“Seven Generations: A Conversation with Greg Collins,” will be at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13, at 210 W. Center Ave., Visalia. Admission is free. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Whether as a swimmer, competitive water polo player and coach, urban planner, Visalia City Council member, grower, skier, fly fisherman and simply lifelong resident of the San Joaquin Valley, where water has been a defining feature of its history forever. Since retiring from his business and from city leadership, Collins has taken a renewed interest in the Valley’s relationship with water, especially because of recent stipulations in California to assure its sustainability.
Water has literally been his home.
For the first time, Collis has written about it.
“Seven Generations: The Past, Present and Future of the Tulare Lake Basin,” is Collins’ attempt to make sense of the multiple conditions exerting their forces on Valley water. He wrote it with his lifelong friend – and swimming, skiing and fishing buddy – James Holloway, also a retired urban planner.
The book uses the volatile conditions of the Tulare Lake as a case study in how California water has been used, misused and often abused over its history, and to provide some context and focus on current efforts to protect the state’s most precious resource and make it sustainable for future generations.
The authors sum up the direction of their book at one point in one succinct statement:
“The question becomes, will man learn to manage his water resources, or will he simply revert to business as usual?”
Collins will talk about his book at a special end-of-summer edition of “Tulare County Voices at 210”, with the title: “Seven Generations: A Conversation with Greg Collins” at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13, at 210 W. Center Ave.
The “Seven Generations” of the title comes from a principle of the Arapaho nation of indigenous people, who believed that decisions should be made in the present that will last through seven generations for that community to remain sustainable. Collins calculates that roughly five generations have elapsed since Californians began tinkering with the natural forces governing water in the Valley.
“Seven Generations” is a relatively brief volume, and Collins writes that it began as a series of essays about water in the Tulare Lake Basin, inspired in part by the emergence two rain seasons ago of the Tulare Lake itself, and in part by the efforts of California to bring order and sustainability to the chaotic state of affairs of the state’s water supply.
The California Legislature in large part brought these conditions to a head with passage of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. SGMA was the first attempt by the state to manage California’s groundwater supply.
“Seven Generations” thus became part history, part geological explainer, part description of the relationship Californians have had with their water, part explanation of the intention and progress of the SGMA, and part proposal of solutions.
Collins and Holloway conducted thorough research to explain the history of man, land and water in California. It’s no surprise that in less than two centuries it has gone through nearly a dozen approaches in farming, ranching, urban development and water management to bring the state to its current state of crisis. That history and the forces that impelled them – the Gold Rush, Manifest Destiny, the economic forces driving human progress – have been described many times. The authors believe they are all important in understanding how humankind has radically transformed California, and not always for the better.
The presentation of solutions is obviously the most original and radical element of “Seven Generations,” and Collins freely admits that many people will be loath to embrace many if not all of them. Yet in discussing the solutions, Collins most eagerly warms to his subject.
The proposals fall into two categories, for agricultural and urban water uses, and both kinds offer the possibility of radical changes.
In farming, the proposals call for changes in irrigation techniques, choice of crops, fallowing land, conversion of land to uses that require no water, water banking and more.
In the city, the proposals call for more xeriscaping, conservation of domestic use, stormwater management and new techniques in landscaping.
Taken together, the proposals amount to a radical change of life in California, where emerald-green lawns and golf courses, glistening swimming pools and fountains, and an abundance of lush fields of vegetables year-round have defined the identity of the Golden State.
Collins and Holloway present their findings and their proposals as a way to return California to the environment it once was – a naturally fertile paradise teeming with wildlife and fish, watered abundantly and naturally sustainable. It’s an optimistic vision, filled with hope, but one that requires distinct changes of our habits.
The authors profess there is still time for a course correction for California water. But we’re into the fifth generation of the seven predicted by the Arapaho.
Learn more, ask questions of Collins, and get your book signed, at Tulare County Voices @ 210, Tuesday, Aug. 13 at 210, and become part of the community conversation.
“Seven Generations: The Past, Present and Future of the Tulare Lake Basin,” by Gregory F. Collins and James Holloway, is available on Amazon, ISBN#979-8320881966.
Paul Hurley is former community conversation editor for the Visalia Times-Delta and a member of the Tulare County Voices @ 210 planning team. This forum will be live-streamed at https://www.facebook.com/FPCVisalia/