Bill Zeedyk is a living legend. A wildlife biologist with the US Forest Service for 34 years, he began a new chapter in his life after his retirement in 1990. Since then he’s been restoring watersheds, waterways, and wetlands here in the desert southwest using low-tech methods that allow the natural flow of water bring the system back into balance.
Zeedyk and his work are the subject of a new five-part documentary by filmmaker Renea Roberts, called Thinking Like Water, which premiered at the Santa Fe International Film Festival last year. It will be available for streaming through the end of January.
Here’s an example of a Zeedyk restoration before and after:
TIMELINE:
3’11 Bill Zeedyk’s background
4’20 how Renea Roberts started making her film, Thinking Like Water, about Zeedyk’s work
5’25 what is a “desert wetland”?
6’20 how land gets damaged
6’47 overgrazing vs. good grazing
7’31 the long-term damage of wagon wheels on the landscape
8’21 a river is actually much wider than it looks
9’12 when a stream or wetland goes dry, the surrounding pasture gets drier, but people are restoring them because they’re so much more productive
10’34 Two sayings to live by: “the river has much time; we’re the ones in a darn hurry” and “once it stops getting worse, it starts getting better.”
11’41 how to slow down the water going across a landscape so that it can infiltrate into the soil
12’29 the one-rock dam
13’22 one rock dams catch the sediment, which raises the stream bed
14’45 once all the one-rock dams are full, you put in a second layer
15’53 the more damaged the stream is, the faster the restoration
16’47 project in Arizona where they literally filled in a deeply incised channel ten feet in 20 years, and increased the length of the channel through inducing meandering
17’32 when vegetation moves in it catches even more sediment
18’17 learning process for Renea as filmmaker
19’23 the importance of catching sediment right after a wildfire, which helps to rebuild the system
20’18 Renea “zeedyked” her own land
21’00 you learn the lesson more deeply if you make mistakes
21’46 the importance of storing upstream wetlands, which feed tributaries and in turn rivers
22’39 the importance of knowing what the source of the water is in the headwater area–that helps determine the restoration treatments
23’57 making multiple visits to a landscape
26’01 not calling things “good” or “bad” ideas gives more room for creativity and novel ideas
27’04 the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation and their extensive volunteer work in restoring landscapes
27’29 AWF founded over a century ago by Aldo Leopold
28’53 building community and the importance of getting out of the house and onto the land
29’47 “institutionalizing” the work in state agencies
30’43 using these techniques in other states
31’34 the variation in rainfall in different parts of the same state–so many different ecological zones
32’39 it’s not just about how much water falls on the land, but how much it permeates in
33’47 vegetation coming back once the land is restored–the seeds are there, you don’t have to re-seed
35’03 showing the film for the first time at the Santa Fe Film Festival–sold out showings over five episodes
37’26 dealing with people’s different reactions to the work
40’29 Bill’s techniques are expanding, and his structures have become called Zeedyks, and to make them has become a verb
42’41 fixing roads, using beavers, urban water catchment and diversion, and “pull don’t push”
44’31 people Bill has collaborated with to advance the work
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