Use It 'til It's Gone - A Destructive Strategy for Resources

"The water hasn't run out, and we are going to keep going until there isn't any more. That's just the way you farm."

That is an actual quote from an Idaho farmer furious over US Fish and Wildlife Service attempts to list a miniscule, warm water snail on the endangered species list because farm irrigation was drawing down the water table and destroying the snail’s habitat. The Bruneau hot springsnail is only found in the desert canyons of Idaho where hot springs abound, or used to. For decades researchers have recorded a steady drop in the aquifer and fewer hot springs are found every year. Many rocks that were once wet, perfect habitat for the algae eating snails, are now dry. Over the last ten years a furious battle has gone on between the US Fish and Wildlife Service, local farmers and politicians in which the snail has been listed, deleted and then restored to the endangered species list. The Fish and Wildlife Service sees the snails as an indicator of a very big problem. The farmers see them as a few specks on a rock in the way of their goals.

Use it ‘til it’s gone. What do they do when the aquifer is completely depleted? Is that when they look for alternate methods of irrigation? Or will they simply move on to the next farm, leaving behind dry creek beds devoid of life and barren fields with no moisture or nutrients to support trees or plants? The Fish and Wildlife Service is not simply trying to save a snail; they’re trying to save an ecosystem. Some people just refuse to see how interconnected things are in nature and will not admit that their actions effect more than the little world in which they live.

Use it ‘til it’s gone. That seems to sum up so many people’s attitude toward any resource be it water or coal or trees. Even renewable resources are only renewable if people put forth some effort. Trees must be replanted and nurtured or face extinction with current logging rates. People have got to realize that when these things are gone, they’re gone and that is not the time to try to decide how we’re going to live without them.