people, however, are usually the great despoilers of nature because, given
their wherewithal, they demand, use, cast off, and waste more resources
than middling folk and the poor. In this case they have semibeautiful,
permanent-looking mansions of brick and stone with huge kitchens and
many baths. Inside their many garages are big vans and sport utility ve-
hicles in need of frequent washing. There are swimming pools, too, and
perfect lawns that are not only toxic fields but probably the most voracious
wasters of precious water. Rain, after all, is so unreliable when one’s turf
mustremain brilliantly green from March into December.
The desert West has ever been the scene of battles over ownership of
water. By the s, however—amazingly to those of us easterners who re-
call—comparable scarcities, scares, and struggles over water and owner-
ship came to every region of the East. Population pressures, but also deple-
tion and pollution of watersheds by industries and developers, made water
suddenly precious (and more expensive). Too, when rivers coincide with
and/or cross state lines, as in the case of the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola,
eastern states such as Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have negotiated end-
lessly and then resorted to litigation equally protracted. One wishes that
judges had the wisdom (also the power) to make decisions far simpler than
Solomon’s: In return for the survival and abundance of perfect oysters, give
up your perfect lawns.