Read the essay - Anne Whiston Spirn

MIT LIBRARIES
August 7,2007
ROTCH
Tapas
59~
Water
Design and Management
Partner of the International Federation of
Landscape Architects (IFLA)
Partner of the International Society of City
and Regional Planners (IS0CARP)
ShaPing the future
WATER.
DESIGN
AND
MANAGfMlNTI TABLE
JAMES QUINTON
14
79
GERMAN DEL SOL
Where City Meets Sea
82
Two new wi\lerfronts on New Zealand's (Oilst
~
,3'
JORDI BELLMUNT, XAVIER ANDREU
New Waterscapes for Singapore
84
Waler management for the enlire city
82 Wooden footbrIdges link the pools 01 the
Chilean Villarricil Nallonal Park.
Platia Llarga, Cap de Salou
New promenade ilnd Beach Club on Spain's (Oilst
KELLY SttANNON, B£NOIT LEGRAND
31
TermilS Geometrlcils Hot Spring Complex In the
Termas Geometricas
HoI Springs In lhe Chilean Vil1arrica National Park
fl(RB(RT DR(lSEITL
24
Jardim do La90, Brazil
Creating lakeside condominiums
RALPH JOHNS
j
CONTENTS
(CRNANOO CIlACEl
Point Fraser Wetland in Perth
A wetland purifies willer ilnd provides recreation
18
OF
KER5TIN
Aerated Lagoon Park in Ho Chi Minh City
89
Purification ponds reserve open spate
I~AUSWALD
Levadas as a Design Principle
Park at the River SaijVkente modelled on MadeIra's
historic-al Irrlgallon system
MARION wms. MIClfAEl MANrREOI
38
Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle
PtlILlPP[ TCUGItElS, KRISTlAAN BORRET
92
A new park connects the city with the sea
Redevelopment of Antwerp's Quays
Waterfrollt revitalization incorporates !lood protection
XI,AODI Ztfl:NG
45
The Ray and Maria Stata Center
HElKE RAHMANN
98
Innovative storm water management lor iI university
c.ampus In Cambridge, Massachusetts
GrORGE IfARGREAVES, t r7 CAMP8Ell KELLY
50
~
Interventions in Hydrology
RYDSUKE SHIMDDA
102
Integrating \Vilter management and public space In
~
Landscape Architecture In Japan
Series: The slate of the profession around the world
New Japanese Urban Housing
Basic landscape design strategies
the USA
84 Sa Iou. Spain: the pools of a new Beach
Club are r{'spectfuUy integrated into the slope
ANNE WHISTON $PtRN (lEXl AND PHOTOS),
above the coast and an existing pine forest.
Currents
DOROTttI:A LANGE (lfISTORICAL PlfOTOSj
58
The Conquest of Arid America
Irrigation In the
~i1gl!brush
dl!sl!rt In Oregon:
6
106
Calendar, Reports, Proj«ts
110
Authors
111
Credits/Imprint
News, Competitions
1939 and today
KAREN TAMIR
67
Rio Piedras Restoration Project
River restoration plan lor the Puerto Rican city San luan
DESIREE MARTINEZ
74
"g
"'~
Water Management in Mexico City
RegIonal plan for drinking water supply and wastewater
treatment
!
89 Madeira; a timber boardwalk and tevadas
made of Corten steel structure the park next to
the River Sao Vicente.
S
"Without water. the West Is
nothlng.~
Squaw Creek. Gem County, Idaho, 2S
(Allen Brown. farmer):
Septem~r
2006
58
Anne Whiston Spirn (text, colour photos)
Dorothea Lange (historical photos)
THE CONQUEST OF
ARID AMERICA
Photogrdpher Dorothea
~dnge
recorded In 939 th trdn formdtion of
sagebrush de ert in Oregon Into farmland by irngatlo" More thdn 60
ye r I ler Anne Whbton 'iplrn reVIS, ed h oldce
twas lale July up on Dead Ox Flat in eastern Oregon, just past Slll1~
risco The :lir cool. no hint of the heat to come (43 Celsius by afternoon). Scent of sage. Sound of water gushing from siphon into canal.
This 1:'IOd \\Ia~ desert in the nineteenth century when tile wagons lumbered
along the Oregon Trail not far from hcrc.:'ll1d DCJd Ox FI:l1 was still desert
in 1939 when the greaL photographer, Dorothea Lange. photographed the
Malheur Siphon. built in 1937 to bring the waler that transformed sagebru~h
desert into fields of alfalfa, corn and sugar beels.
, look at this scene and imagine the whole irrigation system: from the
Owyhee Reservoir about 65 kilometers to the south, its watershed reaching into evada, to the tail, the spill to the Snake River, about SO kilome·
lers north of here. The waler flows from dam to farm: in canal I siphons
and ditches, down drops and slides, through weirs. It wells up in bubblers,
sprays from nozzles, pours from siphon tubes into furrows, seeps into soil.
Today this system is mannged by the Owyhee Irrigation District, but it was
built by Ihe US Bureau of Reclamalion, one of many projects undert.aken
during the Greal Depression by the federal governmcnt to create ncw
farmland on which to re~etlle refugees from the Dust Bowl.
By 1939 hundreds of f;lmilies were establishing fMITIs on lhe Owyhee
Project, Jnd l.::Inge W.IS sent by the government to record lhese pioneers'
progress. The farmers told her their stories. i:>poke of hopcs and fcars. nnd
Lange made their port raits, photographed their homes and fields. and wrote
reports of their daily lives: "The Wnrdl:tw f~ll11ily sold thcir farm in northwest
Arbnsas and left on July 20, 1936, for southeastern Oregon. They had hCtlrd
about thc land from rclntivcs who live in IckdlO. They wcrc aile of the first
filmilies all the nat. They have half-grown sons, own forty acres [16 hectares I
59
The world's longest siphon. eight kilometers long,
2.5 meters in diameter, carries water to Dead Ox Rat.
Malheur County, Oregon. 16 October 1939
60
Malheur Butte and siphon seen from below Dead Ox Rat on
the opposite side of the valley from Lange's 1939 photograph. Malheur County. Oregon, 27 July 2006
of land free and clear, four cows, garden, chickens, and live in a dugout b.lSCment housc. They have no well yet ... Mr. Wardlaw 5a)'s: 'I've learnt.'tI to
irrigate by main strength llnd awkwardness. and the neighbor~ lold us:"
In 2006. more than sixly yeOirs l,ltcr.l travelled to Eastern Oregon and
met the families Lange had photographed in 1939. Glen Wardlaw remembers L1nge's visit and how he and his parents took their farm "out of the
sagebrush." His first job lVas to SOIV bluegrass seed along the ditch banks
"so the ditch would have something 10 hold it. Many time~. middle of the
night, you'd take a lantern and check the ditch, becnuse it would wnsh oul.
''''hen we first plowed this lnnd up, it was just like nOllr. And nnywhere you
stepped when il was wet, you'd sink in just as deep as it was plowed. If it
W(IS plowed eight inches, you'd sink in eight inche ,"Glen '''-'ardlaw left the
family farm as a young man. J Ie has n doctoral degree in audiology and
speech therapy. None of his ch ild rcn arc farmers,
"It takes three generations to make a go of it," :lccording to farmer Allen
Brown. "The lirst gener<ltion is just scralching dirt, and the second, 100. The
third generation can make iI, if they are still around. I'm standing on lwo
generations' shoulders." Brown has no fourth gencration lO farm the 30
hcctares along the Sn;lke River his gr;1I1dfat her took oul ofsagebrush in J 904.
61
The Dazey place. Homedale District, Malheur County,
Oregon, 16 October 1939
Right: water gate on the Old Owyhee Ditch, the wheel
padlocked to prevent tampering. Ontario, Malheur County,
Oregon, 24 September 2006
62
"If I had a son who wanted to farm ii, I'd run him orr." Farming today is too
tough. Allen's neighbor, Terry Oft, who took on his family farm after his
father's death, breeds registered Angus bulls and sells them to T;1nchcrs as
breeding stock, raises alfulfa for feed, onions as a cash crop. His st rates)' is to
spccialile and divcrsify.lle'~ doing fine, but there is no one else in the familyto takeover the farm when he retires. "'Ve'regetting 1950s pri es for cOlnl110dities nnd w(."re paying today's prices for seed nnd equipment," explains
one farmer 011 Dead Ox Flal. "It's hard to mnke n living un n farm smnller
than 120 hccl;Ircs. Those with 400 hcctarc~ or morc, they're doing hetter."
He just sold the farm his family homesteaded in the 1930s. Bcc.1USC the buyers arc not farmers. he will continue to farm the l.lOd as . 1 renter.
or someone f'lInilinr with the farms of the eastern United S13tes or
Europe or those of castel'11 Oregon, the scale of milny California
fnrms is inconceiv:lble. Property in nlifornia's Imperial Vnllcy. for
example, is in the hands of relatively few large landowners, many of them
absenlee. In the mid-I 90s, one corporation based in Texas amnssed
17,000 hectares of Imperial Valley farmland. A corporation ~uch as this
with diverse investments .lIld the goal of reali1ing the greatest profit will
be telnpted to Ireat water as a commodit y, especi~llIy when a thirsty city like
San Dicgo will pay morc for the water than could be re.lped in farming the
land. This is whal happened in the 1990s. That story i, told by William
deBuys in alt Dreams: Latld (lful Water ill Low-dohl" Califon/in.
"Six years ago national irrigation was n dream; today, Ihe dre:lm h.l~
come true," Willi:lI11 E. Smythe wrote in 1905 in the foreword to:l revised
edition of his 1899 book The om/llest of Arid America. Smythe's "dream
come true" was the ational Reclamation Act of 1902, which authorized
the U Government to plan and construct "irrigation wor~ for the Sl rage, diversion and development of waters" and to eSlnblish prices at which
irrigated Innds would be sold. 11 limited the size of properties to be irrigated 1065 hectares for nllY one 1~lOdowncr, who was required to live on lhal
land. By stipulating that larger farms wcre ineligible for water from federally funded irrigation projects, the law declared its intentions: 10 help
individual~ est.lblish family farms and not to ('nrich large landowners at
public expense. In the Imperi<ll Valley and many other Western regions,
this requirement was not enforced. In 1939. Lange photographed the Imperial Valley and wrote about the spread of"industrial agriculturc"lhere.
Dorothea 1';1I1ge, in the I930s and 19"'05, recorded a great American
exodus from f.lrm to cit),. Not long after that, the cities, too, were hemorrhaging population, and Al11cric::1I1 society is feeling the effects of a laler
exodus: the posl-''''orld War II pl<lnting of suburbia on former fnrml<lncls.
Subdivisions continue to crop up, way out in the countryside, one or two
hours' commute from new residents' jobs. Many small towns arc in trouble;
63
Sign on old bank building which today houses the office of
the Bureau of Reclamation. Nyssa, Malheur County, Oregon,
14 October 1939
Rlghl:Today many buildIngs In Nyssa are vacant, yet well
malntalned,lIke the Uotel Western. Nyssa, Malheur County,
Oregon,17 May 2005
64
65
Bottom: The Wardlaw couple at entrance of basement
dugout home. Dead Ox Flat, Malheur County, Oregon,
15 October 1939
Right: FarmerTerry Ott and his mother, Betty. South of
Ontario. Malheur County. Oregon, 28 July 2006
This essay
adapt d from An 1e Whl Ion 'SpIM\i .or"h lmmg book, 'larlng to
Look Dorolhea Lange:5 P otographs and Renort.s 'rom the fie'd wnl
Will b
pUbli '1ed by the Unl'ierslty of Chicago Press In spring ,WOS The book prtSt'nts
neve !)ffore p'JbUsned photog pM and field fl!port by Oorothe Lange Her
lmagn and
le~b
from several ,,('glans 01 a sli gle year. 1C) 9 portray Ame,1 5
rna lve upheJ'Ii'1 n j reqtUflment. private gre d and environmental degraoa
tlon plJbHc mlsca (u al on and efforts ~o
re~tore
ho
lie book al 0 recount
Whlsto Spirn s Journry to the plll t'S Uirge phologr phd
what she found lIn!rt' what as ,lhd h
01
'I
anged over he
I j9 relIed on
tl!rve Ing
decades and what signlficanc La ge s work of 19 i9 Ilolds fo Ihl! pre nl
A Qftlnl trOll th Graham Founiallon en bll!d Anne Whl 1011
and photograph h p ae
lang hJd portrayed n
photog phs re reproduced courtl,: 'i of the U
Cj
~p'rn
to tra
Jq Dorothe Lar g
L br ry of (onqress
66
I
~y
0
main street bu~inesses are losing ground to chain stores olltside down~
town, like Wal-Mart, KI11<lrt and Ilomc Dcpot.ln the Amcrican Wcst, such
national trends ;:Irc complicated by connicts over waleI' rigllls and usc,
between farmc.:rs and nOll-farmers, farm and city, city ilnd city. These ar'c
frlmilial' stories to many Americllns, but it is one thing to know them,
<lnother to visit hundreds of places, one after another, to experience the
consequenccs first hand and appreciate the scope of change. The nation is
bl...'ing rc-mnde on il Vllst scale.
"Without water, the West is nothing," one farmer told me. "They built a
pipeline acro s Alaska. They could build a pipeline from here to Lc'1$ Vegas.
And there goes our waler."Ta Allen I:3rown Jnd 'Ierry Oft, and fellow farmers in eastern Oregon, Wi.tter is what nurlur'es their livelihood and way oflife,
once considered the bedrock of American societ y and culture. To Las Vegns
and Phoenix and San Diego, cities of tile arid Wesl, water is what they must
h:wc to sustain a burgeoning population. To a corporation, especinlly one far
removed from the sourcc, \V<ltel' is a commodity to be bought ;md sold. To
the nation, walcr and fertile bnd should be treasured resources. not goods
to be sold to the highest bidder. Public investment in new infrastructure and
settlement p;llterns l11u:s1 not be undertaken lightly, fol' they ;Ire the framework within which socielycvolvcs.