Birding at Sewage Lagoons

Gavan Watson today posted the first of two planned blog posts responding to my recent piece on birding in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues. (This is his second post.) In the article he mentions, I discuss competitive birding at three toxic sites: EPA superfund sites, sewage treatment facilities, and landfills (both active and "recovered"). One way to state the gist of my argument is that birding at these sites runs counter to longstanding links between birdwatching and conservation.

What I appreciate most about Watson's post is how he complicates any simple notion of pollution being localized. He writes "it is not just classically constructed 'waste spaces' that pose health risks to avian populations. Culturally, and this is damning, we have impacted the whole environment in such a way that we can’t judge the health or toxicity of a location by its ecological role or appearance as natural—marshes and sewage lagoons can both be sinks of organic contaminants."

The thing about sewage treatment facilities that Watson leaves out, and this is something which many people don't realize, is that such facilities process sewage into sludge, and much of that sludge becomes fertilizer. That sounds like a terrific recycling loop, except for the fact that a sludge can contain toxics.

Doing a simple search for "sewage pond" on Flickr, these are the images that one gets: mostly birds. These images appear in the search because so many of the narratives associated with the images include references to sewage ponds.

My take on things is that birding at these sites works to render them somehow more hygienic than they are. I say this because I think that everyday environmental activities like birdwatching have consequences in terms of larger conceptions of things like "nature." With such a strong history of connections between birdwatching and conservation, we birdwatchers can do more, I think, to make visible the presence of toxics not only at "toxic sites" but where we least expect them to be, like wherever toxic sludge is used as fertilizer.

Comments

[nikki khan]

hey spencer! i love this blog! your research is so interesting. i downloaded your article to read this weekend!

[Gavan Watson]

Hi Spencer.

Just getting the chance now to say thanks for this post. It is a fair point that objects that are culturally construed as nature (such as birds) imbue their surroundings and can render them "more" natural—or hygienic. Ontario Nature, one of Ontario's largest ENGOs, makes no mention of sewage sludge & toxicity on their website. Sludge would appear to be, as you suggest, off the radar of those concerned with conserving nature.

Interestingly, I've also found the opposite to be true, too. This paper (http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a39261) on brownfields in the UK is an example. While brownfields are rendered as toxic, waste spaces they are, in fact, full of life, and paradoxically contain some of the rarest species of wildlife in the UK. The problem is that 'typical' conservation efforts don't value these spaces because they're often urban and not pristine.

So back to sewage lagoons. While birding may be at work to help render these spaces as more hygienic, I would argue that the practice is also at work (whether it knows it or not) to include "waste" spaces into culturally-constructed notions of pristine nature (parks, reserves, conservation areas where birding hot spots more typically emerge).

Does it excuse the spreading of sludge? No, that is a connection that birders should know more about if they're visiting these spaces. But, at least these birders are, literally in some ways as you've shown with your Flickr search, rendering these sites visible. If there weren't birds to be found, I doubt I would have ever have visited a sewage lagoon.

This is where I think we can agree—birding as an act of collection won't ever really engage with either of our concerns. I want to argue for a different kind of birding—a reflexive birding—where those participating in the activity take more time to reflect on their practice and spaces.

OK, I could go on, but seeing as this is a blog comment (and are typically short) I'll leave it there for now.