Lucinda Breeding

Dr. Irene J. Klaver walks her dog past the southernmost lake in North Lakes Park every day. Just the other day, Klaver noticed the meadowlarks had come back to Denton.

For Klaver, the director of the Philosophy of Water Project at the University of North Texas, that little lake is an emblem of her mission.

Klaver hopes that her work, and the work of others who will come to Denton this week for “WaterWays 2010: Rivers and Cultures,” will make people think differently about that little lake. And the water that runs from their tap. And the lakes of Denton County.

“Years ago, the city created that lake as a detention pond, as a place where floodwater would run off,” Klaver said. “It was a low-lying area that the city turned into this place that is for flood retardation, as a part of flood plain management. Well, the city kind of left it by itself, and it’s become this natural area. It’s become a little lake. There are beavers and egrets, and all sorts of animals that make their homes there or who use the lake. Here we have this created thing that has become a natural place.

“My next question, as a philosopher, is what does that natural space mean to the people around it.”

She compares it to a pond going in at Rayzor Ranch, a basic concrete bowl that probably won’t ever accommodate native wildlife.

“If you want these created places to become natural, you have to plan,” she said.

The WaterWays conference is an international biennial event that brings a host of people together to talk about water, a resource that has become a hot-button issue for North Texans.

“The water issue is a controversial one because there are mutual interests at stake. Industry has a stake in it. Residents have a stake in it. People who want the rivers to be preserved have a stake in it. Recreation has a stake in it — golf courses, all these things. It seems controversial because there isn’t enough water for all of those things,” Klaver said.

The conference is a meeting of the minds; philosophers, teachers, scientists, artists, historians, developers and humanitarians all take part. From Wednesday through Friday, the conference presents all of these thinkers to present their studies and criticisms to one another — and Denton residents who are interested in the future of water. Klaver said all of the discussion is for one end.

“I hope to raise the awareness of the importance, the relevance, the necessity of water,” Klaver said. “I want to get people interested in water as a natural phenomenon. A lot of people think of water as something that comes out of their faucet. Well, in order to have water from the faucet, you have to have a healthy water basin. We want to create conscious citizenship about water.”

Much of the conference presentations have dry, academic titles — or they read like government report titles that don’t inspire right away. However, WaterWays 2010 includes at least two film screenings, and one paper about water as a global human rights issue. Two graduate students, Daniel Baskind — a student of Klaver’s — and Peter Palacios, will present a paper on a subject that riles Denton citizens like little else right now — water management and natural gas development.

The conference opens Wednesday, and most of the attention will be on the Trinity River basin. Klaver said the Trinity River has become for Dallas and Fort Worth citizens what the North Lakes retention pond has become to her — a symbol for new attitudes toward water.

“Attitudes are changing,” she said. “It wasn’t that long ago that [Dallas and Fort Worth residents] had no clue that there was a Trinity River. It had no place in the public imagination.

“Now that there is a lot of urban development going on near the Trinity, you see something happen here that has been happening elsewhere. Now, no self-respecting city reinvents itself without reinventing the way people interact with the water in the cities, especially rivers. Now, no self-respecting building is without a water feature.

“I’m interested in this attraction to water that people have. Cities have to plan for this.”

The conference will examine the Trinity River as a body of water with a history, with an ecosystem, with pollution and, finally, with a future relationship to the people who live near it.

Only one presentation at the conference is explicitly political: Scott Jones’ paper, “Environmental Flows for the Trinity River and Galveston Bay: Ecosystem and Policy Connections.”

The rest of the presentations are commentary and observation about North Texas water. If people attend conference presentations and leave thinking about how they might landscape their homes differently, with native plants and rain harvesting tanks, Klaver said she’ll have done her job. If locals consider appliances that use less water, she’ll have made some strides.

Klaver has been studying our relationship with water for a decade, and in that time, she’s seen a Denton development built to conserve water and energy. These might be small steps, but Klaver said they are steps in the right direction.

“And we’ll create a mentality, and cultural awareness of the importance of water. I want to create an affinity for water. I think that’s a very good thing.”

For more information about the conference, visit www.water.unt.edu. For information about the WaterWays 2010 art exhibition and symposium, “Fluid Frontiers,” check out Thursday’s Denton Time magazine in your newspaper or online at www.dentonrc.com.

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.

WATERWAYS 2010: RIVERS AND CULTURES

WHO: The University of North Texas Philosophy of Water Project

WHAT: An international biennial conference about water, rivers and community

WHEN: Wednesday through Friday

WHERE: UNT Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building, located at the intersection of Avenue C and West Hickory Street.

DETAILS: Conference is open to the public. For more information, visit www.water.unt.edu. For coverage of the visual arts exhibition and symposium concurrent with the conference, “Fluid Frontier,” see Thursday’s cover story in DentonTime.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Wednesday

* 9 a.m. — “The Upper Trinity River — Flushed With Pride,” by Bruce Hunter, in Room 110

* 9:25 a.m. — “Autobiography of a River: The Geology and Past Environments of the Upper Trinity River Basin,” by Reid Ferring, in Room 110.

* 9:50 a.m. — “Environmental Geology in the Upper Trinity River Basin, Texas,” by Paul Hudak.

* 10:10 am — “Trinity River COMMON VISION,” by John Promise, North Central Texas Council of Governments. Room to be announced.

* 10:30 am — Panel: “The Trinity River and Urban Renewal,” by Gail Thomas, Trinity Trust Foundation; Chris Culak, Trinity River Audubon Center; and J.D. Granger, Trinity River Vision Authority. Room to be announced.

* 11:35 am — “Emergent Contaminants in the Trinity River,” by D. Barney Venables and Duane Huggett. Room to be announced.

* Noon — ULTRA Workshop/Lunch Break, with Steward Pickett, Baltimore Ecosystem Study

* 2 p.m. — “Transforming the Natural World into Broadcast Media: A Case History,” by Rob Tranchin, KERA. Room to be announced.

* 2:30 p.m. — “Effect of Growing North Texas Impervious Surfaces on the Upper Trinity Watershed,” by Michael Nieswiadomy. Room to be announced.

* 2:50 pm — “Environmental Flows for the Trinity River and Galveston Bay: Ecosystem and Policy Connections,” by Scott Jones, Galveston Bay Foundation. Room to be announced.

* 3:10 pm — Panel: “Knowledge and Education in the Trinity Basin,” by Kenneth Dickson, Rudi Thompson and Ken Steigman.

* 3:30 pm — “Social Marketing Applications to Water Quality Issues, James Brown, Water Quality Division, EPA. Room to be announced.

* 4 p.m. — Panel: “Ecosciencw and Bio-Culturalism,” by Pickett, Ricardo Rozzi and Juan Armesto, Universidad de Chile. Room to be announced.

* 5 p.m. — “A Trinity River Exhibition,” photographer Luther Smith, Eagle Exhibit Hall.

* 6 p.m. — Keynote lecture by Pickett, in Room 130.

Thursday

* 9 a.m. — “Watershed Planning and Protection in Denton, TX: Past, Present and Future,” by David Hunter, city of Denton.

* 9:35 a.m. — Lecture: “Wetlands Trinity Basin,” by Kevin Stevens

* 10:10 a.m. — “Estimating Inundation Patterns in Constructed Wetlands: Methodology and Application to North Central Texas,” by Nicholas Enwright

* 10:45 a.m. — “Biomonitoring of the Trinity River Using Benthis Macroinvertabrates,” by Jaime Slye

* 11:20 a.m. — “Energy: Water Management Practices and Natural Gas Development,” by Peter Palacios and Daniel Baskind

* 1 p.m. — Screening: “The Global Rivers Project (a work in progress),” by Melinda Levin and Irene Klaver

* 2:05 p.m. — Screening: “Campania In-Felix (Unhappy Country): Exploring the Issue of Toxic Waste in Southern Italy,” by Ivana Corsale

* 2:25 p.m. — “Just Waters: Environmental Justic at its Global Depths,” by Rob Figueroa

* 3:50 p.m. — Lecture: History of the living Trinity Basin, by Bill Marquis, Marquis Restoration and Preservation

* 4:15 p.m. — “Catching Up With the Past: Rainharvesting,” by Rodney Love, H2Options Inc.

* 4:40 p.m. — Trinity River literature, by David Taylor