Water Witches

  "What is the flow of the Chittenden River right now, Doctor?" Dawn Ciandella asks Dr. Jackson Bazemchuk, as she leans against a column by the picture windows, folding her arms across her chest.

  Bazemchuk, a professor at the Univeristy of Miami, has achieved national recognition over the past two decades for his efforts to protect the Everglades. According to Reedy, however, he knows he is losing his battle, and over the last two days

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  has been prone to almost incomprehensible outbursts. He worries Reedy.

  Bazemchuk looks as if he has lived at least forty or fifty years in Florida: His skin is a deep and probably permanent tan, and his face and hands and neck are covered with small scars where cancerous growths evidently have been removed. He speaks with a deep southern accent, and adds emphasis to his pronouncements by twirling in his fingers the tufts of snow white hair that dot his forehead like bad topiary.

  I can understand why Patience called him Dr. Strangelove.

  ''In the area that the resort wants to tap, the river's flow is about a quarter of a foot per second," he answers, shaking his head.

  "What about other parts of the river?"

  "Please!" he says, touching one of the shrubs on his head. "Parts of that river don't even exist anymore! Parts of it have dried up completely!"

  "As you know," Dawn continues, "one of the principal conditions of the resort's permit is that Powder Peak may not tap the Chittenden if the river falls below three quarters of one cubic foot per second. It already has. As a result of the drought, the Chittenden has plummeted to one quarter of one cubic foot per second. Legally, the resort couldn't tap the river this season even if it had its snowmaking system in place. It just couldn't do it.

  "Now, based on your examination of the Chittenden River, do you believe that the resort should be allowed to tap the river ifnext yearthe flow returns to three quarters of a foot per second?"

  Some people will not be coached. Some people will not be led. Perhaps forgetting the fact that Dawn is consciously leading him on, or perhaps because of it, Dr. Bazemchuk taps the sides of his head with the index finger on each of his hands, and says, "Are you crazy? Is everyone in this state as stupid as everybody in Florida? No one should touch that river! Not this year, not next year! It's going to take years for that river to

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  recover from this drought, years! Let that river fall too far and you'll screw up your entire ecosystem! You'll screw up your plant life, you'll screw up your insect life, and then you'll screw up your marine life! That's just in the first year or two. Just wait till you get up the food chain to mammals."

  Dawn tries to smile, but it is clear that Bazemchuk has unnerved her with his outburst. After taking a deep breath, she asks, "In your opinion, how strong should the flow be before the ski resort should be allowed to tap it to make snow?"

  "My opinion? At least one full cubic foot per second."

  "Thank you, Doctor Bazemchuk," Dawn says, returning to her seat.

  Mitch Valine motions toward John Bussey. "John," he says, "you're up. Any questions for the doctor?"

  "Sure have," he says, buttoning his suit jacket as he stands, a mannerism that I am sure he picked up from courtroom dramas on television.

  "Dr. Bazemchuk, your discipline is ... water. Correct?"

  "Natural aquatic environments, yes indeed."

  "I'd wager there isn't anyone in this country who knows more about the Everglades than you do."

  "Nope, there isn't. Or rainforests."

  "What about northern rivers and waterways? How many of those have you studied?"

  "Many."

  "Many," John repeats, glancing down at a paper in his hand. "This is the Jackson Bazemchuk bibliography. I count here thirty-seven separate papers, articles, and books about water. Does that sound right?"

  "It does."

  "Well, I don't see here one piece of writing about any river further north than, oh, New Orleans. Ever written about one north of New Orleans?"

  "No. But I certainly understand different aquatic environments."

  "Ever skied?"

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  Dawn instantly shoots to her feet. "Objection. That's not relevant."

  Mitch smiles. "Dawn, we don't exactly have formal objections here. But I think your principle's right. John, whether the man skis or not doesn't make a difference."

  John nods, and turns toward the witness. "How many miles of fishable waterways are there in Vermont?"

  "I haven't the foggiest idea. But that doesn't"

  "That does indeed matter," John says, cutting him off. "There are forty-eight hundred miles of them. Forty-eight hundred. How much of that area do you think Powder Peak's proposed withdrawal will affect?"

  He shrugs. "I don't know the exact amount, but"

  "Try a mile and a half. One more question. How many snowmaking water withdrawal studies have you conducted in your career?"

  I lean close to Reedy. "Why him?" I whisper, referring to Bazemchuk. "He's killing you."

  Without turning to me, Reedy says softly, "He's supposed to be the best. He really is."

  "That depends on what you mean by a study," Bazemchuk answers. "As you said yourself, I haven't published anything on the subject just yet."

  "I'll rephrase that. How many times have you visited an area where there's a ski resort that plans to make snow, and studied the ramifications?"

  Bazemchuk takes a deep breath and reaches for one of the thicker shrubs at the back of his head, and then hisses, "You are a short-sighted young man, and I won't play this game with you. If you want to destroy a river, go right ahead. But you will destroy it. Mark my word, you will"

  Mitch pounds his gavel, and then rolls his eyes in mock astonishment at the echo.

  "I'm going to have to ask you to answer the question," Mitch says. "I know this isn't a courtroom, but you will recall that you are under oath."

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  "You people," Bazemchuk says. "I thought it was the Florida sun that fried people's brains and made them stupid. But clearly it's something more deeply rooted inside us all than that. Fine. The answer is two."

  "Two? You've studied water withdrawal at exactly two ski resorts?"

  "Yes."

  "Thank you," John says. "I think we're all through here."

  "... and do you swear to tell the whole truth, so help you God?"

  "I do," Russ Budbill answers from the seat at the table just vacated by Dr. Bazemchuk, his right hand raised.

  "Thank you," Mitch says. "Consider yourself sworn in."

  Dawn's plan had been to present our two environmental experts first thing in the morning: first one of national prominence, and then one with less renown but perhaps greater local credibility. The plan was to have Bazemchcuk discredit the water withdrawal generally, and then Russ Budbill of Bartlett, Vermont, attack it specifically. In theory, Bazemchuk was going to overwhelm the Board with his brilliance, taking the pressure off Budbill.

  That didn't happen. As a result, Reedy and Dawn must be hoping now for unprecedented rhetoric and eloquence from Budbill. Budbill, a wiry fellow in his mid-thirties, is not an impressive speaker.

  "I'm a hydrologist," he says to Dawn, answering her question, "an aquatic engineer."

  "Do you work for Powder Peak?"

  "Not now. But ... I have in the past."

  "Tell us about that."

  His eyes dart between the Environmental Board and the hundreds of spectators watching him, dark little marbles of fear.

  "Okay. Two ... no, three years ago, I studied the Gardner

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  River, to see if they could use it as source for man-made snow. That was when they wanted to increase the snow coverage on Moosehead."

  "What did you decide?"

  "I decided it could support snowmaking."

  "How did you come to that conclusion?"

  "We used a computer program that was designed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It's the one used by
most aquatic engineers. Anyway, it figures out the impact on a river of different water withdrawal levels. On the fish and plants and insect life."

  "What did the resort do with your study?"

  "They used it. It was part of the reason the District Five Commission gave them their permits a couple years back, and you can ski right now on so darn much of Moosehead."

  "In other words, Powder Peak is using the Gardner River to make snow, because in your judgment it was ecologically safe to tap that river."

  "That's right."

  "But you don't work for Powder Peak anymore, correct?"

  "Correct."

  "How come?"

  "They didn't like my last set of findings," he says.

  John Bussey stands up. "Mitch, that statement is only Mr. Budbill's opinion."

  "I understand," Mitch says.

  "Would you tell us about those findings?" Dawn asks.

  He nods. "Last September, about a year ago, they asked me to study the Chittenden River. They wanted to do some pretty major expansionmuch more than adding snow to a half-dozen trails on Mooseheadand they were looking at the Chittenden as the source."

  "What did you tell them?"

  "I told them not to use it. I used the same methodology on the Chittenden that I used on the Gardner, and I told them

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  that they shouldn't let the flow fall below one cubic foot per second. Anything less than that would affect the river."

  "What did Powder Peak do?"

  "Got themselves another hydrologist," he says, smirking.

  Beside me Reedy gives me a small nudge, and when I turn to him he is nodding his head almost imperceptibly. We shouldn't have worried about Budbill, that nod says, he's doing just fine.

  Over the the next hour and a half, Dawn Ciandella parades before the Environmental Board an impressive series of witnesses. There is a naturalist with the Vermont Natural Resources Council, a woman who not only expresses her concern with the idea of using the Chittenden River to make snow, she explains why the proposed storage pond should not be placed near the base of Mount Chittenden. There is the professor from Middlebury College whoalong with his wifeclaims to have seen catamounts recently in Vermont, as well as an expert from the state Sierra Club, who presents what he describes as "significant and reasonable evidence of the existence of catamounts in Vermont."

  And then there are the economists, two of them, one a professor from the University of Vermont and one a member of VPIRG. Both of them insist that there will be no economic cataclysm if Powder Peak's permits are overturned.

  Besides, the economist from VPIRG insists, Vermonters deserve better than the "degrading, minimum-wage table scraps the ski industry tosses us."

  Finally it is Miranda's and my turn. I will go first, with Miranda right behind me. By design, my daughter will be the last witness we present, and the last witness the Environmental Board will see before the lunch break. It is already quarter to twelve. Dawn is going to try and get me on and off the stand in ten minutes, so we can get to Miranda.

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  "How long did they remain on the rocks?" Dawn asks me, referring to the catamounts.

  "They were still there when the chair lift started down the final stretch of the mountain," I answer.

  "How long were you able to see them?"

  "Perhaps forty-five seconds. Perhaps a minute."

  Laura is holding Miranda's hand. She probably has been holding it off and on all morning.

  "And you are absolutely sure that what you saw were mountain lions? There is no doubt in your mind?"

  "There is no doubt in my mind at all. We saw three catamounts, and we saw them for what seemed like a very long time."

  Dawn stands still for a moment, allowing my final words to sink in with the Environmental Board. Finally she thanks me and sits down.

  Mitch Valine looks up at John Bussey. "John, your cross," he says simply.

  When I had been in my seat in the front row, I had certainly been aware of the size of the crowd in the cafeteria. But my back had been to the group, and as I had followed the testimony of each of the witnesses throughout the morning, I had lost track of the number of people in attendance. Or the cameras for the closed circuit broadcast. Sitting now at one of the two single tables at the front of the room, however, I am reminded of the size of the audience.

  As John Bussey stands, as John Bussey buttons his coat and approaches, I feel almost vulnerable. I know if I were in his situation, I would attack me mercilessly. After all, the next witness is a little girl, and he will win no friends attacking her.

  "How long have you lived in Vermont?" John begins.

  "Almost twenty years."

  "How long did you work for Powder Peak?"

  "At least five years. Maybe six."

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  "Six years," he repeats. "Did you spend a lot of time at the resort?"

  "In my judgment, I did."

  "Do you think you know the mountains that comprise Powder Peak pretty well?"

  I fold my hands on the table, stalling. This is a deceptively savvy question, one that presents me with a no-win situation. If I answer yes, John will then wonder why it was that I never saw a catamount there in all those years; if I answer no, he will use that as a reason to outline for the Board all of the evidence that suggests there are no longer mountain lions in the area.

  I nod my head. "I think so."

  "If someone had asked you on July seventeenththe day before you and your daughter took your ride on the chair liftif there were catamounts on Mount Republic, what would you have said?"

  There is a small length of chain, perhaps two inches, dangling over one of Patience Avery's thumbs. She is holding one of her crystals in the palm of that hand.

  "Remember," John adds, a small dagger for fun, "you're under oath."

  "I would have said I doubted it."

  "Before July eighteenth," he continues, "had you ever seen a catamount?"

  "No."

  "You had never seen one at Powder Peak?"

  "No."

  "Had anyone ever seen one at Powder Peak during the six years you worked with the resort?"

  "That I don't know."

  He turns to the Environmental Board and rolls his eyes, and then turns toward the audience and rolls them again. "Had you ever heard of a sighting?"