Hugo Slabbert ⚠️ on Nostr: The Sumas Prairie in the Fraser Valley in BC, and Whatcom County in Washington, was ...
The Sumas Prairie in the Fraser Valley in BC, and Whatcom County in Washington, was once Sumas Lake. It was drained in a huge effort to open the prairie for use as rich farm land, with a system of dykes and pump stations and other water management.
But, nature is not beholden to our little plans. The prairie floods every so many years, with an extreme event in 1990 and most recently again in 2021. This raises calls to "fix it," which amounts to billions of dollars across not just municipal, regional, provincial, and federal boundaries in Canada, but also across to the US with Whatcom County and Washington State with the role of the Nooksack River in the flooding.
This past summer, a group of researchers suggested considering the option of "managed retreat" from Sumas Prairie, to actually consider the costs (buying out private farm and residential land, impact to agriculture) to do the due diligence versus what it would cost to continually try to shore up our human-built systems of literally draining a lake. The researchers were clear to say they are not explicitly recommending that this must happen, but that we should responsibly consider the options, especially in the face of extreme weather events becoming more frequent and more severe.
The reaction was swift, calling the researchers irresponsible, out of touch, "don't understand farming," with conservative political parties quickly being pulled in fight off this "threat to our farmers".
This long lead up all to say:
It is extremely short sighted, and smacks of hubris, to think this is fully your choice to make. Nature doesn't care about how long you have been on this land, about insurance costs, or the logistics of shifting your agricultural centre. Even if you manage to rally various levels and jurisdictions of government and raise the billions needed to shore up your man-made prairie, there is no guarantee that you will succeed. It's not even that nature will "do as it pleases" so much as these are raw forces without a will; they are not beholden in any way to our hopes and dreams and finances and other human structures.
https://www.earth.com/news/ghost-lake-tulare-returns-after-130-years-and-buries-94000-acres-of-farmland/
But, nature is not beholden to our little plans. The prairie floods every so many years, with an extreme event in 1990 and most recently again in 2021. This raises calls to "fix it," which amounts to billions of dollars across not just municipal, regional, provincial, and federal boundaries in Canada, but also across to the US with Whatcom County and Washington State with the role of the Nooksack River in the flooding.
This past summer, a group of researchers suggested considering the option of "managed retreat" from Sumas Prairie, to actually consider the costs (buying out private farm and residential land, impact to agriculture) to do the due diligence versus what it would cost to continually try to shore up our human-built systems of literally draining a lake. The researchers were clear to say they are not explicitly recommending that this must happen, but that we should responsibly consider the options, especially in the face of extreme weather events becoming more frequent and more severe.
The reaction was swift, calling the researchers irresponsible, out of touch, "don't understand farming," with conservative political parties quickly being pulled in fight off this "threat to our farmers".
This long lead up all to say:
It is extremely short sighted, and smacks of hubris, to think this is fully your choice to make. Nature doesn't care about how long you have been on this land, about insurance costs, or the logistics of shifting your agricultural centre. Even if you manage to rally various levels and jurisdictions of government and raise the billions needed to shore up your man-made prairie, there is no guarantee that you will succeed. It's not even that nature will "do as it pleases" so much as these are raw forces without a will; they are not beholden in any way to our hopes and dreams and finances and other human structures.
https://www.earth.com/news/ghost-lake-tulare-returns-after-130-years-and-buries-94000-acres-of-farmland/