Erica Gies

In letting go, in providing space for coastal ecosystems, we acknowledge the power of waterlands—to hold water, to hold carbon, to hold life, including us.

Given the documented superiority of stewardship on Indigenous-managed lands around the world, Housty and his colleagues argue that the place-based, values-based approach to conservation outlined in the paper should be emulated elsewhere. It’s time to “go back to what works,” he says, “because we’re going in the wrong direction.”

The state started to get serious about cleaning up nitrates a decade ago. It is now working with growers to stop new pollution and is considering how it might clean up old contamination. But it’s costly to clean an entire aquifer, and even extraordinary efforts would take several decades to pay off. So the state is also focused on funding interim local solutions to supply people with safe drinking water.

Memorial Day barbecues and parades were thwarted this year in Houston when a massive storm dumped more than 10 inches of rain in two days, creating a Waterworld of flooded freeways, cars, houses and businesses, leaving several people dead and hundreds in need of rescue.