda Hillman • Francisco X. Alarcón • Rebecca Foust • Richard Silberg

— with Michael McClure, Brenda Hillman, Maya Khosla, Francisco X. Alarcon, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Eileen Hale, Richard Silberg, Tim Pine, Poetry Flash, Chris Olander, Rebecca Foust, Joy Harjo, Rebecca Moos, Joyce Jenkins, Robert Hass and Kirstin Miller.

River of words watersheds

Riding through the watersheds, be quiet, let the river come to you. Use nature and preserve it as a resource. The culture we live in affects the poetry of rivers. East west. Field guides become textbooks. Forgotten languages. Discover your life place at the river's edge. River patterns in the Bay Area, 16 rivers speaking in tongues through the mouth to the bay, it is an unparalleled language. Water thieves: Peripheral Canal, Owens Lake, the Cadillac desert, Mono Lake. Water wars and designer water. What about the underground rivers and the archaic aquifers? Who will speak for them?

While Reading Essays by Robert Hass

Dear Ones: This old post from 1987 languished for years, literally unread—and suddenly I have an audience, I don't know why, but thank you for stopping by. A little Blogger stats sleuthing uncovered Ron Siliman's blog as a redirect. I am thrilled that Ron mentioned it. Over the moon. But puzzled as there is no mention or link anywhere on his most excellent blog. Or why this particular blog piece—as it's merely an old journal entry, not literary criticism. Ah. the vagaries of the internet. Dear Reader, thank you for stopping by. Feel free to drop me a note via comments. I won't publish them if you don't want them published. I'm dyin' to know how you arrived here in this remote corner of cyberspace—Maureen Hurley 4/29/12

One April Fool's Day, circa 1985, I was reading a book of new essays, "Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry," by Robert Hass (Ecco Press—a well-respected independent New York press, now an imprint of HarperCollins), but his riverine metaphors contained so many geographic errors, I completely forgot what the poetic point of the essays was. What kind of joke was this?

No typo, the 140-mile-long Truckee River was suddenly emptying out at the headwaters of Lake Tahoe and switching directions mid-stream by running down along I-80 into the Pacific Ocean instead of dying in the alkali sump of Nevada's Pyramid Lake—remnant of prehistoric Lake Lahontan? And my natal West Marin watershed, Lagunitas Creek, was apparently running uphill into the Nicasio Valley instead of by Camp Taylor to Tomales Bay.

At least my grandfather's summer neighbor, Kenneth Rexroth, who had a cabin near China House in Lagunitas, knew which way the creek ran:

Under the second moon the Salmon come,   up Tomales Bay, by Papermill Creek,   up the narrow gorges to their spawning beds in Devil’s Gulch.

I was far too shy to to say anything to Bob at the time, but poet Sharon Doubiago said, You must write what you know to be true—even if it's hard, or rubs against the grain. It is the poet's job to get the facts right. Besides, it was the fragile beauty of the West Marin landscape that led me to the art of poetry.

So, afraid of the commitment to prose, I scribbled a few dyslexic notes I didn't know what to do with, typed it up, transferred it to my old Apple IIc, and forgot about it— until now, some 20 years later, when prose no longer frightens me off with its insistent tyranny of syntax and logic, and an injured knee is keeping me flattened and couchbound.

A friend gave me a pile of old software with a translator tool that allowed me to (sort of) access the archived floppy disks that imprisoned most of my early work by way of obsolescence, which made my enforced immobility more bearable.

Though I had many opportunities over the years to mention the error to Bob, I never did summon up the courage to tell him that both watersheds would have to defy gravity and run uphill—the Truckee River whould have to reroute itself and climb out of the Tahoe Basin over Donner Pass (even the Donner Party ran into some trouble at the pass), and my own Lagunitas or Papermill Creek would be forced to leap its bed from one valley, and defy gravity to traverse the next valley to Tomales Bay.

Now, Bob Hass grew up in San Rafael, so he should have known where Lagunitas Creek emptied, but then he didn't spend any time in Lagunitas Creek. Not like me.
***

It was a bit ironic, if not poetic justice, that Bob was instrumental in the creation of the eco-poetic Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival. The last time I read at Watershed, we began with a medicine wheel and a drumming circle at Strawberry Creek at the bottom of the UC Berkeley campus.

Someone (was it my ex, John Oliver Simon?) read some Lew Welch poems, then traced the route of the undeground creek to Martin Luther King Jr. Park in front of City Hall. With a clear view down to the bay, at least Bob couldn't get the creek direction wrong here.

We straddled the millennium with poetry readings, we daylighted Strawberry Creek. Kush of Cloudhouse, who was filming the event, dropped a mike down the manhole cover in the midde of the plaza and the miked creek was allowed to speak in silverine during the readings. Our students read their River of Words poems to the music of the creek.

It was a glorious day—even if Bob got my name wrong and announced to the world that I was Maureen Heaney. Ironic, one of my grandmothers was a Heaney, a fact which once caused Seamus Himself and I to declare ourselves cousins after a tot or two of uisce beatha in an elevator.

Ironic also that Bob now lives near the mouth of Lagunitas Creek, a few miles from White House Bend in Inverness. I wonder if anyone ever told him, or if he ever corrected the error when the book was republished by HarperCollins?
***

But back to my story: the name of Papermill creek changes according to history and whim and usage. We locals called it all Lagunitas Creek. I know where Lagunitas, or Papermill Creek empties. At one time or another, I've ridden, swum, and fished most of the entire 20-mile length of the creek from what we called its headwaters in Woodacre. (The topo maps differ from our collective knowledge, calling it San Geronimo Creek, with Lagunitas headwaters arising on the north slopes of Mt. Tam. My uncles called that creek out of Alpine Dam the Cataracts and the Great Carson, not Lagunitas. Outsiders are changing our collective oral history with printed maps.)

Whatever you want to call it, Papermill Creek, or Arroyo de San Geronimo, traverses to Olema and Point Reyes, to its final destination, Tomales Bay. I've traversed most of it, except for one last stretch at Tocaloma, to the Gravel Pits, to Point Reyes—a missed opportunity—but the new landowners are possessed by the idea of boundaries and fence lines. Not like the old days when we were left to our own aimless wanderings. As I thought about all the creek names, my memory took the long road home.
***

In deep summer, we rode our horses bareback down the tree-lined length of Lagunitas Creek, swimming them through dark pools. One hot summer afternoon, I rode the entire length of the creek bed from Forest Knolls to Tocaloma on an elderly white Arabian gelding named Namún. It was well over 100° and he was at least 100 in horse years.

And though we were lazily plodding along, cool and deliciously wet beneath a canope of alders and redwoods, on the way home, my horse broke out in heat welts and began to wheeze and cough. I thought, omigod, he is going to die right there in the creekbed.

How was I going to explain to his owners why their favorite old horse died in the creek? I splashed Namún's body with water, but it didn't do any good. I had to leave the old man cooling off in a deep, sheltered pool near Jewell. I stroked his neck, he nuzzled me, as if seeking comfort, then despondently hung his head dangerously low into the water, and began to buckle his legs, as if to lay down.

I felt I had inadvertently broken some rule, but, other than distance, what was it? Arabs, renown for their stamina, can go on forever. Namún, don't lay down and drown on me! I pleaded. He seemed to understand. Straightened and locked his legs. Hung his head dangerously low to the water.

I scrambled up the silted embankment to the highway and ran through the hamlet of Jewel, screaming for help—and got someone to call to Namún's owner, horse trainer, Edie Lehman. Jewell had about three houses. Luckily someone was home.

Edie arrived in no time, pulling the big horse trailer with its green Rafter L Ranches logo. They lived down the road from me in the old Berini place on Arroyo Road. I was a stable hand and exerciser for her horses.

She showed me how to inject Namún with the antihistamines and when his breathing stabilized, we led him up the embankment and loaded him into the trailer. I never rode in the creekbed again.
***
Papermill Creek changes its name depending upon which part of the valley one lives in. In the San Geronimo Valley it's called Creamery Creek, the Dollar Creamery is long gone, but the place name survives as a Creamery Road.

In Lagunitas it assumes the moniker, Lagunitas. At Shafter's, the pools are all named. The creek becomes the Inkwell, and China House Bend. At Camp Taylor, where the rag papermill was founded, it becomes Papermill Creek, where it winds around the dark side of Mt. Barnabe, named after Sam Taylor's white mule.

Then there are the Gravel Pits, my family's favorite swimming hole. Right before the creek reaches Tomales Bay, it becomes White House Pool—where Teddy Roosevelt was fond of fishing for coho and silver salmon.

No wonder Bob Hass had a hard time with the direction of his rivers. We had a handful of conflicting names for the same creek.

I grew up on the other side of Mt. Barnabe, on a southern slope in full sunlight. Barnabe's mule bones have long since slipped back into the earth. We used to loiter by the pools of Lagunitas Creek, Carson Creek, Devil’s Gulch, and Arroyo Creek when the salmon were running, we waited for that flash, coinage of silver, vermilion and green heralded the fall.

Though the Devil's Gulch route was the most direct route over the mountain, and was one of my grandfather's favorite hikes, it was such a long, hot and desolate ride over the summit of Mt. Barnabe to Camp Taylor, we kids avoided it.

Following the flat railroad bed from Lagunitas, or the creekbed to Tocaloma was the easiest route.

There was also a more northerly route over Mt. Barnabe that avoided the summit. It took us along the hogback ridges through abandoned apple and bitter pear orchards down to the deserted settlement of Devil's Gulch. I felt so far from home, thankful for the warm reassurance of my horse under me.

It was in Devil's Gulch where my mother stumbled into a wasp's nest as a child and was nearly stung to death. My grandmother cooled the poor child off in the creek and covered her stings with fine clay mud to draw out the poison. My grandmother said it was always a longer walk home. But when something went wrong, the road home doubled in distance.

Sometimes I made a circle up over Mt. Barnabe and down its steep slopes to Camp Taylor and then return home up the railroad bed to Lagunitas and Arroyo Road. At one point or another, I've ridden most of what's left of the railroad beds from Woodacre to Tocaloma.

Early mornings, we'd race our horses along the flat stretches of railroad bed to the park gate. I always pulled out ahead at the quarter mile, but a two-mile course fatigued my quarter horse, and the nags would always pull ahead. Even Brenda Bullock's Icelandic pony, Helgar, or little Susie Mattsson's plug could beat my mare on the two-mile run.

Soon after that, my mare pulled up lame, but I was 15, and addicted to racing, I avoided the warning signals. Riding her bareback at breakneck speed was an unmatched thrill. She was pure verve and muscle, it was like riding a barrel down Class Two rapids.

One time when Becky Dart ran away with me at Kent Lake, I sawed on the bit until flecks of blood and foam decorated us, her tongue nearly cut in two by the metal snaffle bit. But still she ran, a Three Bars mare at heart.

It was spring, my sorrel mare was out to grass, but foxtails carpeted her wound. Every day I had to tweezer the stickers and oats out of the raw flesh, which I cauterized with silver nitrate. Daily I was reminded of what I'd done to this animal by racing her, she came from a long line of champion race horses, it was in her blood to run.

Granddaugher of the fabled Three Bars, my mare had the thoroughbred lineage of kings in her blood. She was one degree removed from The Preakness, the Kentucky Derby, Sarasota Springs. When my aunt's friend Chuck traced her pedigree, at first, he thought it was forged, but he said, If this proves to be true, you've got quite a valuable mare there, she could beget champions even if her knees were bad.

It was like finding a secret treasure in the woods, or a Vermeer hidden under an artless painting. There wasn't another horse in the valley who could match her at the quarter mile, and no one would race me unless it was a long track.

It was precisely on those kinds of afternoons when you knew spring had arrived. We'd ride and ride for miles on the open road. Time took us on a curious echoing quality. I can still recall the poignancy of late afternoon rides and the dappled roads under tall trees. Bleeding hearts, checker lilies and false Solomon's seal nodding their heads. Trilliums spreading their tripartite wings.

Riding horseback was as natural as walking or breathing. My best friend Stephanie Stone and I rode everywhere. We grew up and lost touch. I hadn't head from her in years. Her brother Eric said she had a horse in Arizona to ride and that helped to keep her sane through a loveless marriage. But that's when the drinking began. She kept it to herself. Held it in until the cancer ate her marrow.

At seventeen, after my mare tragically died of colic, from eating too much new spring grass in the Bianchi's pasture, I worked for the Lehman's training stable. I showed their horses at gymkhanas, I collected armloads of blue and red ribbons, but I didn't want to own another horse, losing her was devastating. She was big and beautiful, there was so more of her to love.

At nineteen, my other interests, my art—demanded that I move into the larger area of the world. I was at odds. Two worlds colliding. I had a chance to travel, a work-study job in Switzerland. I was sorry to leave, I almost didn't go to Europe, but Edie said, Don't be silly! It's a chance of a lifetime. Go! Have fun!

There were plenty of other girls, like Donna Lopez—who once unscrupulously kicked my horse right when I was in front of the judge, costing me the blue ribbon—girls like her were only too happy to step into my coveted job. And so she did.

I felt a crippling loss, separated from the horses like that. There was nothing much left of my childhood landscape. And so I sometimes dream of horses, and wake up with an inconsolable sense of longing. Everyone else moved into bucolic Marin. They came from LA, and from back east, they bought up the valley, they quickclaimed it and put up plywood palaces, they put up electric fences, they dammed the creeks and gated the roads.

They brought their urban nightmares with them. Runaway horses on the precipice.

When the invaders came, we lost more than our right of way. We lost our way.

The wild creature within me has slowly become urbanized with time. But I still dream of following the horses on endless fire roads running along the horizon.

Twenty years later, laid up with a bad knee, I am remembering it all as if it were yesterday. No point, no point of view. Merely Bob Hass's rivers running uphill against memory and time.

© rev. 2007; April 1, 1987, Maureen Hurley