For Capstone Final

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5UbOf5H-QkofnVqaVF3b2owNWZLdVo0Y0twVnduSkFJejBqUTRyd2sxU3ZYM2YzQW1GTnM&usp=sharing


I was concerned that the folder within my other folder would not have the same sharing capabilities on the drive. Here is the link just in case!

Writing Analysis

I wasn't sure if our analysis of our writing should go on the drive or be printed for class. Anyone know? I threw it up in my Google Doc's folder under Writing Style Analysis-- just in case. What a strangely difficult exercise, and it's hard not to think of it as "I do that because that's the kind of writer I am". Pushing back on that idea is more complicated than I had anticipated.

Grr

I hate everything I've written on the Kerr Dam thus far. And I'm incredible frustrated. Writing, in this case, seems to have made things worse.

Newness

On a sleepy Sunday evening, I seem to have a clear head. I've changed direction a bit on my project, both reluctantly (because, more work) and excitingly.

I'm working on an overview of the Kerr Dam sale on the Flathead River that looks at the sale of the dam from and eco-critical perspective (how the dam/modernity affects our river basins and surrounding landscapes, and how the sale will change the way consume and produce energy in a hydro-heavy state, etc.), but the main goal is to get it published before the sale in September of this year to create local knowledge of the presence of hydropower in Montana by fostering interest in place, which will hopefully turn into environmental interest in place.

If you don't know, the Kerr Dam was build on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe reservation by the state who pays a $19 million tax annually to the tribe. It's slated to be sold back to the Kootenai in September for ~$18 million. It's the first time in U.S history that a sovereign nation will hold rights to large scale hydropower, or  be in control of such economic power. It has the potential to radically change the energy consumption and sales in northern Montana, and possibly the entire state... yet, no one seems to know about it, talk about it, or care about it here. 

(http://flatheadbeacon.com/2014/08/20/power-struggle/) 

I think I can go at this nicely with a mix of the poetic language I had been avoiding previously, and still keep it reserved enough that it will do work for me journalistically. I can use the research I'd done on the Powder River Basin and Montana's water rights system to fill the composition with well-understood information that will educate but also engage the reader, and examples of other areas where we have seen similar issues confronted in our state.

I'm off to write!

Read! Flathead River and Kerr Dam to change hands. What's next?

Churning

This is a tricky, winding business, writing. Like water itself, my work seems slippery-- continuously falling through my outspread hands. I sit down to write and something new comes out, and I am having a difficult time trying to find transitions to connect everything together. 
I can't help but feel that I've reached a confluence in the river of my work, and I must choose which to follow. Imagine, to the left, a slow, snaking river backed by towering snow-capped mountains, flooded in sunshine-- both beautiful and familiar, poetic. On the right, lies a far more remote river with dark, churning rapids, dry and barren landscape, but the lure of the challenge in those waters is enticing-- you know at the end of that float, something hard and new will have happened. I feel as if right now, I've slammed my oars into the water and am rowing backwards, trying to keep both rivers in sight, straining not to choose one over the other for the fear of disappointment in the end. 
My vision is to create a project that's outside of my comfort zone, that takes me through choppy water. But every time I near the mouth of the second river, I'm pulled back to the first-- to my poetic tendencies, and my emotional connection to this subject matter. Remedying this is where I am now. How do I brave these coursing waters?
Though this is a demanding dilemma to face, there's a certain wave of exhilaration in the choice; in knowing only one river can be ridden, and in choosing the harder trip. When we know failure is a possibility, we take risks to save our boat from turning over-- the question now is, will those risks pay off? Will I pop back up to the surface, or will my words be diluted, lost and muffled in the current? Will my work be effective?
My mind races in ten thousand different directions, trying to answer these questions, trying to chose, trying to plan and prepare. It's frustrating to never know what the next turn will hold, to be blind at the bend of the river. I'm still fighting the water, struggling, pulling against her path.
It's time to surrender to natural movement, and enjoy the ride.

Visualizing Dams

I was thinking this morning, as I waited for the tea kettle to scream, about how many people have actually ever seen a hydroelectric dam in all it's engineered-glory. I think more often than not, dams are something very removed for us. They're almost myths: just pictures in Nat. Geo, the way hunger is just a commercial on late-night T.V.

My first task for my readers to understanding them is, logically, for them to see them-- to make the 22 hydroelectric dams in Montana real.

If you all don't mind watching a few moments of each of these videos, I'd love to see some brief comments with your first thoughts. Are the dams beautiful? Ugly? Do you have a connection with the river it's on? Do they scare you or do you like them? What does it make you think about?

The Kerr Dam on the Flathead-- Polson, MT

Gibson Dam (Glory Hole spillway) on the Sun River (Missouri tributary)-- west of Great Falls, MT

Ryan Dam on the Missouri-- Great Falls, MT (Skip to 1:20 in video)

Libby Dam on the Kootenai--Libby, MT (Skip to 1:30 to see the actual dam)

Thompson Falls Dam on the Clark Fork-- Sanders County, NW MT

Hungry Horse Dam on the South Fork of the Flathead-- Columbia Falls, MT (skip to 1:28)

Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri-- SE of Glasgow, MT

Yellowtail Dam on the Big Horn-- St, Xavier, MT

Hauser Dam on the Missouri-- Helena, MT

Holter Dam on the Missouri-- SE of Helena. MT (see image)

Updates

Morning, everyone--  

I just wanted to share some excitement. I recently ran into a fellow who works for the DNRC who hooked me up with the 2015 state water plan. He's actually one of the writers of the plan, and offered to help me out in understanding some of the finer details of the process in Montana. He will be a great resource, and makes a good potential interview candidate! 

I'll be spending this week reading and annotating the state plans, and should have a draft up by Tuesday of next week for y'all to look over on the more legislative side of things. 

Thoughts

I found an interesting article that deals with some of the issues that were brought up in class, regarding how to write a memoir, or how to compose something that's not all-about-me with "I" in it.

Though there are certainly points where I disagree, I like the conversation that's started here. Maybe this will be useful to some of you out there.

From Slate Magazine: How to write a "good" memoir

Voices that Define the Boundaries of this World

One of my favorite authors who perhaps served as the first spark for my environmental passion is Ed Abbey, who I was shocked to recently find out, not everyone has read! His book Desert Solitaire will forever be among my favorite, both in content -- our mutual love of the barren deserts of southern Utah -- and in form. There is a simple but alluring rhythm to Abbey, and certainly no lack of passion in his prose.
From Desert Solitaire:
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you—beyond that next turning of the canyon walls"--Ed Abbey, 1989 preface

As an ardent anarchist, he's maybe not the best example for that journalistic tone I was looking to emulate, but he serves the purpose well in terms of environmental advocacy, and actually mirrors closely my own stylistic inclinations as a writer. If you're not already familiar with his works and style, you can read inside the first chapter of Desert Solitaire here.
*(Do take time to read the authors foreword-- it's essentially his stance. And check out the Neruda epigraph! The Chilean in me smiles.)

Though I find it overwhelming to try to narrow the scope of the authors I find influential to my writing, if I had to list a few more in the same general category as Abbey, they would have to include: Ellen Meloy (Eating Stone, The Anthropology of Turquoise) who is poetic and lyrical with a focus on the Utahn desert, Doug Peacock (Grizzly Years) who is very similar to Abbey in tone and writes about Montana wilderness, Jared Diamond (Collapse, Guns, Germs and Steele) who is more removed stylistically from his writing, but clear and opinionated, and Alston Chase (Playing God in Yellowstone) who writes with a heavily "biased" agenda to expose the National Park System's management but is still effective... I'll need to revisit and analyze where in the text I see this happening.

Side Notes:
This (we can consider it a text) is an interesting video that shows how multifaceted hydropower has become. The footage of the dams coming down is uniquely beautiful in its destruction-- can't help but love it!

http://www.upworthy.com/their-ideas-used-to-be-called-crazy-talk-but-things-are-different-now?c=ufb1

Standing Strong for Rivers Everywhere

Anyone who has met me, would find it fairly easy to see that I consider myself an environmentalist. I try to live my life in a manner that reflects this mentality, and I hope that what I do with my writing does too. That being said, my project for this class is mirroring this and another part of who I am: an activist. In a world already dominated by man, the "natural" world is too often silenced. I feel an overwhelming obligation to try to be a voice of opposition to this marginalization-- a voice that raises awareness and fosters hope.

My motivation for writing this piece is very much correlated with this emotional attachment to the environment, and particularly a river I have grown to love, and vowed to protect, in southern Chilean Patagonia. The Baker river runs from the Argentine boarder through the 15th region of Chile, flooding its turquoise waters into the Pacific Ocean at the fjords of Tortel. I have traveled the length of this 190 kilometer river on foot, in an attempt to celebrate the untouched waters as they have existed for 1,000 of years, before I'm forced to commemorate them.

The complex and violent history of Chile has created an extensively privatized economy, meaning water rights and mineral rights are almost completely relinquished from national control. This includes the water rights to the Baker and Pascua Rivers, subjects to largest wattage-producing dam proposal in history. The rights are held by international energy conglomerate HidroAysen, an Italian-owned and Spanish-run company. Production of the mega-dams is currently on hold, but for how long?

During my time in Chile, I saw how little influence the Chilean people had over their own environment, even in cases when more than 80 percent of the national population was openly in opposition to the dam system. Despite being a foreigner, I felt the need to speak out, to stand up to Goliath as he towered over David. What little I could do, I did: attending protests, writing and spreading information about hydropower, contacting the corporation at their headquarters to see the dam diagrams, and even attempting to translate HidroAysen's environmental impact report (the single copy I was able to find tucked away in the back room of library in Cochrane, Patagonia, nearly illegible and equally as convoluted of language). Though these actions were small in the grand scheme, they mattered to me and they mattered to the river and its ecosystem.

The Baker's water runs through the wildest place left on Earth. The river was here long, long before us, and knows her banks and the creatures who call them home more intimately than I can ever hope to understand another living being. But the fight doesn't stop with the Baker; there are more rivers and endless greed and not enough voices.

Due to recently passed legislation, Montana has the potential to find itself in a similarly dam-ridden situation. If my heart is anywhere but Chile, it is in the sultry afternoon breeze hoovering over a Montana riverbed, and churning deeply in the rapids of our own wild rivers. And now, our state's rivers are at stake.

In December of this last year, the Heritage Act was passed as a rider on the $585-billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The act designates new wilderness areas in Montana for the first time in 30 years. But it does not come without a cost. The new law also amends Montana water rights, allowing private sector mining and logging companies more access to public lands and the rivers that run through them. In addition, according to the Great Falls Tribune's overview of the NDAA, the attached Bureau of Reclamation Conduit Hydropower Development Equity and Jobs Act removes what lawmakers call "outdated federal statutes that currently prevent irrigation districts in Montana and other western states from developing hydopower on Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) canals, ditches, and conduits—four of which are in Montana." This means more dams, and less regulation. If you don't give a damn about rivers, give a damn the corresponding inundation of towns and ranches that exist along their banks. Or the trout. Care about the trout, or the 100's of other species whose migrational patterns will be forced to change as they return to increasingly drier and more mechanized rivers each year.

Look at me, I've gone off on a rant. As far as writing a piece like this, I find it important to try not to focus on me. Because who should care about what I have done, or have to say? I've already convinced myself- and clearly, I know what I believe- so now my approach to this piece is to convince others to oppose hydropower and be more aware of legislation that may promote it, and global water rights issues in general as our growing population continues to demand more consumption of natural resources. I think I can do that most effectively if I do share my own emotion, but through a more professionally-oriented and filtered voice.

I want to try to challenge myself as a writer to break away from approaching my work in the same manner, and I think it's important to try to strengthen myself in areas where I feel I am weak or less practiced as a writer, so I plan to grow my journalistic voice. The goal is to keep a few more readers (by not sounding like a stoned hippie) and have a chance at persuading them to see a side with which they aren't naturally inclined to agree. If I can do that, I will feel that my work has been done.
For now, at least.

Content Access

Here you can access my folder for the class and view a proposal for the capstone project.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5UbOf5H-QkoMk1ucy1OX196QUU&usp=sharing

Introduction

There were only a few unfamiliar faces in class so far, so I will make my introduction brief. I'm Lea, a hopeless liberal with a rather incredulous level of expectation. I hope that all of you, in your own way, take writing as seriously as I do. I think this is important for several reasons: we grow from working with one another, and we excel in a field that gives us the opportunity to be heard. In a world nearing nine billion, this is becoming increasingly rare.

There are a few things that I have fallen in love with in my short years on this planet, so you should be prepared to hear a lot about them, since I aim to write about what I love. In order of importance they are as follows:

1. Nature / place (though the eco-critic in me cringes at the use of that word)-- more specifically, the dry and arid red rock desert where two rivers converge as lifelines in a wasteland, the 15th region of southern Chilean Patagonia where you find the banks of the Baker river, and the Crazy Mountains that form the boundaries of the valley that we call home. These places, to me, are sacred and deserve to remain unchanged. I hope in my writing to do more than pay tribute to these incredible places: I hope to preserve their small moments in a way that allows them to exist in the mind of a reader who has never dipped their hand into turquoise water and felt the heartbeat of an ancient ecosystem flood the spaces left barren by urbanism. I hope to spread love and stewardship for the Earth.

2. Water -- I have harbored an obsession with rivers and water rights, built on my experiences in Chile in opposition to a series of hydroelectric megadams on the two most ancestral rivers in the country. Water privatization is a dirty and slippery business, and often it creates a David-vs-Goliath situation. I am curious recently about Montana water rights, and the distribution of use when it comes to "public" access.

The Baker River, Southern Chilean Patagonia, Region XI-- My favorite spot 

3. Travel -- Seeing new places and exploring the unknown canyons and mountaintops of this planet is a passion I'll never be able to fully satiate. I make an honest effort to travel somewhere new as often as possible, both as a learning experience and as a reminder that my world is not a constant. Upcoming trips include Japan and Norway.

Recently characterized by my editor as verbose but styled, a goal of mine this semester is to sharpen and tighten my prose. I want to work on Omitting Needless Words (thank you E.B. White) in an effort to control my tone, and create a work of writing that is professional, engaging and environmentally oriented. To do this, I know already I will have to rely heavily on all of your eyes and ears--I'll need critical views and harsh advice, red pens and copy-editing--to be able to draft something that speaks beyond my own belief and can help sway an audience to the losing side of the paradigm.

As you can tell, I try to emulate the kind of things I read. Call me a total nerd, but my favorite kind of writing, and the books that are spilling forth from my bookshelf as we speak, are the eco-criticism books I hoard whenever there's spare money in my bank account. Top picks include Timothy Morton (whose blog is well worth the read), Dana Philips, Terry Tempest Williams, Ed Abbey and Doug Peacock of the Monkey Wrench Gang, poet James Galvin, and even our very own Dr. Susan Kollin, who writes about the changes in the Alaskan wilderness. I have an unrelated obsession with Virginia Woolf and the modernism movement, mostly because I see a lot of parallels between the Modernist struggle and the circumstance from which it arose, and eco-crit. Since it is the newest of the revisionists in the world of literature, it is very much underrated and virtually unacknowledged outside the academic world. Someday I want to be a voice that helped propel it forward, and spur movement in the world around us from the shape of my phrases.
They say the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan... well, perfect timing.