IN2017I came to Tucson, Arizona, to study an aquifer that weapons manufacturers had polluted decades before. My own disability and the illnesses and disabilities of thousands of others were likely the result of that pollution. But my feelings toward that aquifer were never one of fear or anger, but of solidarity. After all, the aquifer was damaged too. My disability made me want to learn about that aquifer – to better understand what aquifers are and what they do. I had a lot to learn.

Aquifers are bodies

An aquifer is defined by researchers as a permeable body of rock and water, a surprisingly apt definition for the complex systems of sediments, rock formations and water that exist underground.

But they are not containers

When I began this research, I thought of aquifers as infrastructure rather than nature. Although this is wildly inaccurate in scientific or environmental terms, they are more or less treated that way in legislation and public discourse. As anthropologist Andrea Ballestero suggests, this confusion is hardly accidental—many imagine an aquifer as a kind of underground holding tank, something measured in proportion to how much it can support human life. This image fundamentally benefits those industries that seek to exploit aquifers. Finally, by thinking of an aquifer as nothing more than a tank, we can figure out how much it is worth, whether it is full or empty.

Aquifers are relational

Nor does the idea of ​​an aquifer as a container begin to capture the limitlessness of most aquifers. An aquifer is relational. An aquifer cannot be separated from other aquifers or from larger surface water systems. They are inextricably linked to rivers, streams, riparian ecosystems, snowfall and weather patterns, and much more. To truly understand aquifers as permeable bodies, as ecological networks, we must recognize that they are more than just infrastructure.

Aquifers are nameless

In the Western tradition, aquifers are not named. Although there are exceptions, most are described and classified but not named. But how do we know about something if we don’t know how to address it?

Aquifers are deactivated

Nature can be healthy or sick. The Tucson aquifer has been undergoing remediation treatment for decades and will continue to need it for the foreseeable future. But can we say that a body of water is sick? Can an aquifer be rendered unusable? What alternative ways of understanding ecology, remediation and environmental protection emerge from asking such questions?

Aquifers are more than their work

In the United States, waters that can no longer be used for a particular “intended purpose” due to pollution or depletion are defined by the EPA as “impaired waters.” According to the EPA, nearly half of the country’s rivers and streams are “impaired.” The way that different ecosystems are defined as impaired based on their “intended purpose” and productivity is a mindset similar to legal definitions of human disability, which are often based on whether someone is unable to work and produce capital in a certain way. Such economic mindsets lead us down a dangerous path: Which impaired beings—human and nonhuman—are considered valuable enough to justify investing in treatment? Which, based on various values, policies, and power inequalities, are deemed socially significant and therefore excluded from systems of care—and thus subject to further harm? Of course, disabled communities have always known how to live with injury while challenging such limited, ableist notions of their worth.

Aquifers mix

In the unbearable dry heat of the Sonoran Desert, aquifers sound like science fiction: unimaginable amounts of “fossilized” groundwater, literally thousands of years old, mixed with younger water from snowmelt or heavy rains—all preserved under the scorched earth and scorching sun. This water moves at different speeds, making it possible for contaminants deposited in an era of polluters to not make it into people’s drinking water for years or decades, when the culprits may no longer be around. It happens in the human body, too: it can take years after exposure to contaminants to develop cancer. Disability communities have long theorized about what we call “crip time,” a concept that describes the way in which illness and disability lead to altered perceptions and experiences of time—experiences that are often incompatible with the efficiency, productivity, and statutes of limitations of capitalism’s ever-ticking clock. Obstructed aquifers lead me to the question: Under what temporal conditions does obstruction of several species develop?

Aquifers need rights

Laws protecting U.S. waters underscore the invisibility of aquifers as ecosystems while emphasizing their economic status as resources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely neglects aquifers. In a typically anthropocentric move, the law was written only to protect “navigable” waters: waters that people can navigate with vessels. In fact, the Safe Drinking Water Act is the only federal environmental law that directly addresses aquifers, but only insofar as it covers the groundwater that people drink. Aquifers as natural environments or ecosystems remain largely unprotected by federal law. This is undoubtedly one reason why 22 percent of our nation’s groundwater samples test positive for levels of chemicals considered hazardous to health, and globally, more than 21 of the Earth’s 37 major groundwater systems are on the verge of collapse due to depletion. For their well-being and ours, it is imperative that we begin to think of them differently.

Aquifers deserve our love

Perhaps because we don’t give aquifers names, we don’t imagine them. They are invisible, impassable, and exist deep underworld. We can’t see them, touch them, smell them, swim in them, or ride on them. While I knew my connection to Tucson’s aquifer was material and transformative, I also realized that a relationship with an aquifer is an act of imagination. My lifelong practice of using my imagination and senses to perceive and experience the nature around me—a practice I honed as a disabled person—allowed me to develop an intimate relationship with the aquifer. The wounded subsurface became my companion. I could always feel the presence of the water beneath my wheels, a more-than-human, crippled friend to whom I am now beholden.

Learn more about damaged aquifers in Ecology for the disabled.