UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ “WHISKEY IS FOR DRINKING:” WATER PASSIONS AND WATER POLITICS IN THE AMERICAN WEST A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in SOCIOLOGY by Kirsten Sara Rudestam June 2017 The dissertation of Kirsten Rudestam is approved: _____________________________________ Professor Deborah Gould, chair _____________________________________ Professor Miriam Greenberg _____________________________________ Professor Andrew Szasz _____________________________________ Professor Anna Tsing _______________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Kirsten Sara Rudestam 2017 Table of Contents List of Figures iv List of Acronyms v Abstract vi Acknowledgements viii Chapter 1 Introduction: Water Stories and Water Justice 1 Chapter 2 Changing Values of Water 30 Chapter 3 Traveling Affect: The Threat of Fish vs. Farmers 62 Chapter 4 A Peculiar River 84 Chapter 5 Affective Encounters: Salmon, Lamprey and Spotted Frogs 137 Chapter 6 Water Governance 197 Chapter 7 Conclusion: Water Ethics and Water Connections 265 Bibliography 276 iii List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Deschutes 31 Figure 2: Map of DBBC 39 Figure 3: The Blue Whale 106 Figure 4: PGE Fish Tower 146 iv List of Acronyms BOR – Bureau of Reclamation COID – Cental Oregon Irrigation District DBBC – Deschutes Basin Board of Control DRA -- Deschutes River Alliance DRC – Deschutes River Conservancy ESA – Endangered Species Act FERC – Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FS – Forest Service KBRA – Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement NMFS – National Marine Fisheries Service PGE – Portland General Electric STS – Science and Technology Studies TSID – Three Sisters Irrigation District USFWS – United States Fish and Wildlife Service UDWC – Upper Deschutes Watershed Council v Abstract Kirsten Sara Rudestam “Whiskey is for Drinking:” Water Passions and Water Politics in the American West The Deschutes Basin, a watershed spanning central Oregon, is one of countless regions across the American West experiencing an increasing demand for water amid a rapidly decreasing supply. The human population in the Deschutes has the fastest growth rate of any county in Oregon, but while municipal demand has skyrocketed, available surface water supplies are already over-allocated. In addition, during the spring and summer irrigation season, water diversions cause a dramatic reduction in the Deschutes River’s flow, contributing to degraded fish habitat and poor water quality. The Deschutes is emblematic not only for its water supply concerns. The basin is also nationally renowned for having undertaken an innovative approach to solving its water distribution problems. In 2001, tribal members, irrigation district managers, and environmental proponents came together and established a water market for managing and distributing the basin’s fresh water supply. Since the inception of the Deschutes Water Bank, water marketing has become increasingly popular across the American West and the Deschutes has served as a model for many of these initiatives. My dissertation examines the ways in which more-than-human encounters matter when it comes to natural resource politics. In foregrounding the vi commodification of local waters, current management strategies tend to overlook the everyday practices and encounters that are central to waters’ movement through the landscape. I turn to theories of affect and emotion in order to demonstrate that how we know, feel, and relate to local waters and to local politics is central to our water management practices and key to understanding and participating in equitable water policies. vii Acknowledgements This project represents far more than the stories, encounters and discoveries that I have attempted to put into words below. It is a work that required the participation and mentorship of many beings – human and non-human. It entailed the physical, tangible explorations into new territories such as spring-fed streams, boardrooms and breweries. It rests upon the kindness and generosity of fellow scholars, farmers, water advocates and friends. This project embodies a collection of ideas that continues to grow and develop beyond the bounds of the written document. As such it contains within it hopes for water justice and for the resilience of more- than-human communities and the waters within them. I have deep gratitude for all of my participants who offered me their time and perspectives on water issues in my field study site of the Deschutes Basin in Central Oregon. I want to especially thank the staff of the Deschutes River Conservancy, who patiently explained to me the inner workings of water politics in the Deschutes and who confided in me their personal stories of their relations with local waters. I feel immensely grateful to have learned from and worked with this collection of good- hearted people. I am indebted to my mentors and colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, in particular my dissertation committee: Deborah Gould, Andrew Szasz, Anna Tsing and Miriam Greenberg who gave me hours of their time and insights reading, editing and discussing my work. I am grateful to Ben Crow for his mentorship, unflagging support and shared passion for water justice. Many thanks to my fellow Sociology viii department cohortians, Yvonne Kwan, Christie McCullen and Alexis Kargyl, whose humor, generosity and intellectual collaboration buoyed my spirits countless times, and to the entire Sociology department -- the staff, faculty and students who in countless ways supported my journey through the program. I want to thank my friends for supporting and believing in me. Ruselle Revenaugh, Brandon Stewart, Tera Kelley, Collette Streight and Susan Douglass all accompanied me through the span of my graduate student career and nourished me with their humor, wisdom, healing and deep care. I have special thanks for Brian Edgar, who showed up for me at times when I most needed support and who filled me up with dance and music. I am grateful to my friend and poet Emily Carr who shared her Oregon home with “the ninja witch who writes water stories,” and for Abigail Brown, who has helped me to learn the potential of true academic collaboration in the pursuit of social justice. I could not have completed this endeavor if not for my family. I have deep and profound thanks for my parents Jan and Kjell Rudestam, who never doubted my capabilities, and to my womb-mate Monica, for her many reminders to take life less seriously. I regret that my grandmother, Britt Rudestam, did not live to see the completion of this project. She was perhaps my biggest cheerleader, showering me with unwavering support and confidence. I dedicate this dissertation to her, as well as to the many waters that inspired my academic studies -- the Los Padres chapparel creek-beds, the rocky cold waters of the Oregon coast, the Himalayan snow-melt, the springs of the Pogonip and the lakes of the High Cascades. May all merit generated ix by this dissertation enhance all those striving for water justice and equity in the world. x Chapter 1 Introduction: Water Stories and Water Justice The Pelton Round Butte dam complex has a unique history. Portland General Electric (PGE) constructed the three dam facility along the Deschutes River in Central Oregon in 1962. In order to allow for fish migration, PGE implemented fish passages throughout the complex, but these modifications failed and in 1968 PGE abandoned all pretenses of accommodating for fish, severing the historic migration of salmon and steelhead in the Deschutes River system. Thirty years later, in a new world of Endangered Species litigation, the Pelton-Round Butte dam complex came up for federal relicensing. Inspired in part by the crisis that had ensued in the Klamath Basin just fifty miles south when the federal government turned off irrigators’ water to protect the endangered sucker fish, irrigators, dam operators, and environmental representatives in the Deschutes chose to collaborate and avoid federal involvement. Twenty-two agency and group representatives met over Formica tables in board rooms to discuss the environmental impacts of the dam, and in 2004 came to an agreement: PGE and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs would become co- owners of the dam, and they would devote $130 million to restore fish passage to the watershed.1 1 A conversation with a DRC staff member clarified the roles of the various organizations in this initiative – “the tribes and PGE are responsible for getting the fish to the water, and [the DRC] is responsible for getting water in the streams for the fish” 1 The plan to restore fish passage required waterscape2 engineering the likes of which had never before been seen. One of the problems facing migrating anadromous fish3 was that of temperature. The cold water from the Metolius River flowing into the Deschutes River sank to the bottom of Lake Billy Chinook, the large lake formed by the Round Butte Dam, while the warmer water from the Crooked River and the upper Deschutes moved over the top of the cold water and either headed back up the arm of the Metolius or swirled around in eddies rather than in a direct route downstream. Fish follow river currents, and the unpredictable water flows generated by the dams were enough to confuse all attempts of fish to find their way downstream. After years of meetings and modeling, a plan was hatched – PGE would construct a 273-foot underwater tower that would alter the water currents in the lake to direct fish into a sorting facility. From there, larger fish would be returned to the lake to be caught by tourists and tribal members, and smaller fish would be sedated, then released into the lower river, where they would, dazed and drugged, continue their migration back to the ocean. This cyborg fish migration project, completed in 2010, has largely been regarded as a success. Secretary of State Gale Norton, for example, praised the 2 Water management agencies have adopted the metric of “watershed” to engage with the geographic boundaries of local water systems.