The Swamp by Michael Grunwald

Happy (almost) Spring! Last night as book club members left the Smithfield meeting, we were serenaded by spring peepers. Tomorrow it will be officially spring!

For March we discussed The Swamp by Michael Grunwald, a book about the Florida Everglades. The book takes readers on a journey from the region's geological origins to its current status as an embattled and altered but nationally treasured wetland. The author describes the history of the Seminole Wars, European settler dreams of draining the Everglades for agriculture, waves of land speculation, failed drainage projects, successful drainage projects, catastrophic floods and fires, eventual rampant development, and finally a massive political struggle to save and restore the Everglades, with the outcome still in question. We compared the book to Control of Nature by John McPhee, another book club read, and found similar themes of battling against nature.

One of the central paradoxes of the book is how human opinions of this region have varied so widely. Many reports (especially from early white settlers and soldiers) described the Everglades as a mosquito-infested hell on earth. Others saw it as a wastleland that needed only the application of human effort to "redeem" it and transform it into productive agricultural lands as God had clearly intended. As the Everglades were reduced and altered through drainage and development, more people began to describe the Everglades as a unique, sacred Eden of incredible beauty and diversity that human interference was destroying, not redeeming.

Book club members spoke of trying to understand why all these people saw the Everglades the way they did, of "getting into the heads" of people in the context of their time and situation. Members with connections to Florida (such as Eugenia, who spent part of her childhood there) shared their own experiences of the Everglades. In discussing the problems of runaway development and problematic drainage schemes, Alex said "it takes real foresight to make an infrastructure" and we agreed that foresight was not usually present in Florida's crazed land rushes. We discussed the underlying issue of population growth and its impacts on natural systems. We pondered the question, "are the Everglades saved?" and what 'saved' would mean. There is no question that they have been permanently altered. Much of the land is protected but there is no guarantee that the hydrology will be restored sufficiently to prevent further decline. We discussed competition for water in Florida, and Eugenia talked about current water management efforts in RI (see Take Action! in the sidebar for more). Finally, Karen reluctantly posed the question, "what if we spend billions of dollars on this restoration and then it all gets inundated by global warming?"

We love getting comments on this blog, so do let us know what you thought of the book! If the comment box is not displayed below, click where it says "0 comments" (or 1 comment, or whatever we have). Below the comment box, there is a drop-down box that says "comment as:" The easiest thing to do is select 'anonymous'--no more info needed. But if you have any of the accounts they list (Google, AIM, etc), select it and enter in the info requested. If you don't have one of the listed accounts, but do have a personal web page such as a profile on Facebook, you can select Name/URL. Type in your name and paste in the URL of your profile page or whatever web page you want to use.

Next month we read essays on oyster aquaculture in RI, and for May we selected the 1975 utopian novel Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. This is the first time we have selected a work of fiction! See sidebar for schedule. Happy reading!

July Lewis