When Water Falls
When water falls we seek ways to shed it. We build roofs to shed it from our heads, we build gutters to shed it from our home's edges. We slant our streets and install sewers to shed it from our neighborhoods. We dump it into creeks and send it on it's merry way. "Leave" we tell it, "go, we do not want you!". ...and goes it does.
We rip up our forests and our prairies, which slow water's movement and sink it deeper into the soil. We all too often farm or graze our livestock right to riparian edges, grossly destabilizing it. Nothing to slow the water as it obeys. We say "leave us, what could we do with you?" ...and into the creeks it goes... it takes our soil and our work and washes it away.
How many decades worth of soil creation have been lost to these recent floods alone, one day, one storm system. Where is our Texas pride as our state's top soil, silts in our dams and enters into the sea?
Then comes the drought, from whence we came. "Rain!" we will say, "Poor!" and the sun will beat down and the temperature will rise. There shall be no rain, creeks will run dry, lake levels will fall and we will plead for water to make our lawns green and the sky shall not hear, year after year. We know this it is what happens here.
We can not farm this year for it is too wet, but neither was last year that great for it was too dry. Too wet, too dry, too dry, too dry. Oh Texas, what will we do? Will watch our state turn to desert and it's soil wash away? Will we watch our state increase its population by tens of millions and not change our water use patterns? Drought, Drought, Drought, Flood.https://www.flickr.com/photos/twri/6355509153/
Fear not there is another way, but you must dare to vision and work. It will be long and is not easy, but prosperity and abundance are its rewards.
1) Change how we manage livestock to mimic natural grassland ecosystems (holistic planned grazing), this is our best hope of vegetating west Texas again, grasses will hold water much better than bare dirt! Rotation and Timing, will bring back our grasslands and halt the advancement of feral juniper and mesquite from taking over our state in the center and desert in the west. Rain will absorb and life will follow. And steaks will abound!
2) Breed perennial crops for Texas (http://soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010175.tree%20crops.pdf)! Fields too wet to plant corn or cotton this spring? Rains came too late one year? Too early? Too little? Too much? Humidity too high and the wheat seeds might sprout? Darn, for I have here a tree which was planted once, a long time ago and does not need to be planted this year. A tree which will take water whenever it falls, leaf out (and be in near full photosynthetic production) as soon as temperatures warm, and will bear (although less) even in mild drought years. Trees! Which like thick mats of grass shelter the soil keeping it humid and in place, while slowing water as it moves through the landscape. Supplement our livestock with, white oak acorns, honey locust and mesquite pods, one of those at least, will grow from El Paso to Texarkana. Pigs fattened on acorns, mulberries and persimmons. Yum! ...and we do not have to sacrifice our soil or our ecologies to do so. Plant our fields (after decades of additional breeding work in some cases) to pecans, walnuts, pine nuts and dwarf chestnuts may we feast on their delights. http://www.badgersett.com/info/woodyag1.html
3) Contour farming has been practiced by some for centuries, recognized by USDA and soil conservation service for decades as a way to reduce soil erosion and water run off. Plant those trees on contour!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contour_plowing
4) Key Line Design, engineering the landscape to slow, spread and hold water. It tells us where to place our lakes and ponds to maximize our intended goals. Where to apply swales or bermes to hold water on contour and when to guide water down hill slightly off contour. We can hold the water that falls on our state in our chosen locations, creating recreation sites and increasing habitat, rather than sending water out to sea in times of plenty. http://www.yeomansplow.com.au/yeomans-keyline-system.htm
Do these things and the floods that we have seen this week, will still be floods, just not nearly as destructive. Do these things and design them based on 100 year flood events.... and we will have created a hydrated, healthy and productive state of Texas.
