Kate A. Berry

Recommendations for fluoride limits in drinking water based on estimated daily fluoride intake in the Upper East Region, Ghana.

Both dental and skeletal fluorosis caused by high fluoride intake are serious public health concerns around the world. Fluorosis is particularly pronounced in developing countries where elevated concentrations of naturally occurring fluoride are present in the drinking water, which is the primary route of exposure. The World Health Organization recommended limit of fluoride in drinking water is 1.5 mg F(-) L(-1), which is also the upper limit for fluoride in drinking water for several other countries such as Canada, China, India, Australia, and the European Union. In the United States the enforceable limit is much higher at 4 mg F(-) L(-1), which is intended to prevent severe skeletal fluorosis but does not protect against dental fluorosis. Many countries, including the United States, also have notably lower unenforced recommended limits to protect against dental fluorosis. One consideration in determining the optimum fluoride concentration in drinking water is daily water intake, which can be high in hot climates such as in northern Ghana. The results of this study show that average water intake is about two times higher in Ghana than in more temperate climates and, as a result, the fluoride intake is higher. The results also indicate that to protect the Ghanaian population against dental fluorosis, the maximum concentration of fluoride in drinking water for children under 6-8 years should be 0.6 mg F(-) L(-1) (and lower in the first two years of life), and the limit for older children and adults should be 1.0 mg F(-) L(-1). However, when considering that water treatment is not cost-free, the most widely recommended limit of 1.5 mg F(-) L(-1) - which is currently the limit in Ghana--may be appropriate for older children and adults since they are not vulnerable to dental fluorosis once the tooth enamel is formed.

Distribution and Recovery Of Vegetational Assemblages In Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada

Abstract Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nye Co., Nevada, is a small oasis in the northern Mojave Desert. Changes in use of land through irrigated agriculture and associated pumping of groundwater, as well as mining peat moss, altered the environment prior to its designation as a refuge in 1984. We evaluated relationships between land use, land cover, and groundwater in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge from 1948 to 2004. Recovery of land cover was documented following cessation of agricultural activities and pumping of groundwater. Land-use activities from 1948 to 1980 reduced land cover by 1,141 ha, while later changes in land-use activities allowed recovery of 935 ha of land cover. Limited change in groundwater might have aided in recovery of land cover, although no relationship was established between depth-to-groundwater and land cover.

Indigenous water histories II: water histories and the cultural politics of water for contemporary Indigenous groups

This is the second of two issues of Water History devoted to scholarship exploring water histories as experienced and understood by Indigenous peoples. The first special issue, published in December 2016, underscored the importance of oral histories, interpreted Indigenous perspectives, and, in doing so, revealed the complexity of waterscapes. Featured in the first special issue were water histories connected to: the Nuu Savi or Highland Mixtec peoples of Oaxaca, Mexico (Jimenez Osorio and Posselt Santoyo 2016); the Ojibwe around the Great Lakes of Michigan, U.S. (Gagnon 2016); Indigenous communities from the Harding, Ord, Roper, and Gilbert rivers areas of Western Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland, Australia (Jackson and Barber 2016); Indigenous communities from the Baucau Viqueque zone of Timor Leste (Palmer 2016); and the northern Arapaho and eastern Shoshone peoples of the Wind River reservation in the inter-mountain West, U.S (Cavazos Cohn et al. 2016). This second special issue extends coverage to additional Indigenous groups and further examines water histories associated with: the Lumbee and Tuscarora Indians of North Carolina, U.S., as researched by William Maxwell; the Andean people of Tabacundo, Ecuador, as researched by Juan Pablo Hidalgo, Rutgerd Boelens, and Jeroen Vos; the Ngai Tahu (Maori) of the Waitaki River basin, South Island, New Zealand, as researched by Gail Tipa and Kyle Nelson; the Puyallup Tribe of the Pacific Northwest, U.S., as researched by Amory Ballantine; and the Yaqui people of Sonora, Mexico, as researched by Raquel Padilla Ramos and Jose Moctezuma Zamarron. While paying close attention to the significance of rivers, swamps, estuaries, irrigation, and other water systems for these Indigenous communities, each of the authors also stress the dynamics of settler colonialism within which conflicts over water arose and Indigenous resistance and re-appropriation took place. In other words, these articles examine the cultural politics of water from a historical perspective.

Influences on Stakeholder Participation in Water Negotiations: A Case Study from the Klamath Basin

ABSTRACT In water governance, where problems are controversial and value laden, different forms of stakeholder involvement have become common and are frequently required. Stakeholder participation is often recognized as fundamental to the legitimacy and success of negotiated environmental decisions, but the intricacies of why stakeholders participate has received less attention. We examine factors that influenced stakeholder participation in the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement of 2010. The research draws on in-depth, semistructured interviews of a sample recruited from stakeholder organizations in the Klamath River Basin. Results indicate that previous negative experiences did not translate into nonparticipation; divisions within seemingly aligned stakeholder organizations encouraged some stakeholders to participate and others to actively oppose negotiations; stakeholders’ perceptions of power differentials encouraged both stakeholder participation and exclusion in negotiations; and concerns about relationship development during negotiations suggest that relationship building may be viewed as part of the negotiation process.

The Making of White Water Citizens in Australia and the Western United States: Racialization as a Transnational Project of Irrigation Governance

This article examines the role of settler irrigation systems and water governance in establishing and reinforcing tenacious imperial geographies of whiteness. Through an analysis of the lives and work of two powerful men who made foundational contributions to establishing irrigation economies and water governance systems in Australia and the Western United States, we investigate the racialized sociospatial processes that bound whiteness to water. Alfred Deakin (1856–1919) and Elwood Mead (1858–1936) were men of science, technology, and politics who actively circulated in and shaped transnational flows of knowledge about whiteness and racial hierarchies. As Deakin and Mead vigorously promoted particular social and political systems associated with irrigation, steering water flows toward uses regarded as modern and productive according to taken-for-granted norms, they imagined, naturalized, and privileged a white water citizenry. In the process, they contributed to the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples as well as marginalizing Other water users, most notably Asian migrants. These mens hydro-imaginaries, which were endorsed and enacted by their respective governments, served to motivate a form of state protection of family farms, inculcate civic self-reliance and local organization, and establish the white water citizen, a baseline against which others were expected to conform. By examining the making of white water citizens, we hope to contribute to Indigenous geographies and studies of racialization in rural places, as well as the effects of irrigation in settler nations.

Indigenous water histories I: recovering oral histories, interpreting Indigenous perspectives, and revealing hybrid waterscapes

This special issue attempts to shed new light on salient but neglected aspects of water history, “Indigenous water histories.” In this first of two journal issues dedicated to this topic, we present five articles that are pertinent to three themes that Water History has not entirely or substantially dealt with before: the use of oral history, the interpretation of indigenous perspectives, and the emphasis on the hybrid/divergent aspects of waterscapes. Readers, however, will see that these new themes are largely complementary to the most popular topics this journal has explored before, such as the histories of reclamation projects, water distribution, management, pollution, and politics. Geographically, this collection offers a broad coverage of Indigenous water issues by encompassing cases from the United States (U.S.), Mesoamerica, eastern Timor Leste, and northern and western Australia. Valoree S. Gagnon traces the changes and continuity of Ojibwe Gichigami (Ojibwa’s Great Sea) water narratives and fishing rights among the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Michigan, the U.S. Teresa Cavazos Cohn and her coauthors discuss changes in riparian plants and landscapes in the Wind River watershed of Wyoming, the U.S., and the implications of these changes for the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. The focus of these two articles on water history germane to fish and plants should be new for readers of Water History.

The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles

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