"As long as the river (Verde) flows, life will be good." Yavapai Elder Mary Sine

When I was invited to create an installation for this exhibit, I didn't think much about my relationship with the Upper Verde River. I had never been to this emerald ribbon of water and trees that cuts through cliffs of red sandstone and white limestone capped with black basalt. But then I remembered the words I had written in 2020, "Reclaimed effluent wastewater is siphoned back onto the San Francisco Peaks to satisfy a human desire to recreate. Our waste will, over time, enter the bodies of our Kin: frogs, toads and salamanders." Even new developments off of Flagstaff's Woody Mountain Road are part of the Upper Verde watershed and impact its wellbeing.

The Verde River has a long and storied history in Arizona. Humans have been living along its reaches for thousands of years, long before Arizona became a territory and then a state, and even before the river was called the San Francisco. The Verde River was a vital life source to the pre-historic peoples who farmed its rich floodplain and helped irrigate new varieties of corn. And it witnessed the encroachment of European-Americans onto Yavapai-Apache lands and their forced removal to the San Carlos Reservation 180 miles away.

In 1863, Arizona's first territorial camp was established in the "Val de Chine" at Del Rio Springs. The stream that flowed from this spring was aptly named Ciénega Creek (ciénegas are marshy wetlands born by and unique to American Southwest springs). It was reported that the creek was "a never-failing stream of clear, sweet water." The creek's waters ran six miles to Verde Springs, thus becoming the headwaters of the 170 mile long Verde River.

Over time, Del Rio Springs dried up because of severe groundwater pumping into the aquifer below Chino Valley to supply water for Prescott and the surrounding valley. Unless groundwater pumping is drastically reduced, Verde Springs and the river it charges will dry up. Eventually, with or without a changing climate - climate change only accelerates the dilemma - Arizona's now only solo-living river will die. Unchecked, unregulated pumping exacerbates it.

Should rivers like the Verde and all that makes them that which they are - the fish that swim its waters, the birds that migrate into its forests and the animals that shelter therein - have inalienable rights? Should they be allowed the right to live? The rocks and stones, the insects and amphibians - all that call this riparian biome their home - are sentient beings and spiritual entities who have no voice. Water laws in Arizona don't consider the rights of rivers, nor do they take into consideration the non-human constituents that inhabit them or their greater ecosystems. I speak for them. The Upper Verde needs to be protected so that life may be good.