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Quality Control: Groundwater wars and water quality in arid Southern California

Fri, April 12, 10:30am to 12:00pm, Hyatt Regency Columbus, Union B

Abstract

In arid California, debates over water in the 20th and 21st centuries have typically focused on extremes in water quantity: the tendency of desert water to occur in great abundance (rich groundwater aquifers, flash floods) or great absence (overcommitted rivers, dried up lakes, prolonged droughts). Less visible is the production of and control over water quality, despite the increasing threats posed by salinity and contamination of vital water resources. In this paper, I draw on archival and ethnographic research on two publicly managed small groundwater systems in Southern California’s rural Colorado Desert to examine debates over technocratic control of drinking water quality from the 1970s to the present. Here, differently positioned local water experts (geologists, engineers, and public health professionals) struggled to project the safety or vulnerability of local groundwater sources in both qualitative and quantitative terms, based on limited measurements of water extraction and pollution. These projections were circulated, challenged, and often commissioned by water activists and resource managers advocating for particular uses of potable water in legal cases and county planning processes. By tracking these debates over who determines what counts as high quality water and for what purpose, I reveal a story of shifting public values related to shared water resources. Building on this case study, I question the normalized differentiation between quality and quantity in water science, technology, and management; and consider how public histories of particular local waters can inform critical debates over water supply threats and sustainable water futures.

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