From May 13 through June 10, eight Arizona State University students, pursuing a mixture of art and sustainability degrees, enacted a very near future in a remote location in the Mojave Desert. We were hosted at the Dryland Lab of the MATZA project of Séverin Guelpa (see https://matza.net).

During our project the participants were permitted 4 gallons of water per person per day. Within this context of resource scarcity, the participants could self-organize how they would govern their limited resources. The project was inspired by the work of Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, “a Californian girl” who started her academic work by studying groundwater governance in California and won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2009 for her work on governance of common resources. Ostrom’s work show that it is possible for groups to avoid the tragedy of the commons; the overuse of shared resources.

This art-science project created a situation where eight individuals had to share limited resources and had to cooperate to cope with these resource constraints. The participants achieved these goals since they used only about 3 gallons of water a day. Participants initiated additional goals: addressing their collective and individual privilege/responsibility related to water use; and a desire to exist alongside one another in harmony and foster an environment where the usual patterns of domination and coercion are not reproduced.

Drylab 2023 has now ended and the eight women have returned to the present with no restrictions to water use.

Although the experiment has concluded, we will use this website to feature project outcomes. We are producing a short documentary, will write papers and other reflections on this unique experience in “extreme experiential learning.”

So stay tuned!

Project directors

Marco Janssen, Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

Adriene Jenik, Professor, School of Art, Arizona State University

ONE MONTH PASSED, REFLECTIONS

Its been one month at Drylab. It feels like we’ve always been here- born in the desert to hot days, little water and this weird little family we’ve created. Only soon this will be as much a memory as the days before water privatization, drought and war. Soon indeed. The group has already begun to part: Moso left to meet her husband. Saf and Na.Ru moved on too. Who knows where BCC: will go next but we hope to hear her voice on the radio again someday.

Our initial calculations had us staying at Drylab 30 days at 4 gallons each/day but we used our water well and have enough left over to sustain the rest of us for at least another 29 days. For those staying behind, we’ve agreed on a new way to manage the water: our remaining supply will be completely communal and we will take only what we need each day. No personal vs. communal allotment, no banking extra water for future personal use. We will be 100% accountable to each other and our ability to stay here are long as possible.

Perhaps our initial decision to allot 3 of our 4 daily gallons to personal use was a result of being raised in a capitalist culture and it felt safer or just easier to manage it individually… easier and safer to be accountable to ourselves rather than each other who we barely knew. Now however, we’ve worked out our systems for limited water use and we know how much we actually need. And perhaps more importantly, we have formed a community- a deep caring for each other’s well being. Maybe it is these things that have loosened our feelings towards sharing a limited resource? Maybe now it doesn’t matter how we allot the water? Maybe it is these things that will take us through our new reality? This remains to be seen.

SAF

I spent a month in the desert and I don’t know why. It’s easy to say there’s a reason, an explanation, to create a synthesis of my experience, but it would just be words.

I imagine it will be years before I truly know the impact of Drylab. What I do know is that I was set. I knew who I was and what I was doing. I was vaguely dissatisfied with life, it was traveling along its merry way, buffeting my in its wake, but I knew that and I was alright with it. Then I was given this assignment. I fit the criteria, though exactly what that was, I don’t know.

And I spent a month in the desert, on desert time, no clocks, no screens, no scheduled life, just myself, the other women, and the landscape we dwelled in for that short time. We had our own agendas, our reasons for being there. We were very different people, but we managed to live with each other. Truly, exist with other people, without distractions or the filters we usually experience the world through. The strength and give of our minds was the filter.

And we lived.

I walk along the road side. Cars pass occasionally and the sun scorched my skin. I have gallons of water strapped to my hips and I refill them when I am able. The cold at night chills me. I sleep in ditched among refuse, wrapping sun-bleached scraps around me. I keep walking.

I will find the new me. It will take some searching and some time, but eventually, I will be able to greet the person I have become, to shake her hand and hug her and laugh at the harsh moments we experienced. And a few years after that, when I have had other encounters and been to other places, I will recognize the person I have become then. I will embrace her and we will look forward to meeting all her sisters yet to come.

Na.Ru

The women each taught me about themselves, how they move through the world, and how they manage to live sustainably. I still cannot fathom how excessive our lives were before the war. It feels hopeless still that our standard for living was so harmful to our bodies and to earth. I used to worry that I wouldn’t be able to make it with less; I would miss the good life too much. I still think that sometimes, but I know that if I practice gratitude and open my heart to the world and to humanity that I will empower myself enough to survive and cultivate meaning and worth in my life.

I left the group to return home. I don’t plan on remaining long, I just need to gather my family and get them ready for the trek to the Pacific Northwest. I hear there are an abundance of water and a culture of sustainability an activism still going strong there. Since Washington became an independent state, people have been able to enjoy sanctuary and live with more peace.

I used to write off places like Seattle and Portland as privileged white bubbles twisted with classism and racism. I realize now that I must forgive the cities for their shortcomings, assume positive intention, and be the force of progressive humanity that I envision is best.

I used to think that all of the work that Seattle was getting done (the pollution tax, the waste reprimands) was irrelevant and miniscule until the rest of the country adopted those practices. I realize now that pockets of progression like the cities have been models for real change, and it is very important that they exist. Large scale and widespread change is crucial, but society doesn’t work that way. We are going to crash. We need to be resilient, and people are usually resilient.

I will carry my family with me, discussing with them and teaching them the methods that I’ve learned this month. There are many checkpoints and militias along the way, but we must try. We will travel at night, walk, and hitch rides if we find people we can trust. I have heard of networks of people who help folks like us, like Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad. There’s enough on this earth for everybody. We cannot manage ourselves with hate and alienation. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

MOSO: I have known for some time that I do not like the city, and I have been waiting for my chance to escape it. Drylab gave me that chance. I have left drylab to search for my husband and have returned to the city before venturing northeast. It has been no easy transition. I don’t wake with sun. In fact, I don’t see how I could, my room is so dark. While there is the relief of air conditioning inside, I find it discomforting and prefer to spend my day outdoors. But there is no breeze to cool my skin and the only noises I hear are cars and police sirens. A wall blocks my view, and if it were not there, another home would still stand in the way. The sky is a dingy gray and purple haze at night, and only a few stars are strong enough to shine through. I don’t think I will ever fully transition, but hopefully I won’t have to.

I am staying with a friend of a friend for the time being, a home equipped with running water. The toilets flush. The sink turns on full force. Water falls from the showerhead. The first time I turned on a faucet, I panicked. I quickly shut it off and felt a tinge of guilt. All that water in a mere second, down the drain. No basin to collect it for another use. During my last few days at drylab, when things were running smoothy (outhouse was up, graywater and my own water storage were at a surplus), I felt myself begin to relax. I treated myself and took a two-gallon shower. But to what gain? That extra gallon could have sustained me a day longer or helped a friend in need. Now I find myself back where water runs freely, but there is still a cost. And today, it is too great to waste a drop.

NAYARA:

It has been a month now, I have gotten used to idle time. I have finished four books and write regularly. The people in the café have really opened up to me. I guess it is because I am there all the time. I would even say we have become friends. I had even invited them over for dinner the other day and our group made a huge feast, only two people showed but we were still happy to break bread with new people. The heat still makes us lazy, at the hottest part of the day most of us do not do anything it is just too hot to handle. We lay there and let the sweat roll off us. I have finally gotten used to being dirty, sometimes when I get wet from doing dishes or something, the dirt starts coming off and it’s a little awkward if I wasn’t intending to clean up. We all have gotten used to sleeping outside every day and that is how I deal with the heat. What I like the most is our routine, we have gotten in kind of a process that we know the same way every day, people have broken off into groups, naturally gravitating towards like-minded individuals. The day is broken into three parts for me, making breakfast, waiting for lunch and cleaning after dinner. The only activities I partake in fit between these three-time units.

I use less than a gallon of water a day, I created a surplus, in fact, I have the most surplus of the group and thus plan to stay longer now that I am able.  I don’t know where I will go next. I thought that the USA would be the answer to the drought but it seems that they are suffering too. It does not seem likely that I will be able to find a surplus of water that I could share with my family. I feel that I have failed in this mission, perhaps though with this new-found wisdom of living lighter and off one gallon a day, I can go back and practice it. After all, these were the ways of my grandparents, and now that the modern is going extinct, I must go back to relearn the traditional ways that will save us from this situation. Living here has taught me how to live lightly, work towards a circular life cycle for consumption, and how to cook food made from real, raw, ingredients instead of that processed food that we strived so hard to eat back home so we could look fancy eating Western food. I think of water differently now, I can no longer let it go down the drain, I must catch it and use it again. Round like the earth, it is the natural way of things, things were meant to be reused again on this finite planet

SKIP.

Our projected month is coming to an end. Though we were smart with our water usage and saved up to stay longer, many feel it’s their time to go.

As per usual we are split down the middle, 4 are choosing to stay, 4 will go.

Estranged. Will this be like my last group?are we meant to move through the world replacing one with the other?
I look at the relationships we’ve created. The bonds that were made.
Will we stay in contact and if so, how?

I made a friend at the market, she has invited me to spend time at her property.
I don’t have much to offer in exchange other than time and labor.

She lives a simple, sustainable life. She very much so understands the scarcity of water.

She has running water and a flushing toilet. She offers me a shower and I accept.

Running water scares me. Where does it go? Does it only have one use? Why does it move so fast?

Survival. To survive you think past A.
You think past turning on the faucet to wash your hands, brush your teeth, take a shower, rinse a vegetable.
You think past using two gallons of fresh water to flush the toilet.

How can I collect this? What else can this be used for? What is my order of actions, wash face, then my body, then my clothes? Are the ingredients found in my products (body wash, shampoo, detergent, etc.) safe for my garden?
What can I do with the running water while it comes to temperature? Too cold to rinse my body, but not to rinse my hair.

How have we not created systems that address these issues. Why are we still flushing the toilet with fresh water?

Like minded, my friend and I discuss changes that can be made and systems that can be fabricated.

I finish helping her with a project and the topic of “what’s next for you Skip” comes up. I don’t know.

For now I will return to Drylab while I still can. My time is not done there and I must rejoin those who are left of my family of odd kins.

He Came To Drain the Swamp but instead, He Drained the Aquifers

 

Some of you have been wondering how exactly we got to this point – exiled within this country with no legal access to potable water. Some part of the story can be traced back to our neighbors here in the Mojave – Cadiz, Inc.

If you remember, it really felt like the end of the world after Trump got elected. At first, most Americans acted in a rational way, mass mobilization as a response. But after awhile, people got desensitized; they stopped showing up and they stopped paying attention. Circumstances gradually got worse in many sectors, especially regarding environmental stewardship, but as people adjusted to “the new normal” the decline was able to happen without protest or mass response.

A pivotal point in this downslide can be traced back to the Cadiz aquifer system. For ten years prior to the 2016 election, the federal government acted rationally to protect desert water resources – continuing turn down the prospective water scheme (which claimed ownership over an ancient aquifer in the Mojave desert proposing to redirect it with many miles of pipeline in order to supply Southern California’s insatiable thirst). The Cadiz, Inc. project set a number of precedents including the beginning of the privatization of water, as a claim was made that the “owner” of the water was a private company called Cadiz, Inc. who bought land above the aquifer. They would, in turn, sell this water to a public Metropolitan Water District in Orange County, CA. SoCal’s increasing population, development, and overconsumption even during years of drought left it operating in a state of scarcity indefinitely, looking for new water sources to fill swimming pools and keep lawns and golf courses green.

The Cadiz, Inc. project required an investment of over $150 million dollars to build a 43-mile underground pipe from the Cadiz aquifer in the Mojave desert to the Colorado Aqueduct, after which it will merge with water headed to the coastal cities. Cadiz had no prior experience building infrastructure yet was contracted to build this underground piping that would supply entire municipalities. The founder of Cadiz was a British man named Keith Brackpool “who came to the U.S. after pleading guilty to criminal charges relating to securities trading in Britain”.  However, Brackpool had friends in high places that allowed this horrible plan to continue even after scientists and locals organized to stop it; namely the former Governor of California, Gray Davis, people on the California Public Utilities Commission and even the Secretary of the Interior.

As scientists had been arguing for years, the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project was not ecologically feasible. They started drawing 50,000 acre-feet a year (equivalent to ~16.25 billion gallons a year or put in another way Cadiz pumped “enough water from the desert to fill the Rose Bowl to the brim, and then drain it all away, 194 times a year”. However, USGS stated that Cadiz had overestimated the aquifer’s recharge capacity (how quickly the water fills back up the aquifer) by 15x. Instead of the supposed 32,000 acre-feet a year rate Cadiz claimed was safely available to extract through regular recharge; the recharge rate was closer to 5,000 acre-feet a year. If the science had been able to be presented and taken seriously – the project never would have passed an environmental review.

This then became the lynchpin of the project, for those who were against it, all they needed to do was get the government to conduct a thorough environmental impact review (EIR) of the project and that would be the death of this nonsensical boondoggle. Under President Obama, and with the support of CA Senator Dianne Feinstein, it seemed like this project was killed off, but as soon as Trump got into office he accelerated this project to number 15 on his list of 50 national infrastructure investment priorities. The project’s fate, and the fate of this fragile desert ecosystem was sealed. When one of Cadiz’s CEO’s former employees became nominated as Deputy Secretary of the Interior, it further demonstrated the power of political influence, as the Deputy stripped California BLM of its authority, allowing BLM administrators in Washington DC to wave away all regulations and environmental review, green lighting our current disastrous state.

Immediately, the project relocated enough water to supply 100,000 houses or 400,000 people, allowing Southern Californians to continue to grow past their means; developing larger cities in a land that could not sustainably supply more people with water and that would be threatened as soon as this water source dried up. As was suspected, which is why the Council for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit, within a few years we started seeing damages to the Mojave Desert ecosystem. The pools of water Cadiz, Inc. had categorized as “wasteful”, were islands of oasis for migratory birds, reptiles, raptors, and Bighorn sheep. When these dried up, so did these desert populations that relied on them. Sacred Native American sites like the Old Women Mountains were also severely and irreversibly damaged by the draining of the aquifer system. Most immediately apparent was the desiccation of the Bonanza Spring, which “fed a half-mile corridor with towering willows and cottonwoods”. This spring was supporting much of the desert wildlife, so when it dried up vegetation and animals perished. As had been suspected but not confirmed, Bonanza Spring, a spring that had existed for hundreds of years, even before they started keeping records, was fed through the aquifer as well. The saddest part is once this ancient spring dried up there was no going back, “Once a spring dries up, the hydrological connectivity is broken, the soils deflate and the spring cannot be re-established” (Anderson, 2017). But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Once this project had been approved it set the precedent that water underneath private property belonged to the surface property owner, allowing corporations to privatize a natural resource – making quick millions while killing off the regional ecosystems that have developed and been stewarded for millennia. As the Mojave desert dried up, the Joshua Tree communities began to be affected. Though the majority of aquifers they relied on were in Joshua Tree National Park, after two years of Trump’s military-heavy and ecologically light budget, the USA was in the type of debt that banks didn’t want to loan to and the price of the dollar fell sharply. Desperate, Trump did what any cutthroat capitalist would do: privatize government to “balance the budget” while still ignoring that 75% of the budget was spent on the military for guns and bombs. Schools, prisons, post offices, and parks were a few of the many things that became privatized. When the National Parks went up for bid to private corporations it was mining and water companies that bid highest to get at the minerals and other natural resources that were being conserved by the Parks. This blew open the floodgates, creating an open season for drilling, mining and exploiting the planet. The aquifers under the Joshua Tree National Park were some of the first to vanish, since, without increased conservation efforts, coastal Southern California was insatiably thirsty.

With groundwater depletion now the order of the day, ecological chaos ensued, ecosystems crashed and the flora and fauna that had once brought over 2 million visitors to Joshua Tree National Park were devastated, their populations falling below recovery.  Even worse is that the aquifers in the San Andreas fault that dried increased the plate tectonic activity and the risk of earthquakes. Thus we find ourselves in this spreading state of financial, ecological and physical instability.

In just a few years, the actions of a greedy government and short-term profiteers, which ignored the ecological wisdom of the scientists and Native people, had ruined the desert ecosystems and communities of Southern California.

Now what will we do?

 

Editor’s Note:

This is science-based fiction, all the facts presented here are real and the outcomes of the future though have not happened yet are plausible realities based on these facts presented and the trajectory we are on. The facts come from credible sources (that are linked directly in the article) as well as interviews with the following experts: lleene Anderson, Senior Scientist/Public Lands Deserts Director at Center for Biological Diversity, and officers of the scientific resource division in Joshua Tree National Park, whose names will not appear as the new Federal government doesn’t allow them to talk about climate change with the public.

A Day in the Colorado River

Two nights ago, as we sat down to have dinner, we heard two men outside of our compound grunting as they pushed their car. We approached cautiously and asked them if they needed assistance. As always, we must be wary of outsiders and those who could be a part of the government.

These men were very friendly, however. They immediately told us their names, that they were hydro-engineers for the government, and showed us their identification. They asked if we had food, shelter, or tools so that they could fix their car and rest. Still worried to invite any strangers, especially government employees into our home, we asked them what they could offer us in return. The men said that they had clearance and private access to what water was left in the Colorado River, about an hour and a half from our compound at drylab.

 

We agreed on this exchange and allowed them to come into our compound and set up camp for the night. We helped them fix their car and offered them dinner and extra water so they would not run out on their journey. Over dinner, we had an interesting conversation about the nature of the government and the privatization of water. We also speculated from our conversation that these men didn’t necessarily want to be involved in the government, but had no choice if they wanted to continue to provide for themselves and have access to water without joining the military.

The next morning, we awoke early and followed the men to the Colorado River. Even from far away, the water looked fresh. We all ran to it finding immediate relief from the heat. The water was so clear and fresh, an incredulous oasis in the desert. The rocks were soft and smooth underneath our feet and gorgeous as they slipped with sand from our hands. It had been so long since any of us had seen so much water in one place. We spent hours there floating, relaxing, and swimming.

Although we know this experience was a symptom of our corrupt government, still we are thankful or the chance to swim in the clear Colorado River. Yesterday was more than an adventure to the Colorado River and a relief from the heat, however; it was a reminder of the humility that people can share, even amid crisis.

In Desert Time

SAF:

Time here is like a dream that has become reality, but one that has not yet fully been able to understand its new existence. The echoes of silence in my brain is now my waking world. The enchantment that exists in my heart has been blown away by desert winds and I find myself flying free. I am in a bubble of wakings, meals, and sunsets marred by the necessity of laundry and the sensuality of bathing. Time passes with only the end in sight and the present ever present.

BCC:

Time adheres to no man-made constrictions here.

Time, like the desert itself, abides by the sun. There is no need for a watch.

We rise with the sun to bask in the cool morning breeze as light creeps over the mountain.

High noon is the only place holder.

Three quarters to the sun directly over head – the heat begins to pound.

A siren of mortality alerts the flesh to seek shade.

Then we rest.

We slow down and layout, lowering the heart rate.

The worst is yet to come. The internal clock slows to a murmur and the layers of hot air sit  on top of themselves, elongated the day. But as the sun approaches the alternative horizon, the pace picks back up again. Bright orange-pinks flair out into the deeper blue sky.

Night is upon us. Time to gather and restore the bodies’ nutrients before we do it again.

We sleep under the stars in the yard with light blankets and neck support for an arena of dreams.

NAYARA:

The time passes differently in the desert, when you are out in the sun a few minutes feels like forever, but without cell service or internet time and days passed become a blur. The other day we went on a bicycle ride, we overshot the target by a few miles and ended up out longer than we had prepared for. We must have been out there for an hour, I honestly do not know how long we were out there because without cell service I don’t keep my phone on me and thus I don’t keep time on me. We ran out of water when we were about two football fields away, I could see home, which I knew had water there but it was so far away. At that point time seemed to stop and I could not get home fast enough, the few minutes to make it home seemed like hours, my mouth dried up and my salvia became foamy as my lips started to crack. It was the last few hundred feet but it could not end fast enough. However, for the most part I do not go out during the day because of this. Because of the lack of cell service and internet, time is now measured in meals for me. In the morning, I am often on breakfast duty I rise after the sun is up and prepare a meal before it gets too hot. Lunch is around the last bearable hours of the outdoors before nightfall. Dinner arrives once it gets dark, since it is too hot to eat in the sun, so we often have a late dinner. Bedtime for me is often once the dishes are cleaned, the meetings are over and most of everybody else is asleep. I do not know what day it is today, I don’t know how close we are to leaving and I don’t quite recall what month we are in now. None of this is important, what is important is that dusk is coming so dinner is soon.

MOSO:

the passing of time
understood by a series of numbers
7 days a week
24 hours in a day
1 o’clock
2 o’clock
and so on
society promotes schedule
be aware of the numbers

forget the numbers
let time be
adjust rhythms
the sun is your guide
listen to yourself
time will escape you
it was never actually important

KIRSTEN:

Measuring time here has changed. At the beginning, I was very reliant on my phone and computer for the time. Even thought I do not have phone service here, I would still carry my phone around in order to check the time. As the weeks have gone on and my days find a rhythm, time is more reliant on the sun and the actions that I associate with different parts of the day. When the sun is up, I know it’s time to get up. When the sun is setting, I know it is time for dinner and after dinner, it is time to sleep. At the peak of the day when the sun is high in the sky, I know I should be inside resting and taking refuge from the heat. Some days are different than others and there are still days that require me to use my phone to check the time, particularly on days when we have to leave early or go to town for food. I also measure days in terms of sleeps, as there are times when I am unsure of exactly what day it is. Instead of Tuesday, I would say two sleeps or nights from today. Once I began to organize my days around this new type of schedule, I found that they have started to go by very quickly.

JACK IN THE DESERT:

My phone is my clock. In the city I checked it often and by habit for notifications of one type or another. Noting the time was a perfectly good excuse for this compulsion. But there is no cell reception here, so: habit broken. 

I barely look at the time now that we are out here in the desert.

The increments of time are now told by the sun and the shade. There is short splinter of time when the sun cracks the horizon and the entire desert glows pinky-orange. This is one increment and its my favorite to wake up in. Then there is another, and its longer and golden blue. This increment casts shadows westward and it’s when we drink tea and talk in low voices and read or draw. Or hike. Or do physical work. The next increment is long and hot and bright and more challenging than the other ones. We each have our own way of moving through this chunk. And then it jumps to the eastward shadows when the tips of the desert glow golden yellow. This increment is for walks and blends into the next, when the sky is hazy and pastel. Then it’s the moon’s turn- she holds us in night until its time for the pinky-orange glow again.

SKIP:

Time has slowed down. I have slowed down. Gone in reverse if you can say. I use the elements to tell me the time. I rise with the sun and all her glory. And lay to rest when the moon is high above.

Morning tea bags remind me of the days passing. The cycling moon tells me of the days to come.

The moon, the sun, the hunger. Those are the time markers of my day.

Breakfast after tea. I used to skip breakfast, wake up and go.

Eat when I could, or worse when I remembered. Now I have learned to slow down, give myself time. Enjoy the morning coolness, conversations, contentment.

What do I run to? I don’t, I’ve learned to walk. Step away from the production line of make, make, make. Learn to live, to become present in the moment. The making will always show itself.

I know its lunch when my stomach sings the song of its people.

When the heat is reaching its max, I know it’s time to relax. Rest easy in the coolness. Not often found, but fabricated. Drenched sheets, shaded spaces, crafted breezeways.

When I rise, the heat has started to fall. My energy starts to peak and I find myself on an adventure. Walking, riding, searching, learning.

I return as the sun starts to set, switching spaces with the moon.

We gather for dinner. Togetherness, conversations, sharing, closing.

My clock has been swapped for a thermometer. The moon, the sun, the hunger.

Water Is Life

 

Today is the sixth anniversary of when Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord sealing the fate of living in our current world of climate change, catastrophe, and covfefe. We should have seen it coming when it was not even enough of a repercussion for the US to lose Germany as their ally, the USA continued to behave roguishly, acting as a bad neighbor to the rest of the world.

Even before this there were signs we did not value the commons we shared of clean water or air. In 2016, First Nations people of Standing Rock joined by what grew to be thousands of Indigenous people and allies from across the world came together to protest the Dakota Access pipeline. After the military attacked the civilians, they pushed the pipeline through without a proper environmental review. This would be a hallmark of the Trump administration, doing away with environmental reviews so we could not even be prepared for the disaster to come. The Dakota Access Pipeline would be built under the Missouri River, which later connects to the Mississippi river, together they make the third largest river system in the world. Trump called for “open season” for the oil and gas industry in America, unleashing the consequences we struggle with today. One of the worst was in North Dakota, after the Sioux people tried to warn us when they put their bodies on the line at Standing Rock. The Bakken oil fields that were getting fracked in North Dakota caused small earthquakes, affecting the river bed in Missouri cracking the Dakota Access pipeline, which laid underground. It was a slow leak and it flowed underground to the Missipissi river and the many tributaries connected to the Missouri river, poisoning Middle America’s water supply. This left  17 million people without water. The Mid West, the area of America largely responsible for electing Trump, so afraid of letting refugees in, were made refugees in their own country. Massive displacement and unemployment ripped through the middle of America, as farmers could no longer keep up the bread belt of America, once its fresh source of water was compromised.

This could have been avoided, if we had listened to the indigenous people when they spoke the wisdom that “water is life” as they were attacked by dogs and shot with water cannons in freezing temperatures. In Trump’s speech explaining why he pulled out of the Paris Climate Treaty, he said he didn’t want to “disadvantage” Americans (ironically the most advantaged people in the world). So instead of “disadvantaging” Americans with clean air and water, he rubber-stamped the oil and gas projects that took away Americans clean water supply. On this day, we reflect on what could have been if we had listened at Standing Rock and held ourselves accountable to the Paris Climate Accord. Alas, we went the wrong way.

This Morning We Rose to Find a Strange Sky.

This morning we rose to find a strange sky. It was dimmer than usual and the light reflected off of the mountain side appeared in hues of blue. Ominous clouds overhead. One by one we gather to the porch, quietly. Gather to greet the day and each other in a calm as our energy builds. Books are read, drawings and paintings ensue, conversation amounts.

Today an unnatural boom of sound waves traveled across the lowlands and echoed back from the mountains through the valley.

Bombs.

Bombs were being detonated nearby and an unsettling parallel presented itself. Here, in our community we gather in peace to find solutions. Through our working habits of harmony we live with the land, while the world outside pays to destroy it. Dissolving concepts of unified participation.

Hope, however, remains firm on the homestead. So, we carry on with compassion and contemplate how the world can join us. We know that with nightfall brings a new morning where we will gather on the porch. See you there.

 

Grand Opening

Earthship Construction with Alternative Soil-Building Methods

 

Today we started making the earthship side of the outhouse. We filled as many bottles as we could with plastic bags and sand from the ground.  This actually took the longest and required help from the whole group of eight of us to fill bottles for days. Earthships traditionally use cement but we wanted to use something greener since cement creation creates so much pollution. We wanted a sustainable material we could source locally. BCC: taught us how to make a type of building material made from sand and clay we found in the desert. The method she used was a hybrid between rammed earth, which uses more pressure and less clay and water, and Adobe which uses less pressure but more clay and water. Rammed earth would use 70% sand and 30% clay, where Adobe would use all clay and lots of water. Our sand was very dry so we decided to use about 50% clay and 50% sand.

We sourced the sand and clay locally, in order to find out the right type of material we tested it using a sedimentation test. We reused an old honey jar filling it up with half of the dirt we wanted to test it with. We filled the other half with water, shook it for a minute and then let it settle. The different layers of the soil will settle based on weight after a few hours (works best if you leave it for 12 hours but if the sand is heavier that is not necessary). Based on how the dirt settled tells you what type it is. The clay will sit on the top and then silt and then an organic layer (if there is one), soil, sand and then gravel.

Based off this we used sand and clay to make the building material. We split the sand and clay 50/50, and added only a little water so it was damp, not wet. To tell if the soil is at a good amount of moisture, we squeezed it together and saw if it held. We layered the plastic water bottles using the bottles like bricks with the earth like cement. We started with a layer of earth on the ground and built it up, laying the plastic bottles on top of each other with earth in between. Then we used a mallet to press the earth between the bottles, this had to be gently but firmly since because we used old plastic bottles they were brittle from being out in the sun and could crack. Also, the gentle part cannot be stressed enough, the first time we finished I was pressing it too hard and not putting enough earth between each one, and my whole side collapsed and we had to start over on that side! We also found that it helps if you only do a row or two at a time and let it dry in between. The wet earth doesn’t hold very well until it dries.

It was super awesome to be able to source this project completely out of manmade and natural materials found in the desert. It felt like it was a way of stepping lightly on the land we are living on.