Moderator Ethan Smith, “Water Wars (how to avoid)”, a relationship-building, storytelling and convening project in partnership with the Whatcom Community Foundation.

With only brief prompts from the moderator, the three panelists easily connected their comments to each other, to the title theme, and to Chairman Hillaire’s call for collaborative care.

Jay Julius, fisherman, former chair and council member at Lummi Nation

Jay Julius was persistently explicit with language usage: he is not from this place, he is of this place. This river we call Nooksack cared for Lummi people, they were not care-takers – thus he rejected the dominance implied in ownership claims to place. The Point Elliot treaty was not agreement, it was land conquest. And not old history; rather, only a mere 17 decades ago for those closely-held five generations. The Lummi Reservation was for too long a 12,000-acre prison. Julius was consistent in speaking of an equivalence: Lummi are salmon people, people of the waters, living within a circular economy of abundance. Water IS their life: fishers of the water, farmers of shellfish beds. Their dependence on the river is timeless, so their care for the river is essential; life-giving waters, but threatened.

Rich Appel, Water for Whatcom and Chief Executive Officer, Appel Farms

Rich Appel related his family story, his growing up playing on the river and learning the ethics of stewardship values embedded in family work on richly fertile floodplain. He conceded that tribal connections in the culture of his youth were poor or dismissive, and welcomes the changes that have come with learning, to fill that gap. He emphasized that threats to river health are larger than any of us apart, and beyond personal interest. We must work together and that fundamentally means closer relationships. We must start there to work together.

Perry Eskridge, Government Affairs Director, Whatcom County Association of Realtors

Perry Eskridge opened with a plea for all of us – both urban and rural – to recognize that ‘we all have a relationship with the river’, if we only take the time to see it. With the personal story of his family and growing up on the Swan River in Montana, he was clearly echoing others on the panel: personal connections to waters and place.

He drew another equivalence as did Jay: we all need homes, and that means we need water. With recent data he made starkly real the scale of claims on this place and river, with population projections from the County’s Comprehensive Plan, and the number of new homes that implies. He emphasized the need to preserve farmland from the pressure of residential development, which should be focused on urban areas even as price economics drive people to the countryside.

Moderator: David Roberts, Washington Department of Ecology (retired), founder and former owner of Peak Sustainability Group

Gavin Willis, Executive Director, Ag Water Board of Whatcom County

Gavin Willis described the work of the various Watershed Improvement Districts in the county, under the umbrella of the Ag Water Board. With his many comments he showed remarkable grasp of the issues and policy challenges of large scale agriculture in the county. He highlighted the problem of ‘silos’ in funding of specific work without coordination of funding sources mindful of priorities and connections. He emphasized the need to take a more systemic approach to both project planning and funding. As the next panel also stated, he encouraged attention to small projects we can do sooner rather than later.

What’s needed now: as with others, he wants to see continued progress in building relationships across “all stakeholders and tribal sovereigns” (a notable and compelling formulation).

Free Borsey, Lummi Nation artist and environmental steward

From his very different background, Free Borsey bridged to and connected with the others’ ideas of systemic analysis and collaborative work. He emphasized that the river itself is not an asset, it is a natural resource with its own deep history and imperatives. Only when we extract from the river does it become an asset – for consumption or irrigation, for gravel or industry. He described the broad work of Lummi Natural Resources department and their fish hatchery program; and how the work of Setting Sun Circle has demonstrated to him the tremendous power of storytelling. He called for greater coordination and alignment between cities and counties in their policies and plans. And always: we are one community; this place will support all of us if we can only work together as one.

John Perry, Mayor of Everson

Flooding, of course, was paramount in his concerns, which he outlined from recent years, each getting worse, and described some reasons why. “Resilience is the key word… This changes everything we do now,” he said. Priorities are protecting homes, in better locations; and planning for the next flood to come. He complimented the work of the county’s Floodplain Integrated Planning group, and the data being accumulated – and said we still need more data. Like many others, he also recognized the importance of building relationships across areas of interest in order to make headway together.

Keynote speaker: Jim Davenport, water attorney, author, 49-year member of the Washington Bar Association

Jim Davenport presented a very condensed version of a lecture he has offered frequently, a brief history of water law through the centuries as background for outlining convoluted Western Water Law, and the fundamentals of treaty reserved rights of tribes, including water rights. He emphasized that in Washington state the public explicitly ‘owns’ the water, and easily made the case that our water laws are not fit for purpose in the 21st century, with several specific examples. He handed out printed copies of the longer PowerPoint presentation he did not present. While he then yielded the mic to Tom Tebb, their later discussion was further enlightening on the same topic.

Tom Tebb, former director, Office of the Columbia River, Washington Dept. of Ecology

Tom Tebb read verbatim from a masterful, prepared essay he wrote specifically for this event. He began with a brief history of his work in the Yakima basin and elsewhere in the Columbia basin. With heartfelt personal comments, he described what he has observed about the power of all parties working together based on shared values.

Turning to what he has learned about Whatcom County, he explicitly called for creating a ‘ridge to valley’ comprehensive plan for managing our water resources. He acknowledged the situation we find ourselves in with water crises of the moment and said, “We must do two things at once…” – build resilience for the future, and address immediate priorities – “crawling and running at the same time.”

Without naming it, he explicitly cited the need for an Ecology-sponsored leadership role (an ‘officer’ by any name) to support this effort. Finally, with the idea of such a united effort in place, he endorsed the idea of planning and executing a series of ‘small’ achievable projects to address immediate needs and build shared momentum. Then, based on local feedback he’s already heard, he listed more than a dozen specific projects as suggestion for getting started. His implicit message: we are ready, and it’s time to get to work

Jim Papp, marine shipping specialist, award-winning photographer and author

Jim Papp described the long and varied course of his life experience, from commercial shipping to years embedded in Mayan culture. The heart of his message rested on two themes. One: we must honestly acknowledge the contradictory realities of our modern life – the amazing wealth and convenience, but also the widespread devastation of the natural world. And two: we must work together to mitigate the damage and help heal natural processes.

The experience he spoke from and the lessons learned are drawn from an essay collection that is about to be published, Blessings of the Waters, with contributors including Lummi poet Rena Priest, former Washington State Poet Laureate.

Summary prepared by Hank Kastner