Reflective Essay: Silent Spring In My Environmental Class

After the first few weeks of clinic, I feel very lucky for the experiences that I’ve had so far. I came to clinic without any working experience in environmental law. Instead, I brought a strong interest that has slowly been building since taking urban planning and environmental classes in college and then finding the legal issues presented in property and water law even more so. One thing that I did not bring though was an informed appreciation for just how complicated these issues were. Issues seemed so black and white, so right and wrong when we were reading Silent Spring in my environmental class. Of course DAT was terrible, and of course we needed to protect Yosemite. I never really stopped to appreciate that people opposed John Muir and …show more content…
So while I still read about the potential effects the desalination plants, especially the proposed one in Huntington Beach and think that it is a clear decision. I look at the high cost of not only the plant but the water it produces. I look at the alternatives like the subsurface infiltration gallery that has been so effective in Japan and doesn’t have the same drastic effects on ocean life, and I quickly conclude that there is a better way to meet our water demands. It’s a classic right and wrong situation, just like DAT. That’s why the uncommon dialogue was so beneficial for me. The need for water is undeniable, and when suppliers talked about the difficulty of meeting water demands even with conservation in addition to the pressure that increasing populations put on them, I could see why desalination would be so attractive to them. Those reasons are the same ones that the desalination companies trot out, and the biggest one addresses the elephant in the room—desalination plants are “drought proof.” I take for granted the water that pour out of faucet whenever I need it, so in turn, I am taking for granted that the suppliers will manage the water in such way as to ensure that I will never find out what happens when a dry faucet breaks that basic assumption. After hearing the suppliers speak, I realized that they don’t take this assumption for granted, and when it comes to managing water supplies, they are …show more content…
It’s a clear choice. The cynic side of me assumes that there with always exist profit hungry companies looking to profit off exploiting natural resources to the great detriment of the environment and its people, the much harder issues and are the ones in the middle. In this case, it’s not necessarily the enormous Huntington Beach plant that poses the hardest questions, it’s the small plants with the subsurface intake pipes like the proposed plant in Monterey. Because to truly argue against these plants, you have to answer the harder question: if not desalination, then what? I don’t know what to tell that supplier from who has looked at all the options and wants to be the most environmentally conscious provider while still meeting the needs of her community. In hindsight I would suggest developing the region differently, but with developed needs like agriculture and urban users, it’s difficult to deny anyone the water we need. Maybe we need that dry faucet to spur the action, the conservation or the innovation we need to reach water sustainability. The truth is though while some of the problems are clearly wrongs we need to address, our ability to comprehensively address them and to achieve a world closer to our ideal depends on not just identifying the problems but finding the solutions as well. That realization