Is water a commercial good like running shoes or Coca-Cola? OR, is it a human right, like air? So asks water-activist Maude Barlow (2011) in the documentary, Water on the Table. This conceptual divide of water as a commodity vs. human right determines how we incentivize water conservation. Within the larger environmental discourse, environmental protections are often paired with (or more so justified) by economic incentives. Our assessment of water’s value as a public trust directly affects management strategies of watersheds and groundwater as common pool resources (CPR). In New York, clean Adirondack watersheds ensure potable water resources for the entire state populace. Water’s material fluidity determines watershed relevance beyond the Blue Line of Adirondack State Park on two accounts: 1) widespread benefit from Adirondack watershed health 2) widespread contamination of watersheds through point and non-point source pollution.
Beginning with basic CPR management theory from Elinor Ostrom, I will then closely examine watershed-specific CPR management theory and the unique spatial politics of GIS watershed maps. After briefly examining the history of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) Act, I will jump into my analysis of present-day watershed management around Lake George. In Lake George, the concept of “eco-assets” composes one of the strategies that successfully regulates water quality due to the unique ecological value of the Lake and wealth of the tourism industry there. If we step back and examine water advocacy on a state-level, or even national scale, commodification becomes a contested strategy for water conservation. This brings us back to Barlow and the concern for the access of future generations to potable, public water. Inconsistencies in watershed management due to a weak national floor on regulations sacrifice water quality everywhere due to water’s fluid nature and thus widespread influences. Institutional and strategic diversity in all levels of governance are intrinsic to the protection of water resources. Ultimately, watershed management employs a new worldview of the landscape that designates management regimes not by county-lines, but by the physical watersheds themselves.