Open Letter to the Community from Burton Hill: Water is Life

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Editor’s Note: This open letter addresses the owners of Burton Water Company, Jim Garrison and Evan Simmons, board members of the Burton Water Cooperative, William Shadbolt, Chuck Weinstock, Lisa Fitzhugh, Don Furman, Dawn Kerber, James Culbertson and Ben Lee, and the broader Vashon-Maury Community.

As a member of Burton Water Cooperative, I understand negotiations regarding possible purchase of Burton Water Company by Burton Water Co-op have begun, and that the Cooperative’s feasibility board is inviting discussion and input from Burton Water Cooperative members. I am grateful for the opportunity to join the conversation.

I write to offer acknowledgment, thanks and context, and to invite island-wide interest and participation in this important opportunity. The matter has critical ramifications and deep impacts for all of us.

To the Cooperative’s feasibility board, William, Chuck, Lisa, Don, Dawn, James and Ben:

We have much to thank you for! I appreciate the time, energy and expertise you have devoted to considering community stewardship of Burton water. I am delighted that your recent message to Cooperative members indicates that buying Burton Water Company is feasible. The work you have done to bring us here, poised on the brink of possibility, is impressive. You have gathered, sorted and compiled so much information, moving quickly to discern and investigate the complex threads of this opportunity. I honor your service; I thank you for your leadership as we move forward.

To the owners, Jim and Evan:

We have much to thank you for! Years/decades of tending, mending, and stewarding our community water system. Navigating the complexity of compliance; balancing needs to protect the resource and enable the flow to our homes. I see you kneeling on the ground, digging in the earth, connecting pipes that bring clean water to my taps and hoses. I know you have cared for this precious gift with blood, sweat and tears.

Jim and Evan, I call on the two of you to join us, please, to set aside a win-win, bottom-line perspective in order to find a possible solution that recognizes what is plenty, and what is enough. We need your flexibility and your hearts in this conversation.

To those who live on the land: I thank the many who also tend the small drainages that comprise the ecosystem of Burton water with awareness of the gift and with commitment towards accountability in our reciprocal relationship. To the tree planters, salmon watchers, septic upgraders, and bulkhead removers: nourishing our waters is caring for life. May we renew our efforts towards this gift and this responsibility.

Acknowledgment and thanks to the other stewards of community water systems: Many community water systems, stewarded by a long line of local folks, sustain island people. This circle has always included Burton Water. May we remain a vital part of this practice and tradition.

To the Coast Salish Native Peoples:

From time immemorial – and you are still here – the sx̌wəbabš of kwll’ut honored siaba’lqo, the sweet water chiefs’ springs which flow out of the Burton hill bluffs. Acknowledgment and thanks.

And, to those on whose shoulders we stand:

For decades, our island community has leaned in, learning about groundwater assessment and management to adopt wise water practices.

Land Trust, Nature Center, King County folks and others have forged partnerships to both lead and do the work of island-wide water stewardship. You help us focus on sustaining and renewing the precious gift of water, encouraging knowledge and sensitivity to the complex fragility of interdependence. Thank you for the continuity of this legacy, and for your leadership, prescience and encouragement. May we meet and join you in the imperative for wise stewardship.

Water is life; it is land’s gift. It is a blessing of incalculable generosity, freely given, rising to flow downhill. May we recognize and work with the natural communities that comprise Burton watershed and the larger island ecosystem; may we step up as the human community to sustain the circle of life that clean water makes possible.

With these acknowledgments and thanks, I hope to open a door to broaden our consideration of what has meaning and value. As we consider next steps, let’s come together and look at things differently, from a new perspective, indeed stepping into a new paradigm.

Board members, you Jim and Evan, the users of Burton water and indeed all of us on the island: I invite and I urge us to come away from the table where bottom lines reign, where the first question is always “How much is it gonna cost me?”

Let’s broaden our vision and our conversation. In the big picture of our lives in this community, what is important? Is it not the natural responsibility and obligation for those who live here to step up as good stewards to make a community water cooperative work?

Let’s ask ourselves “What can we give to make this happen?”

Coming together in this way, we will strengthen the relationships (human and more) of our water community, as well as those rippling out in the context of community and ecosystem.

Water is life. Life calls us to embrace change. We humans are long overdue to show up. We must see and do things differently. Here is an opportunity; our thoughtful and meaningful engagement is urgent.

Thanks to the Burton Co-op’s feasibility board for requesting input, and thanks, everyone, for listening.

With sincere respect and appreciation, Mary G.L. Shackelford

Active in island life for 40+ years, Mary Shackelford writes, makes music and tends community and land from her home on Burton hill.