Common sense principles governing potable water recycling in the southwestern US: Examining subjectivity of water stewards using Q methodology

Geoforum 86 (2017) 76–85

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Common sense principles governing potable water recycling in the southwestern US: Examining subjectivity of water stewards using Q methodology Kerri Jean Ormerod

MARK

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University of Nevada, Reno, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Common sense Composting toilet Gramsci Sanitation Water governance Water recycling

The potential to supplement potable water supplies with highly treated municipal wastewater, or sewage, is of increasing interest to water planners in many parts of the world. Most of the current social science focuses on public acceptance, however there is a relative lack of research that explores the subjectivity of people who are involved with water recycling or water planning. This study draws on Gramscian theories of governance and Q Methodology to analyze common sense principles that are held by water stewards who currently govern potable water reuse in the southwestern United States. Two competing perspectives emerged from the analyses, which I label neosanitarian and ecosanitarian. Drawing upon tenets established in the Progressive Era, neosanitarians believe that use of recycled water is an appropriate way to expand urban drinking water supplies. Drawing upon tenets established in ecology, ecosanitarians are not opposed to potable water recycling, however they are also interested in radical alternatives to the sanitary status quo. For example, neosanitarians favor advanced wastewater treatment, while ecosanitarians prefer composting toilets and preventative actions. Differences between the common sense views pivot on ideas about the most appropriate technology but also reflect contested visions of ideal society.

1. Introduction Potable water recycling involves intentionally using highly treated wastewater to augment drinking water supplies. Planned potable water recycling is distinct from unplanned, or de facto potable reuse. Normally wastewater treatment facilities release effluent into surface waters that also serve as the water supplies for downstream communities, which results in so-called unplanned potable reuse. This practice is so widespread that the extent of unplanned reuse is largely unknown (NRC, 2012). While most people are wholly unaware of this everyday occurrence, survey research suggests individuals who are familiar with unplanned potable reuse are significantly more accepting of planned potable reuse (Rice et al., 2016). Planned potable reuse projects are intentional, local, and, importantly, apply advanced wastewater treatment processes that are not used in cases of unplanned reuse (e.g., microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and advanced oxidation). Although water industry professionals (e.g., engineers, managers, planners) typically endorse recycling wastewater for potable purposes as a safe and sustainable water management strategy, the general public, when queried, are often uncomfortable with the prospect (Po

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et al., 2003). Vocal public opposition has previously proven capable of stopping potable recycling projects in their tracks, destabilizing local power relations, and challenging the status quo of municipal water management in the U.S. and Australia (Meehan et al., 2013; Price et al., 2012; Lejano and Leong, 2012). As previous scholarship demonstrates, successful potable water recycling projects are a result of a determined political struggle, which is necessary to win over the water sector, local politicians, the media, as well as the general public (Binz et al., 2016; Harris-Lovett et al., 2015; Kiparsky et al., 2016). In this respect, recycling water for potable purposes is not yet a taken for granted practice. Indeed, the possibility of public opposition is a specter that haunts long-term water planners. The role of psychological disgust, known as the ‘yuck factor,’ has long remained the primary focus for social scientific explanation of public objections to drinking recycled water (Wester et al., 2015; Christen, 2005; Tennyson et al., 2015; Russell and Lux, 2009). While most studies implicitly or explicitly question the subjective rationality of the public, few studies explore the rationality of scientists, experts, or related water stewards (Beveridge et al., 2017). Studies of water steward’s perspectives regarding water reuse typically seek to identify

Address: University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia St. MS0154, Reno, NV 89557-0154, United States. E-mail address: [email protected].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.09.004 Received 1 May 2017; Received in revised form 7 August 2017; Accepted 9 September 2017 0016-7185/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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in the U.S. and abroad. The first permanent project in the U.S. began in 1962 by using recycled water to recharge groundwater in Los Angeles County, California. Neighboring Orange County began injecting recycled water into aquifers at risk of saltwater intrusion in 1976. Currently a number of projects are in operation in select cities across the world, from Singapore to South Africa, however the largest concentration of potable water recycling projects are located in the Southwest – and specifically southern California (NRC, 2012). Proposals to deliberately recycle water for potable purposes are typically divided into two categories: indirect and direct. Indirect potable reuse (IPR) blends highly treated wastewater with conventional water sources in rivers, lakes, reservoirs, or aquifers. The blended water is later extracted, treated to drinking water standards, and delivered to customers. Direct potable reuse (DPR) dispenses with the intermediate ‘indirect’ step by adding highly treated recycled water directly to the water distribution system (NRC, 2012). Professionals working in the water sector have expressed interest in finding uses for recycled water, including potable reuse, for several decades. In 1998 a committee of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) concluded that IPR is “ a solution of last resort, to be adopted only when all other alternatives for nonpotable reuse, conservation, and demand management have been evaluated and rejected as technically or economically infeasible” (NRC, 1998: 15). The committee further concluded that DPR was not “a viable option for public water supplies” in the U.S., suggesting that ‘environmental buffers’ (i.e., indirect blending and storage) play an important protective role (NRC, 1998: 2). Traditionally municipal drinking water is supplied by the ‘best available source.’ Based on this maxim the 1998 NRC committee recommended IPR as a source of last resort. However the report recognized that “in some instances the best available source of additional water to augment natural sources of supply may be reclaimed water” (NRC, 1998: 42). At the time, the NRC (1998: 70) reported the “risks posed by unknown or unidentifiable chemicals” could not be precisely determined, and thus, “it will never be possible to definitively say the risk they pose has been reduced to acceptable levels.” A decade and half later, another NRC panel gathered to address the potential to expand the nation’s water supply through water reuse. The committee noted again that the best available source for water might, in some circumstances, be recycled water. Unlike the previous committee, the 2012 NRC determined that given technically innovative treatment processes (such as membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, and advanced oxidation) water treated for potable purposes can be as safe as, if not safer than, conventionally sourced water supplies. The NRC further declared, “the historical distinction between direct and indirect potable reuse is not meaningful to the assessment of the quality of water delivered to consumers” (NRC, 2012: 54). Although endorsed by the NRC, currently the only permanent (i.e., non-emergency) DPR facility in the U.S. is in Texas, however it is a prospect that is gaining support in the U.S. and abroad (Leverenz et al., 2011; Burgess et al., 2015).

the drivers or institutional barriers to implementing or expanding water recycling (Kiparsky et al., 2016; Browning-Aiken et al., 2011; Burgess et al., 2015; Bischel et al., 2012; Binz et al., 2016), however comparatively little is known about the subjective views those who make, shape, and operate potable water recycling projects (exceptions to Browne et al., 2007, 2008; Leong, 2016, 2015). While acknowledging that the prospect of potable water reuse increasingly involves public dialog to garner tacit acceptance, it is primarily water stewards who make and shape plans for potable reuse (Farrelly and Brown, 2014; Binz et al., 2016). Strickert et al. (2016: 56) define water stewards as “people who self-identify as being engaged in the management of water or who had livelihoods connected to water,” which includes public officials, academics, consultants, and others. This study explores the common sense views of water stewards in the Southwest. Gramcian common sense is “the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs” (Gramsci, 1971: 323) that are shared by a particular social group, not all of society. For Gramsci, common sense is informed by shared practice and everyday lived experience and is therefore geographically and historically specific (Waterstone, 2010; Loftus and Lumsden, 2008). I use the term common sense to signal a Gramscian form of subjectivity, which is to say that geography and history contribute to a number of distinct collective truisms that govern daily activities. Gramsci posits that an individual person is an ensemble of social relations. Discussing the “concept of man” [sic], he argues “[m]an is to be conceived as an historical bloc of purely individual and subjective elements and of mass and objective material elements with which the individual is in active relationship” (Gramsci, 1971: 360). These material elements include waterworks. Subsequently, from “a Gramscian perspective, water infrastructure can be considered part of the hegemonic apparatus through which forms of ‘common sense’, in support of a specific group’s interests, come to be constituted” (Ekers and Loftus, 2008: 706). While most social scientific studies have historically concentrated on promoting public acceptance and/or overcoming public opposition (see reviews in Ormerod, 2016; Po et al., 2003), my primary contribution is to combine Gramscian concepts with Q Methodology to illuminate the unconscious and taken for granted principles that routinize, internalize, and concretize the prospect of potable water reuse. As officials make plans to expand or construct potable water reuse facilities, I employed Q methodology to identify and characterize the different common sense views of water stewards in relation to potable water recycling in the southwestern U.S. (the Southwest), a region where rapid demographic growth and impacts of climate change (e.g., decreased average annual precipitation, increased drought severity, decreased snowpack) predict greater competition for increasingly scarce supplies (Garfin et al., 2014). As water stewards, the study participants represent the individual members of society whose collective labor shapes the discursive and material waterscape (Ekers and Loftus, 2013; Loftus and Lumsden, 2008). In the sections that follow, I first provide a brief overview of using recycled water supplies for potable purposes. Next, I highlight links between Gramscian governance and urban political ecology of water. The following section provides an explanation of the research methods. I then identify and describe the distinct perspectives that emerged from the analyses, which I labeled neosanitarian and ecosanitarian. In the penultimate section, I discuss additional details that clarify the implications for water governance given these differing perspectives. Finally, I summarize the contributions of this study and benefit of using Q methodology to explore the common sense of everyday lived experience.

3. Political ecology, gramscian governance, and common sense Political ecologists have previously emphasized how hegemony is cultivated through the construction and production of both nature and the city (Loftus and Lumsden, 2008; Robbins, 2007; Heynen et al., 2006). Urban political ecologists draw upon the Marxist notion of “metabolism” as the primary metaphor to explain urban environmental change (Gandy, 2002; Heynen et al., 2006; Swyngedouw, 2004). This view stresses socially mediated ‘natural’ metabolism, or the ways in which culture, people, and technology mediate materials in the interest of capital (Gandy, 2014, 2002; Swyngedouw, 2015; Birkenholtz, 2016). Metabolism in urban political ecology is often viewed through the lens of infrastructure: the materially necessary conduit for metabolic circulatory processes. For example, examining how water and sewage connect the city to distant places, bodies, and environments (Heynen et al., 2006; Swyngedouw, 2015). Specifically ‘urban metabolism’ puts

2. Possibility of planned potable water recycling While rare, potable water recycling projects are not new or revolutionary. The earliest potable reuse facilities arose with little fanfare 77

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understand subjectivity as the “sum of behavioral activity that constitutes a person’s current point of view” (Watts and Stenner, 2012: 26 emphasis in original). In practice this means that respondents give meaning to objects under study in the process of examining them. Although subjectivity is enormously complex, with Q it is rendered measurable in meaningful ways (Robbins, 2009). This methodological approach allows me to examine “the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs” held in common by water stewards regarding planned potable reuse (Gramsci, 1971: 323). Gramscian common sense can only be determined through empirical investigation (Crehan, 2016). Furthermore, “the degree to which [common senses] constitute coherent wholes, the degree to which they hang together, cannot be assumed. This too is an empirical question” (Crehan, 2016: 53). Combining Gramscian concepts and Q methodology provides one way to trace multiple common sense ideas at once, whether these collective views are hegemonic or embryonic. The holism of Q also facilitates relational comparison since Q recognizes a differentiated unity within each factor. The factor loading scores, described below, indicate the strength of this connection and help to identify the degree to which the views of the participants ‘hang together.’ Gramscian common sense is normally absorbed without thinking, however the act of participating in the Q survey, as one respondent put it, “causes people to think through the issues” (R18). In essence, Q helps to reveal an otherwise fragmentary and obscured common sense. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the results provide an artificially coherent frame around common sense notions that are fundamentally contradictory and continually renegotiated. In addition, Q can only facilitate the examination of a small sliver of an overarching common sense that governs daily activities.

emphasis on interweaving of materials and how labor mediates and determines circulation. Taking a broad view of urban metabolism Swyngedouw and Heynen describe “interwoven knots of social process, material metabolism and spatial form that go into the formation of contemporary urban socionatural landscapes” (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003, 906). The work of these authors suggests water infrastructure is a multiplicity: a collective means of consumption, a condition of production, and a network of distribution. The work of political ecologists serves to demonstrate that hegemony is political and ecological concept that is informed and transformed by the waterscape and the politics of everyday life (Ekers and Loftus, 2008; Loftus and Lumsden, 2008; Akhter, 2015). To maintain hegemony predominant common sense notions facilitate consent. These notions are produced through intellectual leadership and typically inoculate power from resistance and limit the need for coercion (Waterstone, 2010). Nevertheless, hegemony in the water sector is an object of continual negotiation, as the threat of public opposition to drinking recycled water demonstrates. In his writings Gramsci claims “common sense is a collective noun, like religion: there is not just one common sense, for that too is a product of history and part of the historical process” (1971: 325–6). Further, common sense has various intensities – it is an ever-shifting “conception of the world which is uncritically absorbed and by the various social and cultural environments in which the moral individuality of the average man [sic] is developed” (Gramsci, 1971: 419). Although seldom challenged, Gramsci (1971: 327, my emphasis) argues that our conceptions of the world are ultimately “a political matter.” Common sense notions legitimate political narratives and successful political narratives accompany common sense positions (Waterstone, 2010; Crehan, 2016). For example, Kate Crehan’s (2016) Gramsci’s Common Sense traces the emergence of the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements in the U.S. as contemporary examples of competing common senses. This relational view of common sense represents an “assemblage of truisms accepted within a particular social world” (Crehan, 2016: 46). The Tea Party is a conservative political movement with a specific common sense, shaped from above, that equates limited government and unfettered markets with individual freedom. The Occupy movement’s recognition of extreme economic inequality presents an alternative common sense. The positions of the Tea Party and Occupy movements are at odds – those who hold these views are engaged in an ongoing power struggle to promote their positions as self-evident common sense truths to the broader public. The construction, maintenance, or destruction of a particular common sense is itself a subject of political contest ripe for examination (Crehan, 2016; Waterstone, 2010). In the case of potable water reuse, social scientists have largely sought to explain the ways in which public opinion does not align with the views held by expert professionals. As plans for potable water reuse proliferate, this research follows in the footsteps of political ecologists who employ Gramscian concepts and analyses to trace how hegemonic aspects of water governance have been achieved and sustained, or disrupted and transformed. Several geographical investigations that trace hegemony in the water sector inform this research (Akhter, 2015; Birkenholtz, 2009; Loftus and Lumsden, 2008; Swyngedouw, 1999, 2004). Specifically, I employ Q methodology to outline the diffuse and otherwise difficult to identify shared, taken for granted, common sense perspectives regarding potable water reuse planning held by water stewards in the Southwest. The use of Gramscian common sense grounds the analysis in its historical and geographic context and underscores why people are committed to conflicting ideas of ‘sustainability’ in the water sector. The primary contribution of this study is applying Q methodology to empirically explore Gramscian common sense. Practitioners of Q apply two theories of subjectivity that are especially congruent with Gramscian analyses. The first is that subjectivity is collective and shared. The second, “operant subjectivity,” holds that we can

4. Research objectives and methods I selected Q Methodology as a substantive, theoretical, and methods-based approach to identify normative dimensions of common sense because it is a robust method that “enables a program of empirical-contextual research, emphasizing both the interpretive experience and the concrete context of subjectivity” (Robbins and Krueger, 2000: 636). Q research has provided insight into different values related to changes in the environment, such as perspectives on water security (Strickert et al., 2016), wildlife management (Robbins, 2006), wind energy development (Jepson et al., 2012), and integrated water resource management (Leong and Lejano, 2016; Ward, 2013; Ward et al., 2017). Q methodologists have also surveyed perspectives of both lay community members and technical professionals regarding water recycling in Australia (Browne et al., 2007, 2008), Singapore (Leong, 2015), and the U.S. and Namibia (Leong, 2016). The results described below focus on water steward’s perspectives of public policy recommendations regarding potable water recycling in the Southwest. The survey participants are people with interests or connections to potable water reuse planning, practices, or policies. This includes people with occupational experience (e.g., public officials, consultants), academic interests (e.g., professors, researchers), and public interests (e.g., members of citizen advisory boards, members of nonprofit organizations). The participants were primarily identified through purposive sampling methods. This entailed identifying 165 key individuals to recruit from academic and policy publications, industry conferences, internet searches, public meetings, and media coverage. Most people were invited to participate by email in early 2014, which included a link to the online survey, however two individuals received an invitation via U.S. postal mail because an email address was not publically available. Survey participants were not asked to identify other potential respondents, however two suggested the inclusion of people whom they thought would be interested in the survey. Eleven additional invitations were sent based on these recommendations (of which, 9 declined to participate and 2 shared the neosanitarian common sense). In total, 176 individualized invitations were sent out and 41 people completed the 78

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survey, including myself 1 (23% response rate). After the initial the data analyses were complete, I interviewed 23 of the participants to validate the findings and contextualize results. Due to the specialized knowledge of the respondents the term potable water recycling was defined simply as “the purposeful augmentation of a drinking water source with recycled water that has undergone advanced treatment processes.” I administered the survey using the Partnership Online Evaluation Tool with Q methodology (Jeffares et al., 2012). Direct personal contact with survey participants is highly regarded and generally preferred by Q methodologists, however well planned online data collection is considered an acceptable alternative by a number of Q practitioners (Watts and Stenner, 2012). The Q survey was limited to advocative statements, which Barry and Proops (2000: 340) describe as a type of claim about “something that should or should not exist.” I compiled statements from publically available materials including opinions in local newspapers, comments made at public meetings and specialty conferences, stated positions of non-profit organizations, and recommendations included in academic or government publications. Q studies typically include 30–60 representative statements that are sorted by participants (Watts and Stenner, 2012). For pragmatic purposes this study focused exclusively on recommendations. Other types of claims, including competing definitions of potable reuse (e.g., terminology used), questions of fact (e.g., recycled water is safe to drink), and evaluative statements (e.g., potable recycling is more sustainable than the alternatives), were excluded from the survey. Participants responded to the question ‘what principles should govern the future of planned potable reuse?’ by sorting 30 recommendations on a scale ranging from ‘more agreeable’ (+3) to ‘more disagreeable’ (−3) (Fig. 1). In order to define the factors that represent commonly held views I exported survey data directly to PQMethod for analysis.2 The individual Q-sorts were inter-correlated with all other respondents and factor analyzed using centroid extraction with varimax rotation. Two prominent factors emerged from the analysis. In this case factor loadings of ± 0.47 or above were significant at the p < 0.01 level, a number calculated following the formula identified in Watts and Stenner (2012), and 35 of the 41 participants loaded significantly on one of two factors, which I label neosanitarian and ecosanitarian. The remaining six Q-sorts were non-significant, meaning they had a point of view that did not share statistically significant characteristics with anyone else in the group. Overall, the results included below provide a contextualized understanding of contingent common senses held by water stewards in the Southwest. The participants are active in municipal water governance in region that represents the forefront of water recycling expertise. The majority of the participants are paid to operate, administer, or facilitate water governance in the Southwest. Relatively few participants are unpaid volunteers. Most participants live in either Arizona or California (19 in AZ, 18 in CA, 4 other), however a number of people indicated geographic interests beyond the Southwest, including Florida, Singapore, and Australia. Nevertheless, the common sense views described here are historically and geographically contingent. Results are not generalizable to the larger public or applicable in other geographic regions.

5. Resulting common sense principles The distinguishing statements in a Q study outline common ways of thinking, or shared priorities. The distinguishing statements that define neosanitarian and ecosanitarian common sense perspectives are included in Table 1. Comparison of the recommendations and their overall ranking for each perspective enables identification of key points of contention between the between the two common sense views (i.e., factors), which are described in greater detail below. For example, there is disagreement over whether recycled water should preserve or expand existing water supplies (29: −1, +1)3. The neosanitarian view favors water recycling that aims to expand water supplies, while the ecosanitarian would rather preserve existing supplies. Distinctions between these views is indicated in Table 1 and described in greater detail below. The statements listed in Table 2 indicate areas of significant agreement between the common sense views of neosanitarians and ecosanitarians. Despite differences, both common sense perspectives believe recycled water can be a safe and valuable asset. For example, relative to all other recommendations, both reject the notion that potable reuse should remain an option of last resort (20: −3, −2), accept that recycled water will be intentionally added to the drinking water supply (8: −3, −2), and favor engineered systems that can actively control the treatment process (4: +2, +2). Although approaches differ, both common sense views agree we need to adopt a more sustainable approach to treatment, which takes into account factors such as energy and nutrient recovery, in addition to water recovery (12: +2, +2), however two competing perspectives of sustainability emerged from the analyses, which is discussed in greater detail below. Additional areas of neosanitarian and ecosanitarian agreement are indicated in Table 2. In Q studies, the ‘factor loading scores’ indicate participants’ relative level of agreement with the simplified factor, which represents shared ways of thinking (Watts and Stenner, 2012). Factor loading scores in Table 3 signal the degree to which the participants align with (or fail to align with) the generalized neosanitarian or ecosanitarian common sense (i.e., factor). The scores are correlations; higher scores indicate more agreement with the shared viewpoint. Conventionally, at least two participants (i.e., Q-sorts) must load on a factor in order to represent a shared social perspective (Watts and Stenner, 2012). Here, six respondents were statistically non-significant (see Table 3). Table 3 provides basic job descriptions and indicates which participants were interviewed to verify and contextualize the results. The job descriptions are simplified and do not fully describe the responsibilities, interests, or training of the participants. In practice these roles are often fluid and overlapping. For example, some of the professors act as official or unofficial consultants for industry or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), others conduct research funded by the water and wastewater industry. A number of the consultants are former employees of the water or wastewater utilities (e.g., engineers, strategic planners), others are experts in survey research, media relations, or public outreach. Civically engaged citizens also sit on municipal advisory committees as a matter of civic service, as so on.

5.1. Neosanitarians Thirty-two participants were significantly associated with Factor 1, which I labeled neosanitarian. They include utility directors, public information officers, industry consultants, professors, engineers, and others (see Table 3). The neosanitarian common sense is built upon long-established Progressive Era sanitary ideals that embrace infrastructure and technology as key to protecting public health. The

1 Q researchers can participate in the studies they design, as I selected to do here. Participation can indicate whether they see the issue from a outside point of view (i.e., idiosyncratic) or from a shared, and perhaps biased, point of view (i.e., loading positively or negatively on one or more factors) Brown, S. R. 1991. A Q Methodological tutorial. Available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggjM9GDXBjM. 2 PQMethod 2.35 (Jan-2014). PQMethod is a basic DOS package designed specifically for Q data analyses created by Peter Schmolck. It is free and available online http:// schmolck.userweb.mwn.de/qmethod/.

3 The first number is the randomly assigned number attached to the statements in the Q-sample (identified in Tables 2 and 3), the second indicates the rank of the statement for each factor, as indicated in data tables.

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Fig. 1. Participants ranked 30 statements relative to one another, one recommendation placed in each square accordingly.

Table 1 Distinguishing statements.* Statement

Factor 1 Neosan.

Factor 2 Ecosan.

18. Ideally we'd all have self-contained composting (i.e., waterless) toilets, this would remove human waste from urban water infrastructure entirely 14. Direct potable reuse (i.e., recycling directly to the drinking water distribution system without an environmental buffer) should be considered alongside other options 15. Business groups should be actively involved in decisions regarding the future of potable water reuse 10. The real issue we need to address is regional population growth, if we do that then we won’t need to drink wastewater 7. The water utility should determine if and how potable water reuse is pursued 21. We need to control migration to the Southwest if we want to prevent a national water crisis 1. Potable reuse is a public issue that needs lots of community debate before any decisions are made 25. Utilities should develop sophisticated communication strategies to gain public support 9. Water should be judged by its quality not its history 22. We need the public to help design potable reuse projects, not just accept the proposals 11. We need to be entrepreneurial and create new markets for high-quality recycled water 16. Each potable water reuse project is a response to unique local conditions; we should avoid making generalizations or general policy recommendations 28. We should recycle as much water as possible without adding recycled water to our drinking water (i.e., focus on non-potable reuse) 24. We should stop flushing toilets with drinking water 29. Recycled water should only be used as a replacement for freshwater previously diverted from surface or groundwater supplies (i.e., reuse should preserve existing supplies) 6. National standards should be developed specifically for potable reuse 2. We need potable reuse in order to stretch water supplies in times of drought 17. We need to choose our terminology carefully when describing recycled water

−2

+3

+3

−2

+1 −2 −1 −2 0 +2 +3 −1 +1 +1

−3 +1 −3 +1 +3 −1 0 +1 −2 −1

−2 0 −1

0 +2 +1

+1 +1 +2

+2 0 +1

Statement

Factor 1 Neosan.

Factor 2 Ecosan.

20. Potable reuse should remain an option of last resort, considered only after all other measures have been evaluated and rejected 8. Recycled water should never be intentionally added to the drinking water supply 4. We are going to drink recycled water one way or another; I believe we should do it through engineered systems where we can actively control the process 12. We need a more sustainable approach that takes into account factors such as energy and nutrient recovery, not just water recovery 26. Local governments should be the leaders on potable reuse 5. Residents should have the ultimate say on whether any potable reuse project moves forward or is terminated 27. Communities should avoid implementing potable reuse to resolve a wastewater disposal problem 23. We should modify the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure appropriate protection for potable reuse projects 19. We should create a regional water master who can impose limits on water use and solve complex and important tasks in a centralized manner 3. Public messaging should emphasize that high-quality recycled water is safer than conventional water supplies 13. We need to balance industry enthusiasm with public readiness 30. Water providers should take a precautionary approach when it comes to potable reuse to avoid exposing the public to unnecessary harm

−3 −3 +2

−2 −2 +2

+2 +1 −1 −1 0 −1

+2 +1 −1 −1 −1 0

0 0 0

−1 0 0

* All listed statements are significant at p < 0.01 level, ranked by variance in factor Z-score, greatest to least (data not shown). Table 2 Consensus statements.*

* All listed statements are non-significant at p > 0.05. Statements ranked by variance in factor Z-score (data not shown).

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environmental buffer) should be considered alongside other water management options (14: +3) and water should be judged by its quality not its history (9: +3), as indicated in Table 1. The latter are the “sage words” of Namibian DPR pioneer Louis van Vuuren (Jiménez and Asano, 2008), who is often quoted by proponents. People who hold this point of view have high levels of confidence in treatment technology, water quality science, and water management. They are steadfast in their support for DPR. Neosanitarians also concur that effective communication is critical to project success. As Table 1 illustrates, neosanitarians suggest utilities need to develop sophisticated communication strategies to bolster public acceptance (25: +2) and carefully choose the terminology used to describe recycled water (17: +2). Neosanitarians remain relatively uncomfortable with the public having an active role in designing potable reuse projects (22: −1), however they do accept active involvement from business groups (15: +1). The results suggest neosanitarians believe that consent from the masses must be cultivated and fostered through persuasive leadership. It is notable that a number of the communications managers and consultants who popularize the prospect of potable reuse have highest factor loading scores, as indicated in Table 3. Neosanitarians do not believe regional population growth is the issue (10: −2), nor do they think that controlling migration to the Southwest could prevent a water crisis (21: −2), which conflicts with the views of ecosanitarians (see Table 1). Explanations for this rationale claim the idea of controlled growth is unrealistic, unnecessary, or antithetical to the American way of life. Additional areas of significant disagreement between neosanitarian and ecosanitarian are included in Table 1.

Table 3 Factor loadings of all Q-sorts. The factor defining Q-sorts indicated in bold (e.g., R6 is associated with Factor 1; R30 is associated with Factor 2; R16 is one of the perspective that is nonsignificant).* Q-sort ID#

Job title or description

Factor 1 Neosan

Factor 2 Ecosan

Interview

R6

0.87

−0.04

No

0.87

−0.13

Yes

0.86 0.84 0.83

0.15 0.08 0.03

No No No

0.80

0.15

No

0.78 0.78

−0.13 0.33

No No

0.78

−0.10

Yes

0.77 0.77

−0.16 −0.27

Yes No

0.75 0.74

−0.17 −0.14

No No

0.73 0.72 0.72

0.01 −0.08 0.10

Yes No No

0.72

−0.25

No

0.71 0.71

0.17 −0.17

Yes Yes

0.70 0.70 0.69 0.68

−0.13 0.22 0.18 −0.09

Yes Yes Yes Yes

0.68 0.68 0.67 0.62 0.62

−0.03 −0.20 0.10 0.15 0.36

Yes No No Yes Yes

0.60

−0.19

Yes

R13 R8 R36 R30 R28 R24

Communications Manager Communications Manager Hydrologist Professor Consultant, communications Compliance/Regulation, local Business Development Consultant, communications Consultant, communications Consultant, planning Water Utility, Director/ Manager Project Manager Public Information Officer Professor Engineer Water Utility, Director/ Manager Compliance/Regulation, federal Professor Compliance/Regulation, state Professor University Instructor Consultant, technical Compliance/Regulation, state NGO, California-based Engineer Professor Planner Consultant, communications Water Utility, Director/ Manager University Instructor Engineer Consultant, technical NGO, Arizona-based NGO, Arizona-based NGO, Arizona-based

0.59 0.58 0.58 −0.26 0.43 0.09

0.24 0.14 0.02 0.54 0.48 0.47

Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Q-sorter ID#

Job title or description

Factor 1

Factor 2

Interview

R16 R32

NGO, California-based Compliance/Regulation, local Professor Professor Concerned citizen Researcher, study PI

0.25 0.39

0.46 −0.31

Yes Yes

0.25 −0.10 −0.32 −0.30 17.74 43%

0.11 0.32 0.12 0.24 2.13 5%

No Yes Yes n/a

R7 R41 R12 R37 R5 R4 R9 R18 R14 R17 R34 R29 R27 R1 R10 R25 R23 R26 R11 R15 R22 R19 R20 R40 R33 R21 R39 R3

R38 R35 R31 R2 Eigenvalues % Explained Variance

5.2. Ecosanitarians Three participants are significantly associated with Factor 2, which was labeled ecosanitarian. It is important to note that Q methodologists prioritize theoretical over statistical significance (McKeown and Thomas, 1988; Watts and Stenner, 2012). It is the theoretical value of the factor is that is important, not the number of people who hold that point of view. All ecosanitarians reside in southern Arizona and hold important positions in different local environmentally-focused NGOs. Although their view is not very widely represented in this study, in the media, or at public meetings, it does not diminish the value of this perspective as an alternative common sense that contains a possibility for social change. The distinguishing statements in Table 1 indicate the most pressing principles that should govern the future of planned potable reuse from an ecosanitarians perspective are: ideally everyone would have selfcontained composting (i.e., waterless) toilets that remove human waste from urban water infrastructure entirely (18: +3), and potable reuse is a public issue that needs lots of community debate before any decisions are made (1: +3). Ecosanitarians believe that “[r]educing the use of materials, and recycling materials we use, is the most sustainable way to live. This provides nutrients for plant growth, and eliminates water use” (R28). Ecosanitarians also agree that flush toilets are a waste of high-quality drinking water (24: +2). As Table 1 illustrates, people with the ecosanitarian common sense also firmly believe that water utilities should not determine if and how potable reuse is pursued (7: −3). One person claimed to have “a personal distrust of large scale utilities and a belief that there needs to be significant community engagement” (R28). Another was more sympathetic, suggesting “[i]t’s not that water utilities shouldn’t determine. Rather, they alone should not have sole authority without setting in place strong measures for public participation in tandem, perhaps, with regulatory agencies–watch dogs” (R24). Ecosanitarians feel very strongly that business groups should not be actively involved in decisions regarding potable reuse (15: −3), unlike neosanitarians, who have a relatively favorable view of participation

* Listed by factor loading score. Factor loadings of ± 0.47 or above are significant at the p < 0.01 level. Values truncated to two decimal places.

distinguishing statements in Table 1 define neosanitarian perspective, which promotes engineered, technical, and hierarchical solutions to water supply and disposal problems. From a neosanitarian point of view the most pressing principles that should govern the future of potable reuse are that DPR (i.e., recycling directly to the drinking water distribution system without an 81

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ecosanitarians “don’t understand the water resources reality” and suggest their point of view is “unrealistic”, “unsustainable” (R22), “myopic, and self-serving” (R11). The interviewed ecosanitarians had an equally pessimistic view of neosanitarian sustainability, suggesting that technology and engineering “become problematic when automatic” (R24). As stated by one ecosanitarian, the desire for expert control “sheds light on [their] disparagement of composting toilets… They want all sewage to go to the wastewater treatment plant and be part of the wastewater treatment club. They are suspicious of parallel technology where they are excluded” (R30). The ecosanitarian common sense favors interactive and flexible systems that allow for higher levels of individual autonomy, all of which suggests a shift toward more decentralized conservation practices such as composting toilets, stormwater harvesting, and domestic water reuse (i.e., greywater). Ecosanitarians firmly believe that sustainable sanitary solutions will require fundamental changes in infrastructures, individual behavior, as well as social consciousness. Contrary to the “token environmental soundness” (R30) of the neosanitarian view, this common sense seeks to retreat from water-borne sanitation and proposes an altogether radical reimagining of urban waterscapes. While there are scarce operational examples of effective large-scale dry sanitation in cities today, it is conceptually akin to 19th century conservation models, 20th century ecology movement approaches, and the 21st century interest in ecological sanitation (Ormerod, 2016). Previous Q studies surveyed perspectives of both technical professionals and lay community members regarding potable and non-potable reuse in Singapore (Leong, 2015), Australia (Browne et al., 2008, 2007), and U.S. and Namibia (Leong, 2016). These investigations were more expansive and found greater diversity in viewpoint than found in this study. For example, Leong’s (2015) study of institutional norms in Singapore identified eight factors, which were categorized into three discourse themes: technology can change current paradigms, ensuring safe water has economic costs, and environmental and global realities makes water recycling essential. Another Q survey by Browne et al. (2007) explored all aspects of risk associated with IPR (e.g., political, personal, financial, voluntary, imposed, fairness, trust) and identified five differing views in the community (confident, skeptical, pessimistic, suspicious, and trusting), and four factors for technicians (confident, skeptical, defiant, and doubtful). These findings help to bring attention to nuanced positions that are more complex than simple pro-reuse or anti-reuse. The lack of opposition to the prospect of planned potable reuse in this study is likely due to the character of the current study, which focused narrowly on recommendations and perceptions of water stewards engaged in potable reuse in the Southwest generally. Although limited in scope, the shared social perspectives described here represent the views of individuals actively working to shape and create urban water systems. The subjective preferences of participants are likely to be quite different from the views held by the average urban water user, however one should not dismiss the significance, relevance, importance, or reliability of these common sense views even if their perspectives are not widely held in society. As water stewards (e.g., academics, water industry professionals, civically engaged citizens) they shape the cultural norms and everyday lived practices of water provision in the city and, therefore, play an important role in framing the dialog for recycled water policy in the Southwest.

from business interests (15: +1). One claimed, “business groups, especially the growth industries, will want to maximize revenues, typically short term revenues, with little thought for our long term community well-being” (R30). Another similarly stated, “I don't believe that business has the best interest of the general public at heart. Business has a goal of making money for shareholders. When business reforms to serve for the public good I will reassess my answer” (R28). Another individual was much more inclusive, suggesting that “business is not evil, and neither are engineers. We need to respect all opinions, and vice versa, they shouldn’t be opposed to us. We need to work together to move forward. We need a green economy, green jobs, and environmental justice – there is lots of hope in that” (R24). Although they are comfortable with the idea of intentionally adding recycled water to drinking water supplies, ecosanitarians do not think DPR is advisable (14: −2). As stated by one participant, “If things are so desperate that we are reusing directly, then we are in more trouble than we realize with our population” (R30). Additional areas of significant disagreement between ecosanitarian and neosanitarian views are indicated in Table 1. 6. Debating goal-oriented innovations A more sustainable approach to water treatment is an uncontroversial goal among study participants, however the results reveal that the neosanitarians and ecosanitarians have different common sense ideas about what a more sustainable sanitation system actually looks like in practice. This includes sincere and significant differences regarding the appropriate sanitary technology (e.g., type of modifications necessary), how to adapt (i.e., behavior), and even what possible future we should adapt to (i.e., accommodate an urban water future similar to the current situation, or one that is qualitatively different). In particular, the competing common sense views disagree about the critical point (or moment) of separation of wastes from resources. Neosanitarians focus on highly technical processes by advocating “wastewater treatment … that is able to recover recycled water, methane, energy, and other various products such as minerals and metals from waste” (R19). Ecosanitarians, believing prevention is key, focus on separation at the household toilet, since “[r]educing the use of materials, and recycling materials we use, is the most sustainable way to live. This provides nutrients for plant growth, and eliminates water use” (R28). The fundamental disagreement between the perspectives in this study pivots on how sanitary systems should operate to achieve sustainability. Unlike ecosanitarians, neosanitarians are troubled by prospect of widespread use of self-contained composting toilets. When interviewed, neosanitarians maintain that composting toilets are infeasible or unworkable from a management perspective. One suggested the dry toilet is simply impractical since “you can’t re-engineer a whole community” (R18). Others pointed to potential conflict between composting toilets and recycled water resources, since toilets contribute a large share of urban wastewater return flows. As neosanitarians noted, “we have developed uses for the treated wastewater” (R33) composting toilets are “a bad idea for urban areas that are already served by sewers, especially urban areas in Arizona where a great deal of treated wastewater is already reused” (R41). Although composting toilets are technologically very simple (Vogel, 2012), the implications of a bottom-up approach to management is a concern for neosanitarians. As one participant explained, “we can’t expect personal responsibility over the long term. The human psyche doesn’t work that way” (R36). The lack of confidence in the capacity of the lay public was clearly articulated by neosanitarians who claim, “[i] ndividuals should never be in charge of their own waste” … given that “we can’t get people to properly manage their septic system” (R23), or “operate their swimming pool filter/treatment systems properly, or even change out the heater/air conditioning filters regularly” (R41). People who hold the neosanitarian point of view argue that

6.1. Competing social-spatial common senses The neosanitarian and ecosanitarian labels are simplified descriptions. The neosanitarian view could otherwise be termed technocratic, instrumental, engineering, or dozens of others. Similarly, alternative labels for the ecosanitarian view include holistic, environmentalist, or conservationist. I selected these specific labels because the neosanitarinas draw on over a century of sanitary practices, while ecosanitarinas 82

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development. Rather than accelerate the pace of circulation through technological intensification, the ecosanitarian prefers to slow the pace of urban metabolism in order to spur a new socio-natural politics of sanitation in the Southwest and beyond. Those who adhere to this point of view hope that human ingenuity and enlightened engineering will help to develop new technologies that reconstruct our sanitary systems and contribute to more efficient use of natural resources – including excreta. Reasons given for having this point-of-view includes interest in long-term community wellbeing and a more sustainable use of all resources – not just recycled water. Notably, all the ecosanitarians in this study hail from southern Arizona, while the neosanitarian respondents were geographically distributed (including southern Arizona). These findings, in part, highlight the importance of place in shaping common sense regarding appropriate sanitary technology. Gramsci (1971) suggests that modern contradictions present a ‘crisis of authority’ that has the ability to destabilize dominant power relations and the modes of thought and practice that infuse them. In southern Arizona these contradictions include resorting to technological fixes for perennial water crises and continued population growth and regional development despite widely held perceptions of water scarcity. In the case of Tucson, groundwater pumping led to overdraft conditions, which contributed to importing ‘renewable’ water supplies. The lack of reliable imports subsequently led to greater reliance on recycled water resources (Ormerod and Scott, 2013). A historically and geographically contextualist approach helps to explain why ecosanitarians in southern Arizona do not succumb to the neosanitarian common sense linking potable water recycling to environmental sustainability. The grassroots stewardship approach to composting toilets that typifies ecosanitarian common sense is marginally evident in the urban landscape of southern Arizona. The Tucson-based non-profit Watershed Management Group (WMG) promotes “green infrastructure” that includes curb cuts in the city streets to capture stormwater, rainwater harvesting, and a “humanure” composting toilet program (WMG no date-a). The dry toilet pilot program was developed with Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to comply with all state and local regulations, which establishes the framework for replicating these dry toilets across the state. The program aims to demonstrate “that composting toilets can be used at homes in our cities, providing substantial water and energy savings and creating a rich resource for our gardens” (WMG, 2014:16). WMG operates water and sanitation programs in Arizona, as well as seven countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa (WMG no date-b). WMG sponsored projects are community designed, implemented, and managed, so not all the international sanitation systems focus on dry toilets. Nevertheless, all WMG projects are designed to meet local goals and promote individual and community stewardship of vital resources. The composting toilets promoted by WMG in Arizona make otherwise hidden processes visible. Their work helps to illustrate the role of history, geography, and lived practices in shaping common sense conceptions related to sanitation. Given the growing importance of potable recycling as a long-term water management strategy, this study explores the subjective common sense beliefs of water stewards who participate in water planning or operations in the Southwest. I employed Q Methodology and a Gramscian theory to explore the conflicting, multifaceted, common sense views of potable water recycling. The findings provide a partial description of the subjective common sense shared by water stewards, views that reflect distinctive geographical imaginaries and portend radically different future possibilities. This study offers a first tentative step in a promoting mode of empirically identifying Gramsican common sense. The contribution of geography to the construction, maintenance, and articulation of common sense is touched upon here, however the ways in in which common sense is cultivated and contested in an effort to shape and create consent in the water-sphere remains to be explored and enumerated.

reflect a view more closely aligned with the principles of ecology. Neither common sense will achieve broad popular hegemony without broadening their appeal to larger array of social groups. In essence, the public has yet be won over on potable water reuse or composting toilets. Currently, the neosanitarian prescription for greater potable water reuse requires a fundamentally less difficult social, material, and technical transformation than the ecosanitarian proposal for composting toilets and dry sanitation. The neosanitarian view falls in line with the conventional hydraulic paradigm, which is mostly focused on supply-side solutions to water management (McEvoy, 2014). The ideal ecosanitarian proposes a new set of sanitary behaviors and principles that will require a substantial socio-natural transformation, a solution that comes in direct conflict with the predominant ‘flush and forget’ lived experience that has been internalized by the average urbanite (Ormerod, 2016). Neosanitarians firmly believe the risks associated with reuse can be ameliorated through proper treatment and monitoring of system reliability. They demonstrate a high level of confidence in the capacity of sophisticated technologies and current practices to maintain safety. Their common sense is uncritical, which is probably why proponents are often caught off guard by public opposition to proposed projects. They view water supply and disposal as primarily an engineering problem that can be solved by extending established technocratic and managerial relationships with nature. Their common sense approach – whether IPR or DPR – only requires passive consent from the public. Although enormously expensive, potable water recycling is a practice that does not disrupt urban lifestyles, patterns of water use, or everyday behaviors. And yet, the neosanitarian common sense is still uncommon among the general public. The neosanitarian rhetoric stresses public safety and the capabilities of mature technologies (i.e., advanced water treatment processes) that destroy all matters of concern. They argue that we are facing a water crisis (both local and global) and that recycling has the potential to ‘drought-proof’ urban water supplies. The persuasive aspects of the neosanitarian view emphasize that potable water recycling is technically feasible, environmentally beneficial, economically profitable, and therefore should be politically practical. They favor hierarchical approaches to management, firmly believing that water recycling “should be done by water professionals based on scientific principles and strict water quality regulations” (R7). The neosanitarian common sense reflects long established tenants in urban sanitation and builds upon existing material processes, infrastructural forms, and management practices that are congruent with the ideals they envision. Their view is increasingly well represented in government, industry, and scientific publications on the topic of recycled water (NRC, 2012; Gale, 2013; Coxon, 2016; Crook, 2010). While the neosanitarian believes dry sanitation is impossible and unthinkable, the ecosanitarian believes composting toilets represent the most principled position. Ecosanitarians do not dispute many of the ‘facts’ accepted by neosanitarians: continued urbanization and technological improvements make planned potable water recycling projects feasible, however their common sense is to seek out opportunities to change prevailing customs. These results reveal that debates surrounding the future of planned potable water recycling are not simply about understanding and accepting ‘the facts’ – they are equally about how to weigh the evidence given the outcome one would like to see. The ecosanitarian seeks to disrupt the seeming invisibility and inevitability of centralized urban infrastructure and they are cognizant of the possibility of creating new vulnerabilities for humans and non-humans that reach well beyond water supply. Their common sense has a broad view of the hazards associated with potable water reuse, which include possible mega-risks such as environmental destruction, deferral of crisis, and continued population growth in the arid Southwest. The goal of the ecosanitarian is to confront wasteful use of resources and they are willing to suggest dramatic adjustments to everyday behaviors and challenge the wisdom of an economy built on continual growth and 83

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Binz, C., Harris-Lovett, S., Kiparsky, M., Sedlak, D.L., Truffer, B., 2016. The thorny road to technology legitimation – institutional work for potable water reuse in California. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang. 103, 249–263. Birkenholtz, T., 2009. Groundwater governmentality: hegemony and technologies of resistance in Rajasthan's (India) groundwater governance. Geogr. J. 175, 208–220. Birkenholtz, T., 2016. Drinking water. In: Jackson, P., Spiess, W.E., Sultana, F. (Eds.), Eating, Drinking: Surviving. Springer, Jena, Germany, pp. 23–30. Bischel, H.N., Simon, G.L., Frisby, T.M., Luthy, R.G., 2012. Management experiences and trends for water reuse implementation in Northern California. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46, 180–188. Browne, A.L., Leviston, Z., Green, M.J., Nancarrow, B.E., 2008. Technical and community perspectives of risks associated with purified recycled water in South East Queensland: a Q-study. 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7. Conclusion Understanding how potable reuse projects are made, shaped, and frustrated requires grappling with the common sense judgments of fact, truth, and reality that are held by water stewards. In this paper I draw upon Gramsci’s notion of common sense as particular form of subjectivity to illustrate taken for granted notions regarding recycled water management. Much of the current social science research focuses on public perception and social acceptance, however this study specifically examines the subjective views of water stewards in the Southwest. The common sense perspectives presented here, and the typologies they represent, are characteristic of the current planning discourse surrounding potable reuse in the region. Only two socially distinct (un)common sense views were found, labeled neosanitarian and ecosanitarian, both of which support planned potable water recycling to varying degrees. The dominant view in this study favors entrenchment in our current sanitary systems. The alternative perspective favors grand social-technical transformation. The neosanitarian outlook is the more likely of the two futures presented in this study, however the ecosanitarian perspective challenges urbanites and long term planners to confront the consumption embedded in current modes of sanitation and carefully consider alternative possibilities for managing urban water and waste. Both views accept potable reuse as a workable solution, yet these shared ways of thinking convey fundamentally different visions of ideal future society. There are deep divisions between the two regarding the appropriate scale of technology, the proper level of public participation, and the root cause of urban water scarcity. For neosanitarians, the goal of planned potable water recycling is to boost total water supply and/or minimize total water disposal. The neosanitarian common sense largely reflects the current wave of professional interest in direct potable reuse as a viable alternative to indirect potable reuse, and as the most utilitarian way to exploit recycled water resources. To the contrary, the ultimate goal for ecosanitarians is a fundamental a change in infrastructure and human consciousness that can facilitate the use of composting toilets, effectively altering relations with excrement, each other, and the environment in the process. Although the prescriptions for the future identified in this study were limited to two, the analysis demonstrates there is more than one way to understand and approach water recycling. The research outlines competing conceptualizations of what constitutes sound water planning and efficient use of resources. In doing, it provides valuable insight regarding common sense conceptions of potable water reuse and, in an era of potentially contentious water politics, offers one possible path for identifying alternative possibilities. Acknowledgements This publication was developed under STAR Fellowship Assistance Agreement no. 91735701 awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2011-2014. It has not been formally reviewed by EPA. The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author, and EPA does not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned in this publication. I thank Drs. Marvin Waterstone, Joseph Hoover, Majed Akhter, Jessie Clark, and Jamie McEvoy for their comments and conversations. References Akhter, M., 2015. Infrastructure nation: state space, hegemony, and hydraulic regionalism in Pakistan: infrastructure nation. Antipode 47, 849–870. Barry, J., Proops, J.L.R., 2000. Citizenship, Sustainability and Environmental Research: Q Methodology and Local Exchange Trading Systems. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA. Beveridge, R., Moss, T., Naumann, M., 2017. Sociospatial understanding of water politics: tracing the multi-dimensionality of water reuse. Water Altern. 10, 22.

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