What's the Value of a Clean San Antonio River?
Our San Antonio River is just over 240 miles long.
It’s headwaters start right here in Bexar County and the river flows through four additional counties until it finally joins the Guadalupe River just 10 miles from the San Antonio Bay on the Gulf of Mexico.
The river’s natural mineral waters are fed from the Edwards Aquifer below. And it’s home to an incredibly diverse collection of wildlife, like the Guadalupe Spiny Softshell Turtle and the Whooping Crane on it’s winter migration route.
The San Antonio River is the reason San Antonio became San Antonio.
It was the lifeblood for the city’s earliest residents and a refuge for the many indigenous cultures who came before.
And as such to me, I can’t help but wonder, does our relationship now to our river, our waterways as a city fit that same sort of designation.
San Antonio wouldn’t exist without it’s river—so, I question, do we celebrate it like we should?
Appreciate it? Do we get to? Do we get to enjoy it as we should?
Is this all that’s possible for our San Antonio community and it’s relationship to it’s river. Something to avoid. At various times, an eyesore.
Or, can it be something much more—not just clean, but pristine—inviting, a testament to what it means and has meant to this region?
Can it be a place where we swim, fish, play? Of course—because it was. To get to that point, sure it's going to be a question of what we do, but fundamentally, it might be a question of what we do or don't value.
The Cost of Our Water
Not everything seems sensible to have a price tag attached to it, but maybe some things which in one context, seem invaluable, not “worth” any sum of money, any currency at all, might benefit from it.
Getting into water, feeling a sense of refuge and relief and comfort being near water, enjoying and recreating in and on water, it’s something so human, almost seemingly a basic human right, something just about invaluable.
And on the inverse, assuming that body of fresh water isn’t safe to jump into, let alone touch, absolutely forget about drinking it, that seems extremely inhuman. Dystopian, almost.
We and our next generations of San Antonians both deserve and can have better—
We all already value water, value our San Antonio River, I know that. but do our actions align? Do our actions as a city and community, align with that value?
Talking about the San Antonio River, and the preciousness and effects and impacts of it’s waters, and the excitement of what can be, I can’t help but be reminded of this phrase I absolutely loved from the narration of the nature documentary film about Texas’ diverse landscapes, Deep in the Heart, this film was narrated by the one and only Matthew Maconohgy,
At one point in the film, commenting on the volatility of Texas’ weather patterns, the pace and intensity of which our storms can sometimes move, McConaughey says,
“Water, rarely comes peacefully to Texas.”
On the inverse, since it seems so hard to get here, in one shape or another, I can’t help but feel we should do anything and everything but peacefully let our water go.
We must push to make it and keep it pristine. Because we can.
We must support those doing the work. Because we can.
We must seek out every opportunity to keep ourselves, friends, and family educated. Because we can
We must find and invest in the most innovative ways to truly celebrate the water that makes this city what it is.
It’s not just about a future where we have the river, but it’s about creating a future where we, and our generations to come get to enjoy it, as it seems so human to do.
The question I believe we take away with us here is not, what would it look like if we as a community were to actually value our San Antonio River and the health and vitality of its watershed.
Because I believe we already do. It’s innate. It’s already within us.
The question instead, is what can it look like if our action, investment, advocacy, and stewardship finally aligned with the value we as a city and greater community born of this river, already possess?
