EXAMINING PLACE ATTACHMENT TO THE GREAT LAKES
A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
by
Michael David Dunbar
August, 2010
Thesis written by Michael David Dunbar B.A., Kent State University, 2009 M.A., Kent State University, 2010
Approved by
______, David H. Kaplan, Advisor
______, Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Chair, Department of Geography
______, John R. D. Stalvey, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures…………………………………………………………………….……………....iv
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..vi
Acknowledgements………...……………………...…………………..…………………..….…vii
Chapter
I. Introduction…………………………………………………...... 1
II. Place Attachment and the Great Lakes……………….…………………..……………5
III. Methodology and Analysis………………………………………………………..…32
IV. Policy……………………………………………………………………………..….54
V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....74
Sources……………………………………………………………………………………..…….78
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figures
1. Regional expressions of attachment……………………………………………………...11
2. Great Lakes states………………………………………………………………………..14
3. Mono Lake, California…………………………………………………………………...21
4. Protesting Desalination…………………………………………………………………..28
5. Great Lakes map………………………………………………………………………...34
6. Claiming natural resources……………………………………………………………....40
7. Measuring the level of value of the Great Lakes………………………………….……..41
8. Measuring the level of value of the Great Lakes by age…………………………….…..42
9. Frequency of visits to the Great Lakes measured against value…………………….…...44
10. Role of the Great Lakes in quality of life………………………………………………..45
11. Years of residency measured against level of attachment……………………………….46
12. Prospect of sharing water in exchange for income……………………………………....47
13. Prospect of sharing water internationally………………………………………………..48
14. Knowledge of origin of community’s water supply……………………………………..49
15. Quality of life affected by diminished Great Lakes……………………………………..50
16. Income measured against value place on the Great Lakes……..………………………..51
17. Income measured again quality of life…………………………………………………..52
18. Opposition against privatization of water…………………………………………….…57
19. Map of the Colorado River…….………………………………………………………..59
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20. City of Akron Water Works…………………………………………………………...…61
21. Sentimental value tied to the Great Lakes measured against the Compact……………...63
22. Responsibility of protecting freshwater………………………………………………….64
23. Billboard from Michigan protesting water diversion…………………………………....69
v
LIST OF TABLES
Tables
1. Survey results compared to 2000 US Census results for Akron, Ohio…………………..39
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to sincerely thank the best mentor I could have asked for, Professor David
Kaplan. Thank you for never tiring of my endless questions. Thank you to my other committee members, Thomas Schmidlin and Becky Parylak, for your feedback, guidance and support.
Sincere thanks are owed to the Ohio Lake Erie Commission for providing me with an endorsement letter. The Commissions endorsement certainly had a positive effect on my survey responses. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their words of encouragement, especially my sister, Julia Lam. Finally, I would like to give a very special thanks to Scott
Sheridan, for his unwavering belief in my abilities, and that this was something that I could, indeed, accomplish.
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CHAPTER I
Introduction
Natural resources and the environment are not individual physical entities but rather active systems interconnected and laden with meaning. The biological and physical attributes of such places vary drastically in their significance and are under constant modification by political and social processes. Conservation policies, economic production, personal experiences and community uses are just some examples of processes affecting the natural environment (Cheng et al. 2003).
When people express their concerns or interest for the environment, they are actually expressing feelings and meanings that extend beyond the value of their surrounds as a commodity. When values are conveyed, people are legitimizing the social and political processes that shape specific places (Cheng et al. 2003).
Our natural resources, and especially water, are part of our daily lives. The majority of the population takes such resources for granted and it takes actions such as the threat of diminishing those resources to bring them into our collective consciousness.
The purpose of this research is an attempt to use a sample of the Great Lakes Region’s population to measure their place attachment to one of their most precious natural resource. The results from this survey may be used when creating legislation to explain the opinions of constituents when the commodity approach fails. It is my hypothesis that 1
2 the residents of the eight Great Lakes states place a much greater meaning on the Great
Lakes than just for the freshwater they use.
In the Great Lakes Region a Canadian company, the NOVA Group, was the catalyst for bringing the Great Lakes as a natural resource into the consciousness of so many residents in the region. By applying for and ultimately receiving Canadian federal governmental approval to export freshwater to Asia, the NOVA Group proved to legislators and residents that our greatest resource was not protected from internal pressures, and certainly not from external pressures.
The Great Lakes are of paramount importance to the region bearing the same name, however, before the 1990’s, they were taken for granted to the point where there was only minimal legislation to protect them from water diversion for future generations.
The NOVA Group is to be thanked in my opinion, because without their much publicized entrepreneurial attitude towards the Great Lakes, they would not be legalized protected today.
There are two very different approaches to the same natural resource that continue to cause tensions regarding the Great Lakes and many other natural resources. Local or regional residents often perceive the natural resource in their environment as something they can claim as well as having some degree of emotional attachment. Residents further away view that very same natural resource as something to be used, consumed and exploited without a regard for the emotional attachment placed on it by the local population. Viewing a resource as a commodity versus something that carries emotional 3 meaning is a cause for a great deal of tension when deciding who has the right to make decision regarding our precious natural resources.
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Compact (Compact) was created to exclaim to others that may view the Great Lakes as a commodity that they are more than freshwater to the region. The Great Lakes signify many things to the region such as life, recreation, economy, identity and most importantly an emotional bond laden with memories for local residents.
Although the eight Great Lakes states took years to come to a final agreement, it is not a coincidence that the Compact was signed into law before 2010. It is estimated that after the 2010 US Census the water needy states which include places such as Texas and California, will for the first time, have more electoral votes than the Great Lakes
Region. There have already been threats of creating a national water policy to share the
Great Lakes freshwater with western states that have growing populations and dwindling water supplies, so there was certainly the motivation to sign the Compact into law.
This thesis contains a total of five chapters. After the introduction, the second chapter discusses sense of place and in particular the place attachment construct. Chapter two takes an in-depth look at place attachment research and the Great Lakes as a conduit for the region’s emotional bonds. Chapter three explains how, where and why this study was conducted followed by the methods used. Also in the third chapter are the results of the survey and discussions of their significance. The fourth chapter details policies implemented to protect a natural resource such as freshwater and the processes to create such legislation. There are also results of this research that relate to policies created to 4 protect the Great Lakes. The fifth chapter of this research, the conclusion, is where the different aspects of this thesis are summarized.
CHAPTER II
Place Attachment and the Great Lakes
Place
There is nothing more intrinsic to humanistic geography than place and space
(Tuan 1979). For over two thousand years geographers have been describing and
considering issues of place (Relph 1997). The connection between people and place is
very difficult to homogeneously define given that such connections vary over time and by
place. Places are more than just physical backdrops for our daily actions; they help us
find meaning and order in the world. Place meanings encompass tangible and intangible
values which may include elements of beauty, spirituality, belonging or attachment.
When speaking of “home”, people may be referring to either the physical structure or
their social relationships and sentimental experiences (Cheng et al. 2003)
Different scales of place exist and can range from being a region large enough to
support a livelihood, to a place as small as the bed you sleep in at night. Individuals
everywhere regard their homeland as the center of the world. In most instances,
destruction of an individual’s place would signal their demoralization. Space that
includes significant but different locales makes the idea of place important, but does not
make any specific location the corporeal place (Tuan 1977).
5
6
Geographical space is made up of a unique ensemble that encompasses meaning
and history. The humanistic study of space tries to understand the spatial feelings and
ideas people have about places. From this approach, place may refer to either a position
in society or a spatial location, and studying the latter belongs to geography. Places often
develop personalities due to their interaction with humans in ways that parallel human
personalities, and although places may develop personalities, only humans develop a
sense of place (Tuan 1979).
Sense of Place
Sense of place is an overarching concept that is demonstrated when people apply their moral and aesthetic understanding to sites and locations (Tuan 1979). Certain places have an attraction that gives the visitor a sense of well-being. Places such as this have a tendency to cause the visitor to want to return again and again (Jackson 1994). While people may have a sense of a place by seeing or knowing it, to fully sense it they must be able to conjure up an image after leaving that place (Tuan 1979).
Historically people have had a strong sense of place as they would commonly identify themselves by the place that they were from, which was equally as important to their identity as their name. Until the start of the twentieth century, most people spent the majority of their lives within the distance they could walk or ride within one day. The local sense of place was a strong and positive force (Relph 1997). Relph offers a definition of sense of place:
“A well-developed geographical sense of place is one that
looks carefully at local idiosyncrasies, keeps an open mind 7
about them, and then sees through these to the larger
patterns and processes they signify” (Relph 1997, p. 212).
The concept of sense of place is made up of three components: place dependence, place identity, and place attachment. There is often times overlap between the three constructs, but there are generally accepted differences (Nanzer 2004, Jorgensen and
Stedman 2001, Williams et al. 1992, Williams and Vaske 2001).
The first of these three constructs is place dependence. Place dependence is the perceived strength of relationship between a resident and a specific place. There are two components of place dependence; the first implies that an individual gauges the quality of a place depending on the degree to which it meets their needs or goals. Secondly, place dependence is measured by how well a place meets an individual’s needs or goals compared to alternative sites. The ability to measure the quality of a location depends on the individual’s previous experiences (Warzecha and Lime 2001). It is important to keep in mind that the relationship is not necessarily positive and may limit the achievements of the individual (Nanzer 2004, Jorgensen and Stedman 2001, Williams et al. 1992,
Williams and Vaske 2001).
Place identity can be understood as the aspects of a resident that defines how the individual’s identity of self relates to their environment. Made up of conscious and unconscious feelings, preferences, beliefs and values, place identity can be compared on a level that an individual may identify themselves as male or female (Nanzer 2004,
Jorgensen and Stedman 2001, Williams and Vaske 2001).
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Place Attachment
The third sense of place construct, and the one which will be focused on in this research, is place attachment. Some researchers argue that unlike place dependence, place attachment is only a positive bond that develops between individuals or communities and their environment. Place attachment is a relationship that goes beyond judgment or cognition and explicitly contains emotional substance. Place attachments are emotions and feelings driven by, but not necessarily based on, a need for the location or for personal identity (Jorgensen and Stedman 2001).
There may also be occasions when a sense of place is negative or used to undermine the emotions of a group of people. A very successful military strategy is to destroy places that hold a sense of place in order to weaken the morale of a community
(Relph 1997). A possible compromise to the differences in approach is that feelings of place attachment are capable of positive or negative relationships, but that they more typically focus on the positive (Vorkinn and Riese 2001).
Through interactions with natural resources, inhabitants develop feelings and memories that create value attached to that environment (Proshansky et al. 1983).
Emotional bonds are created from long-term relationships with specific places (Williams et al. 1992). Place attachment can be seriously disrupted when there is a change to the environment which may happen rapidly as in the case of an environmental disaster, or gradually with the decline of an environment such as a neighborhood (Brown at al 2003).
The values that people attach to places are most often at the core of conflicts over resource management (Warzecha and Lime 2001). 9
A person’s attachment to place can range from a very small personal scale to as large as a national scale. Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan (1975) uses places within the home, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations as examples of scale. A fireplace within a home may be considered a place, but due to its small scale it rarely has meaning beyond the home’s occupants. A larger scale of place such as a city has a specific location and size that makes it easier to define. Regions and neighborhoods lack a clear physically defined boundary which makes them difficult to define. For many people, a place gains value almost in proportion to the lack of people in the space. Indeed, experience with nature and the countryside are important to the visitor’s consciousness.
Place attachment may encompass a region and is not limited to individual places.
The regional scale can vary from local communities to states or even large-scale regionalization such as in Europe’s economic unions. According to Paasi (2003), the symbolisms, practices and discourses that express the “structures of expectations” become institutionalized in the process we refer to as a region. Regional identity is normally constructed of two elements: cultural-historical and political-economic. The implicit assumption that people of a region join together ultimately makes a region a medium in the struggle over resources and power. Regional power may be used to shape social processes and the beliefs shared by people of a territory may lead to the exclusion of those outside of the group (Paasi 2001).
Cuba and Hummon (1993) discovered that respondents identified relatively equally to three different levels which included dwelling, community and region. Of the forty percent of the respondents that only identified with one particular level of 10 attachment, it was region that was the most probable locus. They discovered that the majority of respondents identified with more than one level of place. Ultimately, their findings proved that the principal cause of regional identity resulted from participating in activities outside of an individual’s residence.
Research discovered that place is not limited by geographical size but by the perceptions and personal values of individuals. By studying residents’ sense of place to the state of Michigan and the Great Lakes surrounding it, Nanzer’s (1994) research supported the idea that place can refer to a location as local as home, neighborhood or city, or as large as a state or region. Attachment to places, large or small, can be a force in the strength of a community. Despite the large size of Michigan, residents share beliefs and values that help in creating an identity on a larger scale (Nanzer 2004). Signs of sense of place can been seen on a state level of license plates of some Great Lake states
(Figure 1).
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Fig. 1. Regional expressions of attachment to the Great Lakes. Source: Respective states’ Department or Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Humans share patterns of marked territoriality with other species on Earth. When the primary values associated with a place of attachment are threatened or disrupted, direct protest may arise. Behaviorally and legally these values may not be consciously articulated in our daily lives and are usually taken-for-granted. These values regularly only come into light once they are threatened (Buttimer and Seamon 1980).
Politics of Place
Place is an environmental connection made recognizable by politics (Relph 1997,
Tuan 1975). Formal political processes commonly center on the approval or opposition of a single-issue policy. Those that are formally approving or opposing a policy are usually a coalition of interest groups (Cheng et al. 2003) 12
Politics of place is a new type of politics in natural resource management. Place- based policies share the attributes of collaborations that are intended to solve problems, the building of trust, and achieving on-the-ground actions supported by the public. Place- based propositions have a uniquely social flavor considering they are created from social cognition perspectives of human geography (Cheng et al. 2003).
The differences between place-based policies and the formal political process are considerable. Part of this difference comes from the fact that the place, which is a specific geographical area, is the primary attribute shared by a public group organized in the opposition or approval of an issue rather than solely on their ideals. In natural resource politics place plays a considerably important role in social influence (Cheng et al. 2003).
Place as Region
Identity is part of the process and the institution that makes a region. There are four elements that all regions have in common. The first element in defining a region is that all regions have a territorial shape. Social practices play an important part in distinguishing the boundaries that makes the regional identity unique from other regions.
The functions of creating boundaries are to bound or exclude unique identities (Paasi
2002).
A symbolic shape is the second element important to the identification of a region. Symbolic shapes are evident in practices such as media and culture, economy and politics. The symbolic shape includes the region’s name as well as numerous other symbols (Paasi 2002) 13
Multiple institutions are needed for the third element of regional identity.
Institutions are needed to produce and reproduce distinctions between regional groups such as “us” and “them”. These institutions, which may be located within or outside of the region, also play an important role in maintaining symbolic and territorial shapes
(Paasi 2002).
The final elements used to construct regional identity are the social practices and the consciousness of the region’s inhabitants. As with institutions, the social practices and consciousness may be within or outside of a region. Recognized regions can be used by movements and social groups in their struggles over resources, power, or even against each other. During such arguments, regions often use their identity as part of their argument. Regional identities are collective descriptions of who their inhabitants are and how their region is different from others. By defining the social identities of a region there is inherently an element of power (Paasi 2002).
It is now common to have public participation when making decisions concerning the environment. The Great Lakes region (see figure 2) has a long history of public participation dealing with environmental issues (Konisky and Beierle 2001). 14
Fig. 2. The eight American states and two Canadian Provinces that make up the Great Lakes region. Source: eng.buffalo.edu
Place Attachment Research
Brown et al. (2003) studied place attachment by focusing on a neighborhood that was in revitalization. They discovered that a positive association with a neighborhood was helpful in creating a group’s or individual’s identity. Place attachment was found to be associated with resident’s houses and translated into pride. Long-term residents reported having a more positive place attachment, as did those who maintained their block in good physical condition. Their results suggest that place attachment has the ability to provide strength to the neighborhood that may aid in their developmental efforts. These attachments were reinforced through daily encounters with upkeep, 15 celebrations, neighbors and the environment. Place attachment to a neighborhood promoted security, stability and familiarity.
The neighborhood study focused on the positive qualities of place attachment but the researchers point out that they do not deny that negative attachment may also exist.
An example of negative attachment would be a household remaining in a deteriorating neighborhood to their own detriment. In ethnic communities, attachment to a place may prevent opportunities that could be experienced in a different neighborhood. The research concludes by stating policy makers should consider place attachment as a factor in revitalizing neighborhoods and not just focus on the usual items such as economic and social issues (Brown et al. 2003).
Lakeshore owners were surveyed to ascertain their sense of place with regard to their property (Jorgensen and Stedman 2001). The survey was of residents living within a mile of the shore of eight different lakes in northern Wisconsin and yielded a high response rate of sixty-six percent. The responses showed that the lakefront property owners surveyed had stronger feelings of place attachment than identity or dependence, the other two sense of place constructs. Indeed, their research showed a strong connection with the lakes and a great concern among residents for water quality and habitat preservation (Jorgensen and Stedman 2001).
Research by Nanzer (2004) measured a sense of place of Michigan by its residents. He wanted to understand the concept of place for the state and the Great Lakes that surround it. The purpose of his study was to understand how the viewpoints of citizens influenced legislation and how they may be impacted by legislation. 16
The Great Lakes surround and define the state of Michigan and symbolize what makes the state unique to outsiders. Regional values and beliefs represent those who live there and make-up the characteristics that make that place unique to outsiders. Their environment has helped to shape the residents by their unique experiences produced by the region and created strong bonds of emotional attachment. Although it is possible to develop an attachment to a place and integrate it into ourselves after a single experience, it is much more likely to develop after repeated experiences or long-term residency
(Nanzer 2004).
Nanzer showed that the large majority of respondents expressed a very strong sense of place regarding the Great Lakes and Michigan. Females reported a marginally higher level of place attachment than males. Despite Michigan’s large size, the results proved that it was not too large to show place attachment by its residents. Most notably, it was discovered that Michigan’s residents were strongly opposed to any attempts to divert water from the Great Lakes out of the region (Nanzer 2004).
Starting at the end of the twentieth century, a new kind of ecological thinking took hold of organizations responsible for protecting our natural resources. These types of organizations can range from governmental to non-governmental. There has been a large social component to this shift in thinking as society has begun to increasingly value natural resources in non-commercial ways. The shift of the public’s thinking has reinforced the fact that there is an emotional and symbolic meaning that is attached to natural places, such as lakes. Bonds to natural resources cause increasing conflicts as 17 different groups of society assign different levels of attachment to the same resource
(Williams and Vaske 2001).
Vorkinn and Riese (2001) took a look at place attachment attitudes toward environmental degradation caused by a proposed hydropower plant. The researchers also wanted to discover if different levels of place attachment had an effect on predicting attitudes of proposed environmental degradation. The setting that was chosen for this place attachment research covered an area of 2,140 square kilometers and had a population of about 2,500. The majority of the inhabitants were employed in the timber industry and farming. A proposed hydropower plant would have a significant impact on the environment but it would provide 1 billion kwh of electricity and considerable economic benefits. The environmental degradation would also have a negative impact on the community’s tourism and recreational activities. The hydropower plant’s benefits would be distributed over the entire municipality; however, the environmental impacts would be concentrated to specific areas.
The community of Skjåk, Norway, where the research was done, proved to have an attachment to the municipality with 62% reporting strong attachment. Women and younger people were more opposed to the hydropower plant than men and older people.
The research showed that place attachment was the strongest predictor of the attitudes regarding the building of the power plant compared to any other factors used. The study also showed that place attachment was capable of predicting attitudes towards specific proposed environmental changes. However, there may also be significant differences to 18 the importance of predicting place attachment depending on the context (Vorkinn and
Riese 2001).
To further advance the understanding of place attachment to natural resources,
Warzecha and Lime (2001) studied visitors’ perceptions of two rivers in the Canyonlands
National Park in southeastern Utah. The Green and Colorado Rivers run within the parks boundaries and represent very different recreational settings. Green River is considerably more tranquil and is most commonly used by kayakers, canoers and a very small amount of motorized traffic. The visitors to Green River also tend to be small groups of one to five people. Conversely, the Colorado River offers fourteen miles of whitewater rafting of which the largest percentage of craft are motorized. The groups’ size is also commonly more than twice the average size of Green River visitors.
By using twelve different place attachment statements, the researchers were able to measure the level of attachment for the two distinctly different rivers. Visitors to the
Green and Colorado Rivers responded as having different reasons and levels of importance for their trip. Additionally, visitors responded to accepting potential changes at different levels. Colorado River visitors responded with having a greater place attachment while Green River visitors were more accepting of potential changes. Their analysis reinforces the validity of using place attachment to understand visitors’ preferences and attitudes regarding recreational settings (Warzecha and Lime 2001).
Natural landscapes are more than just containers for natural resources and recreational activities. These landscapes are places and spaces filled with emotional meaning and memories (Williams and Vaske 2001). One-of-a-kind wilderness areas in 19 southeastern United States and Montana were researched to further understand the emotional and symbolic value place on natural resources. If place attachment for a site is based on its value as a commodity, then theoretically another setting with comparable attributes is interchangeable. If the substitutability of a place is meaningless, it would most likely prove that a place has intangible value (Williams et al. 1992).
Those who responded to the wilderness study as having a high level of place attachment to a wilderness area also responded significantly higher that no other site was an adequate substitute. Place attachment was also higher among those with lower socioeconomic backgrounds, which may be linked to more informal social behavior. It was discovered that place attachment greatly increases an individual’s sensitivity to ecological impacts made to a specific site. It was also discovered that there were significant connections between individuals and geographic areas. A location close enough to allow for frequent access may also increase attachment (Williams et al. 1992).
Research indicates that places are valued for their entirety and mean more to individuals than interchangeable commodities. A high level of place attachment is a step towards understanding the link between recreational conflict and resource specificity.
Williams et al. (1992) conclude their research by recognizing that natural resources such as wilderness areas are not only valued for their raw material with interchangeable attributes, but as a whole entity.
Looking at different forms of outdoor recreation and attachment to place may further the understanding of the recreationists’ choice of sport and setting. Place attachment was examined of hikers along the Appalachian Trail, boaters along the 20
American River in California, and anglers in New England. Study results for the recreationists who reported their recreation played an important role in their life were also more likely to have an emotional bond with the setting. Research also suggests that increasingly using a specific setting lead to dependence that was followed by an emotional bond. However, an emotional bond is possible without necessarily experiencing place dependence to a particular setting (Kyle et al. 2004).
Mono Lake in Central California (see figure 3) is situated in the Mono Basin
Scenic Area within Inyo National Forest. To meet water demands the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power began diverting water from Mono Lake tributary streams in the 1940’s. The water diversion had a significant impact on the lakes and the ecosystem began to collapse. Concerned citizens began lobbying for protection of Mono
Lake in the late 1970’s. It was not until 1994 that litigation enacted against the water diversion was able to restore some of the fresh water and slowly improve the lake’s condition (Kyle et al. 2003).
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Fig. 3. Mono Lake, California. Souce: citypictures.net
During the twentieth century Mono Lake was turned into a highly salinated lake with a forty-five mile long shoreline. The lake has unique geological features as well as attracting a variety of bird species. In an effort to gauge visitors’ place attachment, research was conducted after implementing a two dollar entrance fee to the park. It was discovered that the areas in the park that offered recreational settings were likely to receive stronger support. As a visitor’s emotional attachment grew, so did their positive view of paying an entrance fee. Although respondents were not in favor of their fees being used to support improving facilities, they were in support of improving the environment through protection and education. Mono Lake is thought of as a recreational 22 area that reflects peoples’ values, so as a result they are more motivated to protect it
(Kyle et al. 2003).
Our Environmental Attitude
Environments are seen in very different ways depending on whether you are a visitor or a native of a place. Typically, the transient population is a relatively small part of the population and they tend to view the environment with no great significance. By contrast, the native has a complex attitude regarding the environment that stems from their total immersion (Tuan 1974).
Settlers that previously came to America saw the wilderness as a threat.
Wilderness was a place to be conquered from the American Indian threat and nature itself. A divide grew between urban dwellers who appreciated the environment for its aesthetic beauty and the rural dwellers that more often struggled against the environment.
The rural struggles came while making a living through such means as farming. An outsider’s view, such as that of an urban dweller, is mainly what can be consumed for personal pleasure. The natural environment is seen for its appearance rather than by the special meaning it holds for a native dweller (Tuan 1974).
Attitudes towards the natural environment can change over time, and as an example Tuan (1974) considers attitudes towards mountains. In early human existence mountains were viewed with awe. The scale and remoteness of mountains was beyond daily interaction in the lives of most humans but by the Middle Ages attitudes towards mountains had changed and the prevailing view was unsympathetic. By the eighteenth century poets were writing romantically about mountains and the general attitude had 23 been reversed. By the time of Newton, mountains were beginning to be viewed as geometrical shapes. As travel eventually increased mountains became accessible to a larger number of individuals and they lost much of their forbidding mysticism. Along with the loss of mysticism, mountains also lost some of their ability to inspire emotion.
By the mid nineteenth century, mountains were being exploited for industries such as tourism (Tuan 1974).
Vaske and Kobrin (2001) examined the relationship between environmentally responsible behavior and place attachment. It was discovered that environmentally responsible behavior in connection to natural resources encouraged that same behavior in everyday life. The results suggested that managers of natural resources could benefit from closely examining the meaning that local places have to people. The personal relationships to local places go beyond their attraction for recreational activities.
Water
Only three percent of the World’s water is freshwater, and two-thirds of that is frozen in the polar ice caps. On the entire Earth less than one percent of all surface water is freshwater. Over 2 million people die annually from a lack of access to clean and safe drinking water. It is predicted that by the year 2025 two-thirds of the world’s population will face water shortages. As global population has tripled over the past seventy years the increase of freshwater use has been sixfold. In 2003 the United Nations warned that the
World is facing a serious water crisis (Annin 2006).
In the same year the United Nations gave its water crisis warning, Water and
Environment Ministers from around the world met in Kyoto, Japan. It was announced 24 that twenty percent of the world lacked a sufficient supply of drinking water to meet their daily needs. A declaration was drawn up stating that the best way to deal with the shortfall was the commercialization of water. Private water companies were invited to meet with governments and international organizations to develop solutions to the world’s water shortage. Delegates reached a consensus which would support financing for the privatization of water and involvement in water supply management. Their philosophy was one of deploying a market to solve an environmental problem. This approach stems from a belief that environmental goods will be more efficiently managed when treated as a commodity (Bakker 2007).
There has been a growing international campaign that water is a human right.
While these campaigners argue against the privatization of water, private companies argue that, unlike many governments, they have the capability to deliver much needed water to those who now lack access. They also claim that through better efficiency and management that they will be able to lower costs, increase safety, and expand access.
According to privatization critics, water is more expensive and no more efficient than when managed by the public sector. Additionally, critics point out that private companies are more concerned about their shareholders than the public it serves (Bakker 2007).
Frequently those against privatization evoke what they believe is a human right to
water. There are two justifications for their argument; many human rights in the UN
convention explicitly recognize the right to food and water and the non-substitutability of
drinking water. Among the problems pointed out by opponents are implementation, 25 government abuse of allocation, and increased likelihood of transboundary water conflicts (Bakker 2007).
In the face of a failure those campaigning against the privatization of water have taken a new approach. Activists have turned to alternative interpretations of property rights, in particular some form of the “commons”. The commons view of water is that it is a resource essential to life with no substitute rather than just a commodity no different than goods or utilities. There are three points they use to articulate their cause; community involvement is needed to manage water wisely, water has an important cultural and spiritual dimension, and water is a local flow resource. Those with the
“commons” view believe those real water crises are created by socially produced scarcity that would not happen in a collectively managed community (Bakker 2007).
In 2004 there was a new Water and Sanitation Advisory Board created by the UN
Secretary General. The Board has requested support with the creation of an international
association of public water operations to initiate public-public partnerships and
restructure relationships within water supply utilities (Bakker 2007).
A recent map published by the U.S. Department of the Interior was entitled
“Potential Water Supply Crises by 2025”. The map shows that most major cities in the western United States will have a substantial to highly likely potential for water supply issues (Annin 2006). At least 36 states could face water shortages within the next few years (Draper 2008).
Former Presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson believes the Great Lakes should be shared on a national level: 26
"I want a national water policy. We need a dialogue
between states to deal with issues like water conservation,
water reuse technology, water delivery and water
production. States like Wisconsin are awash in water"
(Egan 2007).
Parts of California, Arizona, Nevada and northern Mexico currently depend on water from Lake Mead. It was artificially created when the Hoover Dam was completed on the
Colorado River in 1936. Almost all of the water that fills Lake Mead comes from melting snow in the surrounding mountains. The level of water in the lake is at a 40 year low, due to the runoff decreasing since 1998 (National Park Service 2008). There is a fifty percent chance that Lake Mead will be dry by the year 2021. Human demand, climate change, and evaporation cause a loss of close to one million acre-feet of water every year from the Colorado River system (American Geophysical Union 2008).
Traditionally most American farmland in the Plains has been irrigated by the
Ogallala aquifer that stretches from South Dakota to Texas. The Ogallala aquifer is the single largest freshwater holding unit in North America. It feeds over 200,000 wells and is being depleted fourteen times faster than it is replenished. The price of the shrinking aquifer may be as high as $400 billion every year due to lost farmland (Barlow and
Clarke 2002).
The states of California and Texas have already unsuccessfully tried to secure a supply of water from the Great Lakes (Trisler 1996). There is a concern that after the
2010 census the political power shift out of the Midwest to the South and West will leave 27 the fate of the Great Lakes to needy regions. After the census in 2000 the eight Great
Lakes states lost nine congressional seats. The states that gained the seats were Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada and Texas, which are all states that have water supply issues (Annin 2006). "Other parts of the country think we have water to spare in the Great Lakes, and they don't appreciate how important the health of the lakes are to the region," said Noah Hall a law professor at Wayne State University in Michigan (Egan
2007).
Some governments look to technology in the form of desalination to solve their water concerns. Desalination is the process whereby the salt in seawater is removed to create drinking water. There are currently over twelve thousand desalination plants in 155 countries worldwide. The combined capacity of all desalination plants combined is forty- seven million cubic meters daily. Although that amount may sound rather impressive, desalination is currently only capable of supplying three one-thousandth of the total freshwater used around the world (Barlow 2007).
One quarter of all desalination plants are located in Saudi Arabia because desalination is prohibitively expensive and is only an option for the world’s wealthiest countries. There are plants under construction in Australia, Singapore and Israel, as well as being planned in California (Barlow 2007).
For the countries that cost is not prohibitive, there is another very important concern, the environment and health hazards of desalination. Desalination plants place an enormous burden on the local power grid as their process is massively energy-intensive.
A proposed plant in Sydney, Australia would create more than a quarter of a million tons 28 of greenhouse gasses annually and only produce about one and half hours need of water for the city (see figure 4) (Barlow 2007).
Fig. 4. Protesting a new desalination plant in Australia. Source: theage.com.au
In addition to using huge amounts of energy, desalination plants produce a lethal by-product of concentrated brine mixed with heavy metals and chemicals used in the process of separating salt and prevent corrosion to the facility. An equal amount of by- product is produced for the amount of useable drinking water. The lethal by-product is pumped back into the sea killing fish, plankton and many other types of marine life
(Barlow 2007). 29
The Great Lakes
Lakes are a unique natural resource as they touch people in special ways. Lakes provide the setting for many special times in people’s lives. Unlike a forest or river that lacks a clear geographical nucleus, lakes are easier for people to identify with. People living along a lake have a high rate of identifying the particular lake when asked where they live (Klessig 2001).
The last glacier that covered the Great Lakes Region receded about ten thousand years ago leaving behind a seven hundred and fifty mile long five lake water-rich ecosystem. The Great Lakes hold eighteen percent of all of the freshwater on the surface of the Earth. Lake Superior is the largest and coldest lake in the system along with the least populated shoreline. The second largest by surface area and sparsely populated is
Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is the third largest of the Great Lakes with a highly populated shoreline of approximately eight million people. Lake Erie once had the most populated shoreline, is the most polluted, and is the second smallest by surface area. Lake
Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes and at the end of the system (Annin 2006).
Cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto are supported by the water of the Great Lakes. Agriculture is the single largest consumer of freshwater and many regional industries and power plants depend on the Great Lakes. Groundwater in the region accounts for half of the volume of water entering the lakes on the American side and around a fifth on the Canadian side. Due to fierce competition for aquifer water, there is less entering the lakes and they are already losing water (Barlow and Clarke 2002). 30
More than 60,000 jobs in the United States and Canada are directly dependent on Great
Lakes shipping (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2004).
Annually $3 to $5 billion is generated by shipping cargo through the Great Lakes
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2004). For every inch the water level
drops, a one thousand foot cargo ship has to unload 270 tons of freight. The result of
carrying less freight has a direct correlation to a rise in the cost of items commonly
shipped such as iron-ore, coal and food products. The tourism of sport fishing generates
$4 billion annually. Every year almost 65 million pounds of fish are caught in the Great
Lakes contributing $1 billion to the regional economy. Additionally, cities along the
shores of the Great lakes generate twenty percent of American manufacturing. (National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2004).
Lakes and reservoirs are places that are typically maintained from a biophysical
approach. Those charged with their welfare are primarily concerned with their economic
and ecological functions. Considerably less attention is given to the social value of lakes
(Klessig 2001).
To optimize the contribution lakes can make to the lives of a society, citizens
must be involved in defining those contributions. Today more than ever, citizens are
demanding more of a role in the administration of natural resources. Communities have
chosen to be directly involved in the management of their public forests, rivers,
watersheds and lakes by means of financial resources and volunteerism. Who better to
answer why a community should care about their natural resources than its citizens? Most
trained professionals have a specific economical focus for resource management. 31
Tourism officials, as an example, value a place such as a lake in terms of attracting tourist dollars. Fish managers may view that same resource as a factory to produce game fish.
Citizen involvement helps balance the needs of natural resources (Klessig 2001).
CHAPTER III
Methodology and Analysis
Purpose
This research will examine place attachment that is expressed by residents of
Akron, Ohio, used as a representative sample for the region, to the Great Lakes. Based on the research of Williams et al. (1992), it is logical to hypothesize that residents of Akron place a value on the Great Lakes that goes beyond their value as a commodity.
There may be an emotional value placed on the Great Lakes by the local population that has been previously measured. When a resource view and emotional view of the same natural resource come together, there is an enormous potential for conflict. In an effort to minimize conflict, policies are already being implemented as a proactive measure. If the residents value the lakes strictly as a commodity, then theoretically they should be wholly satisfied to accept a substitution such as income (Williams et al. 1992).
The results of this survey will be used as a tool to further the understanding of place attachment and the effect it has on creating policies.
Case Study Area
According to Brown et al. (2003), place attachment is nourished by daily encounters with the environment. Choosing a location for place attachment research that
32
33 is situated along the shore of a Great Lake would most likely bias the results highly in favor of place attachment. Residents of cities such as Chicago, Illinois or Cleveland, Ohio have a very high probability that they have a daily, or at least frequent, contact with Lake
Michigan or Lake Erie, respectively. There is also a higher probability of a considerable amount of employment that is directly related to the Great Lakes. In order to minimize bias, yet find a large enough population that had knowledge of the Great Lakes basin at some conscious level, great care was given to choosing a target location.
Akron, Ohio is situated within the Great Lakes watershed and was involved in more than a decade of legal battles over the diversion of water out of the Great Lakes’ basin. Water issues have been in the local news and Akron itself was named for its geographical location. Akron’s name was derived from the Greek word “akros”, meaning
“high place”. It was so named due to the city’s location between the watershed to the south, which ultimately flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes basin to the north, which ultimately flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Although Akron is within the
Great Lakes’ watershed, most of its residents do not have daily contact with Lake Erie, the closest Great Lake (see figure 5).
34
Fig. 5. Akron, Ohio is located just inside the Great Lakes watershed. Source:Atlas.gc.ca
Research Design
There is no single model that is distinctly used for the collection of information in geographical research. Sampling is used in geography to acquire information from small groups with the intention of making generalizations about the larger population. As is the case with this research, it is not possible or practical to obtain information about or from the entire population of the Great Lakes region, which makes sampling essential. Due to different statistical methods, it is not even necessary to sample an entire population when useful generalizations can be made (Rice 2003).
Most types of geography rely on the sampling method as the basis for almost all empirical research. While allowing for generalizations, sampling may be prone to errors 35 due to small differences in the sampled population. There are different intensities to sampling and a sample as small as one has no substantial inferences that can be made about the population as a whole. Dissimilarly, a large sample offers the means to make at least conditional inferences about a population (Rice 2003).
A survey respondent is under no obligation to answer the questions. A researcher may have to rely simply on the participant’s interest as a reason for completing the survey. The questions asked in this survey were kept short and not too demanding to avoid having the participant simply not complete the survey. Likewise, if the process to return the survey is too difficult, or involves a cost, it will have a negative impact on your response rate. Therefore, business reply envelopes were included in the envelope to prevent any cost from occurring for the participant. Most respondents have nothing to gain by answering your questions; however, some may gain satisfaction from an opportunity to share their opinions with a sympathetic researcher, or the chance to contribute to general knowledge (Sudman and Bradburn 1982).
A poorly designed questionnaire can be boring and frustrating to the respondent.
The questionnaire has to be designed as a whole, more than just the wording of individual questions, to create a positive impact on the respondent. The parts of the survey should be interesting and even amusing if possible (Sudman and Bradburn 1982). Every effort was made in the design of this survey to keep it relative to the research and interesting for the participant.
This research was conducted by using mail surveys titled “Place Attachment to the Great Lakes”. Included in the envelope was an endorsement letter, introduction letter, 36 a four page booklet style survey and business reply envelope. The Lake Erie
Commission, a state of Ohio agency, provided the endorsement letter. The letter expressed support for the research and the importance for completing the survey, as well as their interest in the results. The introduction letter was included with the survey to inform the respondent of the importance of the survey, why the survey was being conducted and their rights as a respondent.
The survey was piloted twice to approximately 20 people in electronic form before the initial mailing. The questions were rewritten for reasons of clarity and ease for the respondent. The four page booklet format survey was laid out using an on-line service to make the survey as clear as possible and easy to follow for the respondents. The respondent was instructed to select only one answer per question. The survey was also designed to explore different aspects of place attachment. The survey began with asking basic demographic questions such as age, education, income and employment. The answers to those questions may be helpful to explain particular patterns in the latter part of the survey. The following questions were intended to measure the respondents’ recreational behavior and the role the Great Lakes play in their lives. The last questions dealt with polices, water rights, questions of attachment and general knowledge of freshwater.
Addresses for 1,000 adult residents of Akron were purchased from
USAData.com. The addresses were chosen at random by zip code within the city of
Akron. The on-line merchant collects their data using three different credit bureaus. The service provided all of the addresses printed on labels which were affixed to the 37 envelopes. The 29 question survey was mailed to the addresses in January 2010. To maximize response rates, the respondents had the option of completing the paper survey and returning it in a pre-paid business envelope or visiting an on-line website to complete the survey electronically. In either format, the survey took an average of ten minutes or less to complete. Approximately three weeks after the surveys were mailed postcard reminders, generated using a different on-line service, were mailed to the same addresses with the intention of increasing the number of responses. The postcards reminded respondents of the web-site where the survey could be completed electronically and offered to send a replacement survey if the original copy had been misplaced.
Results
Demographics
A total of 120 useable responses were received by April 1 st , 2010. The responses
were comprised of 108 by mail and 12 on-line. A total of 70, or 58%, of the responses
were male and 50, or 42%, were female. According to the US Census Bureau (2000)
data, the male population of Akron is 48%, which indicates that the survey had a bias
toward male responses. Essential elements of the survey are protection and ownership of
a natural resource, traits that resonate strongly with the male gender. Water related
activities that are popular among Great Lakes recreationists, such as boating and fishing,
also tend to have a greater number of male participants.
The survey respondents had a higher level of education than the general
population. 58% of respondents claimed holding a Bachelor’s degree or higher, whereas 38 the 2000 US Census reports that number for Akronites to be 18%. Explanations could range from understanding the importance of completing surveys as education increases, to a greater feeling of participation in the community (see table 1).
106 of the respondents, or 88%, were white. The 2000 US Census data reports the white population of Akron is 67.2%, so there was a disproportionately high number or white respondents. The black population of Akron is 28.5% according to the 2000 US
Census, but only 5% of respondents were black. Although the US Census does not provide city level statistics on education by race, nationally 26% of the white population have a bachelor’s degree while 14% of the black population hold a bachelors degree.
Surveys often have lower than average participation from minority groups that may possibly stem from feelings of being disenfranchised or suspicion that the survey serves an ulterior motive (see table 1).
Data from the 2000 US Census reports the average household annual income in
Akron to be $31,385. Survey respondents reported a higher average income of $62,250.
49% of respondents had a household income of $50,000 or more. The most logical explanation for the higher than average household income is the higher than average education among respondents. As the subject of numerous research projects, it has been proven that higher education leads to a higher income (see table 1).
39
Survey results compared to 2000 US Census results for Akron, Ohio
Race/Ethnicity Survey Results US Census data for Akron
White 88.3% 67.2% Black 5% 28.5% More than one race 3.3% 2.1% Other/Prefer not to say 1.7% N/A American Indian 0.8% 0.3% Asian 0.8% 1.5% Latino/Hispanic 0% 1.2%
Education Survey Results US Census data for Akron
Bachelor's degree 30% 18%* Graduate degree 28.3% 18%* Some college 15% N/A High School diploma or equivalent 14.2% 80% 2 year degree or certificate 9.2% N/A Some schooling 2.5% 2% Other/Prefer not to say 0.8% N/A *No distinction made by Census
Household Income Survey Results US Census data for Akron
Less than $25,000 13.3% $31,835* $25,001 to $50,000 21.7% $31,835* $50,001 to $75,000 16.7% $31,835* $75,001 to $100,000 15.8% $31,835* $100,001 or higher 15.8% $31,835* Prefer not to say 15.0% $31,835* No answer 1.7% $31,835* Survey average: *Average household $62,250 income
Table 1. Survey results compared to 2000 US Census data for Akron, Ohio. 40
Place Attachment
A strong indicator of place attachment is if residents view a natural resource, such as the Great Lakes, as something that can be claimed by the community or region where it is located. Given three choices, more than half of all respondents believe that na tural resources can be claimed and that they belong to the state or region they are in. This is a key concept to understanding why residents in the Great Lakes region have an emotional reaction to water diversion or degradation. The majority of the region’ s inhabitants believe the Great Lakes to be a natural resource that belongs to the region. Conflict occurs when this emotional attachment is confronted by those outside of the region that view the Great Lakes as a resource to be shared on a national or int ernational level (see figure 6).
24% Yes, they belong to the state or region they're in
Other (please specify)
56% No, they belong to 17% the entire nation
Fig. 6. Percentage of responses to the question: “ Do you believe natural resources, such as the Great Lakes water, can be claimed by a state or region? ” 41
The question “Do the Great Lakes have an emotional or sentimental value to you beyond their use for recreational activities and the industries they support?” was asked in an effort to measure the level of place attachment. For the purpose of this survey, it was possibly the single most relevant question. 79% of respondents claimed that the Great
Lakes had either “A great deal of value”, or “Some value”. A total of only 11% claimed they had “No value”. Too often policies are created without taking into acco unt the emotional aspect of people’s perceptions. By researching the emotional bond to a natural resource there is the opportunity to explain conflicts and tensions that statistics alone are unable to identify (see figure 7).
40 40% 39% 35 30 25 20 15 11% 10 9% 5 0 A great deal of Some value Very little No value value value
Fig. 7. Percentage r esponse s to the question: “Do the Great Lakes have an emotional or sentimental value to you beyond their use for recreational activities and the industries they support?”
42
Breaking down the previous questions by age shows some interesting results. In the younges t age group, 20 -39, a total of 23% respondents claimed that the Great Lakes had very little sentimental value. Only 14% of that same group reported that the Great
Lakes had a great deal of value to them. Conversely, the oldest group of respondents, 70 and over, had the fewest number claiming the Great Lakes had very little value, 6%. As residents of the region mature, they apparently appreciate the number of ways the Great
Lakes have an emotional impact on their lives. Although they do not report the Great
Lakes as having a great deal of value, very few respondents in the oldest age group claimed the Great Lakes had very little value. (see figure 8).
60%
50% A great deal of value 40% Some value
30% Very little value
20% No value
10%
0% 20-39 40 -49 50-59 60-69 70+
Fig. 8. Percentage totals grouped by age of responses to the question: “Do the Great Lakes have an emotio nal or sentimental value to you beyond their use for recreational activities and the industries they support?”
43
Previous research of place attachment has shown that the more interaction an inhabitant has with their environment, the more positive feelings they develop specifically for that location. These types of bonds are created over long-term relationships with specific places (Proshansky et al. 1983, Williams et al. 1992). The residents of Akron were asked how often they visit sites for recreation that includes any of the Great Lakes. Respondents that never visited the Great Lakes, visited them less than once a year, or visited them 1-2 times per year reported that the Great Lakes had no sentimental value at a 15% response rate. For those visiting the Great Lakes 3-4 times per year and greater, the largest number of respondents claimed that the Great Lakes had a great deal of sentimental value. It is logical to conclude that aspects of the environment that a person never has interaction with would have a very low probability of being missed if it no longer existed. Conversely, the more memories you create while visiting a specific site the higher level of place attachment you will experience for that site (see figure 9). 44
100% 90% A great 80% deal of value 70% Some 60% value 50% 40% Very little value 30% 20% No value 10% 0% No answer
Fig. 9. “On average how often do you visit sites for recreation that include any of the Great Lakes? Examples, but not limited to, Niagara Falls, Cleveland lakefront, Cedar Point or Kelleys Island”.
Respondents were asked how often they participated in water related activities such as boating, fishing or swimming at any of the Great Lakes. When crosstabbing their results with the role the Great Lakes play in their quality of life, there proves to be a strong connection. The number of those that chose “Strongly Agreed” increased in proportion with number of visits. For those that visited the Great Lakes at least 3 times a year there were no responses claiming “Somewhat Disagree” or “Strongly Disagree” ( see figure 10).
45
100% 90% Strongly 80% Agree 70% 60% Somewhat 50% Agree 40% 30% Strongly 20% Disagree 10% 0% Somewhat Disagree Never Monthly 2 times per times per year 2 times per year 4 - - 1 3 Less once than a year Less More than once a a month once than More About every month other every About
Lake Recreation
Fig. 10. Responses to the question: “The Great Lakes play an important role in my quality of life” crosstabbed by those participating in water related activities.
Place attachment is something that most commonly develops over time. To test the theory that attachment to the Great Lakes may be linked to length of residency, the respondents were asked how long they have lived within 100 miles of any of the Great
Lakes. A chart was created by crosstabbing the amount of value the Great Lake s had for residents and their length of residency. Surprisingly, although there is a slight pattern that shows an increase in attachment for a couple of the longest residing groups, there are no definitive patterns (see figure 11). 46
60%
50%
40% 0-19 30% 20-39 40-59 20% 60+
10%
0% A great deal Some value Very little No value of value value
Fig. 11. Years of resi dency within 100 miles of the Great Lakes and level of attachment to the Great Lakes.
Commodity
Natural resources, such as the Great Lakes, often offer one -of-a-kind recreational settings. To understand if a place is thought of as a commodity, it must be tested to learn if there are goods that are theoretically interchangeable. To validate this principal, whatever is being exchanged has to have equally satisfying attributes (Williams et al.
1992). For this study, respondents were asked if income in exch ange for water from the
Great Lakes would be an acceptable compensation. The purpose of this question was to measure whether residents view the Great Lakes as a commodity, or possibly something more sentimental. Just over half of all respondents expressed a very strong opposition to exchanging income for water from the Great Lakes, regardless of the amount. Less than 47 one quarter claimed they would be willing to exchange water for any amount of income.
The results are another strong indicator that the region ’s residents have a bond with the
Great Lakes that goes beyond their capacity to support industry, recreation or a source of income (see figure 12).
13% 22%
Yes, any income would be positive Yes, but only for a premium No, the water is not for 13% sale at any price Other
51%
Fig. 12. Percentage or r esponses to the question: “Does the prospect of sharing water from the Great Lakes become more attractive if it would provide income for the state or the region?”
Differences by Sex
A noticeable difference can be seen when breaking down the responses from male and female respondents in regards to the sharing of freshwater. Ov er 60% of male respondents claimed they would never be willing to share freshwater from the Great
Lakes outside of North America, while slightly less than half of female respondents claimed the same. These results may help explain the unusually high survey response from men. The feelings of ownership are considered to be more strongly a male trait.
Additionally, while 6% of females failed to answer the questions, all male respondents provided an answer (see figure 13).
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
7% 10%
0%
Fig. 13. Percentage totals grouped b y responses to the question: “ Should the Great Lakes be shared internationally (other than with Canada) where there is a need for freshwater? 49
There was also a significant statistical difference in replies from male and female respondents to the question of where their community’s water supply comes from. While only 9% of males respondents were unsure where their water supply came from, 26% of fe male respondents were unsure. The traditional role of men as providers may help explain the results of this question as well as tie into previous highly male weighted answers (see figure 14).
80% 71%
70% 59% 60%
50%
40% Male 26% Female 30% 20% 15% 20% 9% 10%
0% Yes Not sure Have residential well
Fig. 14. Responses to the question: “Do you know where your c ommunity’s water supply comes from?
Socioeconomics
The Great Lakes play a very important economic as well as emotional role in the region. A question on the survey was created in an effort to find any possible correlation 50 between a resident’s economic s tatus and how they may be affected by any change to the
Great Lakes. What was discovered was that as a higher household income was reported, the less they believed their lives would be impacted by any negative impact to the Great
Lakes. A higher income cre ate many more possible alternatives to recreation and economic activity than those with a low household income (see figure 15).
90% 80% 70% To a large 60% degree 50% To a lesser 40% degree 30% Not at all 20% 10% 0% Less than $25,001 to $50,001 to $75,001 to $100,001 $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 or higher
Income
Fig. 15. Income categorized in response to, “To what degree would your quality of life be affected if natural resources, such as freshwater, in North Eastern Ohio somehow diminished?”
Another interesting result was found when looking at income and how it affects respondents’ sentimental value placed on the Great Lakes. Figure 15 reveals that as income increases the reported ef fect on the quality of life decreases. However, figure 16 shows that as respondents claimed a higher income they also claimed an increase in the
Great Lakes having a sentimental value. The only bracket that had more than half of their 51 responses stating the Great Lakes have a great deal of sentimental value was the highest income of $100,000 or higher.
60%
50% A great deal of 40% value Some value 30% Very little value 20% No value
10%
0% Less than $25,001 to $50,001 to $75,001 to $100,001 $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 or higher
Income
Fig. 16. Income categorized in response to, “Do the Great Lakes have an emotional or sentimental value to you beyond their use for recreational activities and the industries they support?”
The last income related graph expresses another set of interesting result. Again, the highest income bracket is the most noticeable. There were no respondents from this bracket that claimed they were willing to drastically reduce their water usage for those in need, nor were they willing to share their water solely based on the fact that it would have a minimal impact on their daily lives. The high level of unwillingness to share Great
Lakes’ water corresponds with this g roup’s high level of emotional attachment. There is naturally an aversion by this group with a high emotional attachment to any activity that 52 may alter or compromise the well -being of the Great Lakes, and ultimately have an emotional impact on the resident (see figure 17).
60% Yes, I would be willing to drastically reduce 50% my use
40% Yes, as long as it has a minimal impact on my daily 30% life
20% Yes, but it would depend on conservation efforts 10% being made in those regions Yes, but only in 0% emergency Less than $25,001 $50,001 $75,001 $100,001 situations $25,000 to to to or higher $50,000 $75,000 $100,000
Income
Fig. 17. Income categorized in response to, “Would you be willing to ration your water use in order to provide water to other needy regions in the United States outside of the Great Lakes region?”
Survey Conclusion
This research has proven the hypothesis to be correct. The value that residents of
Akron, Ohio place on the Great Lakes certainly goes beyond their value as a commodity.
The results of this research gave some interesting results. The majority of residents in
Akron believe natural resources, such as the Great Lakes, can be claimed. This view is held even stronger among men than women. 53
The most notable difference in the responses by age can be found by looking at the level of attachment. The youngest age group made up of 20-39 year olds had the lowest amount of sentimental attachment. Surprisingly, unlike previous place attachment research, the length of residency within 100 miles of the Great Lakes had little significance in relation to place attachment. Perhaps there is not a minimum amount of time need to create an emotional bond with a natural resource as fundamental as water.
Furthermore, this survey may very well be the first time such issues have been brought into the consciousness of many respondents.
The highest income bracket of $100,000+ played two opposite roles in respondents’ opinions. They reported that any sort of negative change to the Great Lakes would have little effect on their quality of life, presumably due to their ability to find suitable alternatives. The same group did, however, also respond that the Great Lakes have a great deal of emotional and sentimental value.
CHAPTER IV
Policy
Common Resources
Water differs from other types of property due to its unique legal status which weighs against it being treated as a commodity that can be bought and sold. The rights to surface water are generally considered available for public use but not ownership. Water is the ecological basis for all life and therefore a common resource, or “commons”, shared by all. The sustainability of water depends on the cooperation among the members of the community where it is located. The Great Lakes common:
“Commons are resources that are not individually owned,
but instead shared by a community. The commons can
include international lakes and river, oceans, global
climate, the internet, genetics, and sidewalks. The Great
Lakes have been and remain today an economically and
ecologically valuable commons. These vast bodies of water
and the water feeding them (both surface and ground) pay
no attention to political borders and supply the water needs
of people, plants, and wildlife” (Kwaterski et al. 2006, p.
3).
54
55
Policies protecting water have continually changed since the founding of the
United States. During the late nineteenth century, various Great Lakes state courts independently concluded that water was something that was held by the state and it could not be sold unless it was for the greater public’s benefit (Kwaterski et al. 2006). In the early twentieth century the United States and Canada created the International Joint
Commission (IJC) to resolve international water disputes (Annin 2006).
The United States Supreme Court upheld the right of New Jersey to prohibit the diversion of water in one of the very first U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with water rights. In 1908 the Hudson County Water Company was prohibited from diverting water from the Passaic River in New Jersey to Staten Island, New York (Kwaterski et al. 2006).
In more recent times the dispute over water has been between those who believe water is a commons, that should be protected for the public trust, and those that argue in favor of allowing water to be owned, sold, or traded as a good or service (Kwaterski et al.
2006). According to the global consulting firm Deloitte, there is a “growing political opposition to privatization in emerging markets due to widespread perception that it does not serve the interests of the population at large” (Hall et al. 2005, p.3).
As access to safe drinking water grows increasingly limited, multinational corporations are growing their wealth and influence by gaining water rights.
Multinational corporations that provide water services are part of an industry that generates revenue of more than a trillion dollars per year (Kwaterski et al. 2006).
The argument for privatizing natural resources is that unregulated resources will suffer from the tragedy of the commons. A natural resource, such as water, suffers by 56 each individual overexploiting it to maximize their own personal gain. There is a view that concerns of this approach are flawed due to the fact that historically natural resources were most often part of a local or social institution governed by laws (Kwaterski et al.
2006)
The World Bank claims that water is a human right and not just a need. A human right cannot be purchased or sold, while a human need may be supplied privately:
“...The World Bank officials have now decided it doesn't
matter so much whether infrastructure is in public or
private hands ... the World Bank itself must pay far greater
attention to the fiery politics of privatization and especially
to the effect of rising prices on the poor and disaffected”
(Hall et al. 2005, p. 13).
The corporate control of water may be a threat to the well-being of humans and the water must not be diminished for future generations (see figure 18) (Kwaterski et al. 2006).
57
Fig. 18. Opposition against privatization of water. Source: hermes-press.com/water.htm
In such situations it becomes the responsibility of those involved in environmental psychology to advise policymakers and citizens as to the ways people react to such environmental pressures. Large amounts of stress may be added to the daily lives of ordinary citizens as a result from threats to their natural resources (Cantrill and Senecah
2001). Intense emotional reactions should not be surprising when dealing with natural resource policies. People-place relationships imply that for many people the connections they have with natural resources extends far beyond their use (Cheng et al. 2003).
The interest of a State’s public is the most solidified and indisputable when dealing with issues of maintaining the water resources. Rights to water are subject to the prevention of diminishing the resources for the public welfare and health. In 1985 governors and premiers signed the Great Lakes Charter (Charter) to create a public trust 58 doctrine. “The water resources of the Great Lakes Basin are precious public natural resources, shared and held in trust by the Great Lakes States and Provinces” (Kwaterski et al. 2006, pg. 6).
Shared Commodity
The term “water rage” has been coined in drought-ravaged regions of the world.
There are places where neighbors become vigilantes to squash other community members’ illicit irrigation. Without a change to behavior, the world is heading toward conflicts or even wars between resource rich and poor, rural and urban, and wealthy and poor nations (Barlow 2007).
Seven states depend on water from the Colorado River (see figure 19) where there are currently diversion projects underway at a cost of $2.5 billion. More than twenty million people in seven states currently depend on the dwindling snowmelt that feeds the
Colorado River for their water supply. Wyoming is being sued by Montana for allegedly taking more than is permitted from the tributaries to the river and Utah and Nevada are disputing several water pipeline proposals (Barlow 2007). 59
Fig. 19. A map of the Colorado River and the seven states that depend on it for a supply of freshwater. Source: serc.carleton.edu
There are growing stresses between the United States and Canada over binational waters. At the heart of the tension are the concerns surrounding the Great Lakes. The concerns are not just in light of the threat of diversion, but over issues of pollutants. In
2006 the Federal government announced plans to patrol the Great Lakes with armed coast guard patrols. The drills were put on hold by the Bush administration but the measures are considered by many Canadians to be the United States showing their assertiveness on what they believe has always been considered joint waters (Barlow 2007).
60
Akron, Ohio
During the decade leading up to the twentieth century, Akron had a booming population that had grown sixty percent. The population had grown so fast that boarding houses were renting out beds in shifts. Living conditions were difficult, but the biggest problem facing Akron was a safe water supply. The existing supply was unable to keep up with demand and those receiving service were often made sick by the low quality of water. Local officials dug over seventy wells in vain in an effort to meet the growing demand. Much of the city burned in 1909 when there wasn’t enough water to douse the flames (Annin 2006).
At that time Akron’s water supply was managed by a private utility called Akron
Water Works Company (see figure 20). The private utility was forced to tap nearby
Summit Lake causing an even further degradation of the water quality. In 1911 the city hired engineers to recommend a solution to their water situation. The team of engineers recommended to the city that they tap the Cuyahoga River, a tributary to Lake Erie, as their new water source. Akron would have to construct a dam near the village of Kent,
Ohio but that would meet the needs of approximately three hundred and fifty thousand people. The city adopted the plan and purchased the Akron Water Works Company.
Akron also lobbied in the state capitol for special water rights which they received to
“divert and use forever” the water of the:
“Tuscarawas River, the Big Cuyahoga and Little
Cuyahoga rivers, and the tributaries thereto, now wholly or
partly owned or controlled by the state and used for the 61
purpose of supplying water to the northern division of the
Ohio Canal, provided, however, and this grant is upon the
condition that at no time shall said city use the water of any
such stream, to such extent or in such a manner as to
diminish or lessen the supply now necessary, to maintain
the flow in and through the canal” (Annin 2006 p.174).
With legislation passed, the city broke ground on a reservoir that became known as Lake
Rockwell, named after Akron Mayor Frank Rockwell. On August 15 th , 1915 the city
began operating the water system that still operates today (City of Akron 2010).
Fig. 20. (Akron) City Water Works. Souce: highlandsquare.org
Starting in the 1970’s, Akron’s industries, along with its population, started a slow decline. The city found itself with a surplus of water and a need for income. The 62 city decided it had an asset to market by selling water to suburbs. In 1992 the city sent a proposal to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources outlining their plan to sell water.
The service would have the capacity to deliver four million gallons of water a day to areas outside of the Great Lakes watershed. To mitigate the diversion out of the watershed, Akron would replace diverted water back into the Cuyahoga River within the watershed. A couple of years later it was decided that the diversion would have to receive approval from all eight Great Lakes governors (Annin 2006).
The city of Akron was one of the first two cities to receive unanimous approval from the Great Lakes governors’ (Viña and Sheikh 2005). Even with approval, it was not until 2006 that the city could legally divert water outside of the watershed. Preceding
2006 Akron was taken to court by neighboring communities within the watershed that feared the diversion would compromise their water supply. Akron won the fight in the
Ohio Supreme Court but has not even come close to its capacity to divert water even during peak days (Annin 2006).
Policy Survey Result
The results from this research soundly suggest that Akronites, as a sample of the
Great Lakes region, express considerable place attachment to the Great Lakes. To test how this may affect policy the next research questions was asked, “Are you generally aware of what is covered by the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Compact, which is the legislation that was created to protect the Great Lakes?”. Theoretically the results should indicate a high number of those expressing place attachment to have a greater knowledge of the Compact. 63
The result did indeed prove the theory of a relationsh ip between attachment and knowledge. Those claiming that the Great Lakes had a great deal of sentimental value also had the highest percent of knowing what was generally covered in the Compact.
Respondents that claimed the Great Lakes had no sentimental va lue also claimed at a rate over 90% that they did not have a general knowledge of what was covered in the
Compact. All of those that did not answer their level of sentimental attachment to the
Great Lakes reported not knowing what was covered by the Compac t.
It is clearly identifiable (see figure 21) that residents that have a sentimental attachment to a natural resource are more knowledgeable of what steps, if any, have been taken to protect that particular resource.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% Yes 30% Not sure 20% No answer 10% 0% A great Some Very little No value No answer deal of value value value
Degree of Sentimental Value Fig. 21. Degree of sentimental value placed on the Great Lakes crosstabbed with the general awareness of what is covered by the Great Lakes -St. Lawrence River Basin Compact.
To understand how policy is used in relation to place attachment, the next graph expresses the replies to the questi believed was ultimately responsible for protecting their freshwater. The single largest percentages of responses were that the state level was ultimately responsible. The following two largest responses, b
Of the “Other” responses, 79% wrote in that it was a combination of all of the choices there were responsible for protecting their freshwater (see figure 22).
Fig. 22. Responses to the question: freshwater supply ultimately belongs to…”.
Cause for Protection
In 1997 a Canadian entrepreneurial group, the NOVA Group, devised a bold idea to export water from Lake Superior for profit. The NOVA Group’s idea 65 water from the center of Lake Superior into large shipping vessels containing disposable liners. The water would then be purified at a Great Lakes port before being shipped off to
Asia. In 1998 the NOVA Group filed an application titled “For the Withdrawal of Bulk
Water” at a local Canadian public office. The permit was approved by the Canadian government for up to 600 million liters annually for five years on March 31, 1998 (Viña and Sheikh 2005).
Soon after the permit was granted the news of the withdrawal approval spread in the Great Lakes region and prompted an extraordinary debate. For most people, the most surprising element was that the plan gained governmental approval. The primary concern for environmentalists was that the approval of this type of diversion would set a precedent for treating the Great Lakes as a commodity. Additionally, if approval was given to export water to Asia, there would be difficulty in preventing water diversion to places such as Nevada or Texas (Annin 2006).
It was not until the situation was brought into the consciousness of bureaucrats that it was realized the protection of the Great Lakes was not covered under other existing international accords such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The only binding document that could possibly be used to prohibit the privatization of Great Lakes water was the Water
Resource Development Act (WRDA), but only in the United States. The WRDA only covered diversions and did not cover consumption, and it was thought that it would not withstand legal challenges. After pressure from Canadian officials, the permit granted to 66 the NOVA Group was withdrawn in 1998, under the condition that if laws changed in the future the NOVA Group would have the first opportunity to export water (Annin 2006).
Recognizing the Great Lakes legally as a public trust was an approach that could protect the lakes from degradation. Treating water as a public trust makes the government responsible for protecting the resource. Private ownership of water for personal use or gain would be made illegal (Kwaterski et al. 2006). Links between government, identity and community are important considerations when taking action in creating policies affecting the residents of a region. Appealing to the place attachment of the region’s residents can be engaged to gain popular support for policy (Nanzer 2004).
In 1999 the Canadian province of Ontario passed a comprehensive anti-diversion law that would prohibit bulk removal of water from the Great Lakes. The law would also prohibit bulk water removal from any other provincial drainage basin. Soon after Ontario passed their anti-diversion law, the Canadian government passed a federal law that prohibited diversions from the Great Lakes. In reaction the Canadian laws, the U.S.
Congress strengthened the WRDA to include banning the export of water from the Great
Lakes (Annin 2006)
The International Joint Commission (IJC) was set up in 1909 by the United States and Canadian governments to resolve water disputes along the shared border. During the history of the IJC, the governments have never referred to it for any binding decision
(Hall 2006, Kwaterski et al. 2006).
In 1998 the IJC was asked by the two governments to create a report regarding
water use, diversion and exports from the Great Lakes. The IJC held a series of 67 community sessions in the United States and Canada to hear testaments by the public regarding water diversion. One of the main goals of policy makers using place-based inquiries is to foster greater participation in natural resource politics by including a broad range of voices and opinions centered around a place (Cheng et al. 2003). The IJC was struck with an overwhelming number of testimonies from the region’s residents against water diversion including drawings from school children (Annin 2006). Holding a public process helps to support the notion that legislation should be able to better represent the attitude and feelings of a region’s residents (Nanzer 2004), because too often researchers presume we know more about place attachment than we really do (Brown et al. 2003).
For policy implementation to be effective there must be a broad-based consensus.
Knowledge must be shared by the residents and the law-makers and the decisions made must favor benefits in the long-term rather than advances for the short-term. Care must be taken to prevent the marginalizing of any feasible viewpoint that may just delay the progress toward a realistic solution (Cantrill and Senecah 2001).
In February of 2000 the IJC released their report which touched on a number of different issues. One of the most noteworthy was that the Great Lakes have a renewal rate of less than 1 percent annually. They also concluded that with the current level of water use there was no surplus water in the system. The IJC’s prediction for the future was to use a precautionary approach due to an increased demand from population growth and the effects of climate change. The IJC report was not binding but very influential for policy-makers (Annin 2006). 68
The Council of Great Lakes Governors (Council) also met in a closed session during the summer of 1998, prompted by the issues that arose from the NOVA Group’s efforts. The Council selected an executive director to create a team of national and international legal experts to expose any potential vulnerabilities in the Great Lakes. The legal team was made up of seven American and five Canadian attorneys (Annin 2006).
The team of twelve attorneys documented several main points for the Council’s consideration. The first point was that the governors’ “just say no” approach to Great
Lakes’ water diversion was most likely unconstitutional. It was the attorneys’ advice that approach possibly violated international trade agreements. As already suspected by the
Council, the WRDA would be insufficient to protect the Great Lakes from legal challenges. The consumption of water within the Great Lakes basin had the potential to be just as damaging as water diversion out of the region and should also be given attention. The decisions of who has rights to the water should be judged evenly regardless of whether the use is within or external of the drainage basin. Possibly the most important point recommended to the Council by the attorneys was that they needed to pursue the creation of a Great Lakes compact that was similar to legislation enacted by the Canadian federal government (Annin 2006).
Much of the document created for the Council needed to remain confidential; however, Michigan Governor John Engler was notably interested in letting the public know that the current legal documents were inadequate to protect the region from diversion. Governor Engler was aware of the vociferous opposition to water diversion expressed by Michigan voters (see figure 23) (Annin 2006). It is extremely important for 69 policy makers to understand the level of attachment individuals form with resources such as the Great Lakes (Nanzer 2004).
Fig. 23. Billboard posted by a nonprofit organization in Michigan. Source: waterencyclopedia.com
The governors asked for a reduced version that could be released to the public.
James Lochhead, an attorney from Colorado and expert dealing with the Colorado River water issues, was chosen to be the lead author. What became known as the “Lochhead
Report” was an easy to understand version for the public of what was received by the
Council. The Lochhead Report touched on Federal laws, international trade and the
WRDA in an effort to expose their weaknesses. Environmental groups were in favor of legal action to protect the natural resource and possibly even improve the Great Lakes in the future (Annin 2006). 70
A new plan of action was created in 2001 and became known as the Great Lakes
Charter Annex (Annex). Some of the key directives of the Annex were that withdrawn water had to be returned after use, water withdrawal could not create adverse impacts and that any applicant for withdrawing water conduct an improvement to the waters of the basin. At a ceremony in Niagara Falls all eight of the Great Lakes governors signed the
Annex in late 2001. After the signing of the Annex, the governors pledged to have a binding document created within thirty-six months (Annin 2006).
From the time the Charter was signed in 1985, and the Annex was signed in 2001, the dominating number of governors changed from Democrat to Republican.
Interestingly, protection of the region’s water resources was never a partisan issue, rather an issue about place. Geographic loyalties were pushed to their limits as the stakeholders negotiated with one another:
“As someone who has done public policy work for twenty-
five years, I’m fascinated by this issue because it has
nothing to do with partisan politics and it has everything to
do with geography” Todd Ambs, head of the Water
Division at the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. (Annin 2006, pg. 213-214).
Between 2001 and 2005, when a final compromise had been reached, numerous meetings, votes and wording changes had transpired. On the 13 th of December in 2005,
the final documents were released during a ceremony in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The
Great Lakes —St . Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (Compact) was 71 signed by representatives of all of the Great Lake states (Annin 2006). The Compact passed the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and was signed into Federal law by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008 (Council of Great Lakes Governors
2008).
Public Law 110-343
People have a desire to politically belong to a place and to be part of its traditions.
As part of this inherent need, traditions can fuel the need to create legislation to exclude others (Relph1997). These exclusions may expand to include natural resources located within a region.
Public Law 110-343 is better known as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin
Resources Compact (Compact). The Compact was resolved by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled on October 3,
2008 (U.S. Congress, 2008).
The Compact is between the states of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York,
Ohio and Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. All of the states listed solemnly covenant and agree with each other upon enacting the Great Lakes-St.
Lawrence River Basin Resources Compact. Although the Compact is nonbinding internationally; there is a good faith agreement with the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec (U.S. Congress, 2008).
Section 4.8 directly forbids new or increased diversions from the Great Lakes
Basin. Section 4.9 address exceptions: 72
“a. All Water Withdrawn from the Basin shall be returned,
either naturally or after use, to the Source Watershed less
an allowance for Consumptive Use. No surface water or
groundwater from outside the Basin may be used to satisfy
any portion of this criterion…” (U.S. Congress, 2008 pg.
14).
Article 6 of the Compact specifically addresses the participation by residents of the region. The Compact recognizes the importance of participation by the public in the management of the Great Lakes Basin. After the creation of the Compact, all further meetings of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resource Council
(Council) shall be open to the public. The responses, approvals, objections and comments at public hearings must be recorded for the review and decision process (U.S. Congress,
2008).
Any person violating the Compact will be under the jurisdiction of the United
States District Court for the District of Columbia as stated in Article 7. “Remedies including equitable relief and civil penalties” will be applied for those found guilty of breaking the regulations of the Compact (U.S. Congress, 2008).
Policy Conclusion
Creating policies to protect natural resources from every possible unforeseen threat is nearly impossible. Legislation must constantly be updated and revised to stay astride with changes in resources, beliefs and economics of a region. It is of paramount importance to understand the feelings and opinions of residents living in a region and 73 how they affect the policies that are made. Faced with recent internal and external threats, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Resources Compact is the region’s most recent attempt to protect what is possibly their most valuable natural resource in economic and social terms.
CHAPTER V
Conclusion
The hypothesis for this research was that residents of the eight Great Lakes states placed a much greater meaning on the Great Lakes than just for the freshwater they provide and the economies they support. The purpose for conducting this research has been an attempt to use a sample of the Great Lakes Region’s population to measure their place attachment to one of their most precious natural resources.
As previously mentioned, place attachment is a relationship that goes beyond judgment or cognition and explicitly contains emotional substance. Place attachments are emotions and feelings driven by, but not necessarily based on, a need for the location or for personal identity (Jorgensen and Stedman 2001). In an effort to examine place attachment using the Great Lakes as the case study, this research discovered that residence of the Great Lakes region have a strong sense of ownership and attachment.
The respondents to the survey indicated that the Great Lakes have considerably more meaning than the commodity approach is capable of explaining.
People have a desire to politically belong to a place and to be part of its traditions.
As part of this inherent need, traditions can fuel the need to create legislation to exclude others (Relph 1997). When offered the prospect of income in exchange for Great Lakes 74
75 water, slightly more than half of survey respondents claimed the water was not for sale at any price. Regional power may be used to shape social processes and the beliefs shared by people of a territory may lead to the exclusion of those outside of the group (Paasi
2001). Humans share patterns of marked territoriality with other species on Earth. When the primary values associated with a place of attachment are threatened or disrupted, direct protest may arise. Behaviorally and legally these values may not be consciously articulated in our daily lives and are usually taken-for-granted. These values regularly only come into light once they are threatened (Buttimer and Seamon 1980). The most notable evidence to verify the existence of place attachment is the Great Lakes-St.
Lawrence River Basin Resources Compact.
Prior to the NOVA Group receiving a permit to export Great Lakes water, place attachment only existed for most residence at a subconscious level. Residents were faced with a direct threat to the Great Lakes and to their emotionally laden attachment. This threat brought the region’s place attachment to the Great Lakes to a conscious level. The catalyst in the form of water exports unintentionally exposed vulnerabilities to legislation intended to protect the Great Lakes.
The International Joint Commission (IJC) set up by the United States and Canada was overwhelmed by the responses they received at public hearings conducted for testaments by regional residents on their feeling towards water diversion. The actions of the IJC are commendable for their use of public input and the accommodation of residents’ feelings of place attachment. 76
Conflicts over water rights and usage are likely to increase as freshwater becomes a more precious and limited natural resource. The values that people attach to places are most often at the core of conflicts over resource management (Warzecha and Lime 2001).
Legislators need to take into account the emotional attachment placed on natural resources by a region’s inhabitants. Many conflicts over water are rooted in the different approaches taken when deciding water rights. The commodity approach is taken to treat natural resources solely as a good and does not take into account the sentimental values of a region that it may also represent.
Using Akron, Ohio as a sample for the region, the results from the survey conducted for this research strongly indicate a high level of place attachment to the Great
Lakes by residents of the region. Four out of ten respondents claimed that the Great
Lakes had a “great deal” of sentimental value to them, which can not be explained using the commodity approach. More than half of the respondents reported that natural resources can be claimed by a region and therefore are not to be treated as a national resource, as some Federal legislators have indicated. Although place attachment was expressed by many different people, the profile of a resident with the strongest place attachment would be a well educated white male over 40 years old, with a high household income.
The next step for this research would explore one of a few different issues. A surprising result from the survey was that there was no apparent correlation between the length of residency in the Great Lakes region and the level of place attachment. How does length of residency and levels of attachment affect one another? A different and 77 very interesting next step could be to research how the rights to natural resources such as freshwater and the emotions they arouse on a larger scale, such as a national scale. At a much larger scale research could be conducted to examine the level of place attachment expressed by the world community for uninhabited places on Earth, such as Antarctica.
Optimistically this research will help geographers and legislators better understand the emotional aspects behind place attachment. Perhaps resolving water issues in the future will have one more source to advance the understanding of the differences that may develop from the use of different epistemologies. With a growing World population and a decreasing freshwater supply, the World community will increasingly be faced with difficult water management decisions.
78
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