The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage
Jamie Benidickson
Vancouver: UBC Press
2007, 432 pages.
I confess that the word “culture” in the title of Jamie Benidickson’s book threw me off. I was expecting an anthro- pological take on how human waste has been treated through history and in different cultures. The Culture of Flushing, instead, is a thorough and methodical legal and social history of the treatment of waterways in relationship to sewage disposal in European and North American society. Benidickson should have reversed the title and subtitle of his book. considered to be natural sewers for human habitations and industries, and have only recently been thought of as performing essential ecological functions. He catalogues the legal arguments that moved from “natural flows” to “reasonable uses,” and the depressing ways in which those who pollute have repeatedly justified dumping shit (my word, not the author’s) into public waters until there were dramatic, publicized human deaths, or substantial costs were incurred by another industry (often also a polluting one) wishing to use the same waterway. Even today, there is a preference in North America for trying to clean up water (at public expense) for drinking purposes after it has been fouled (for private gain). In the early 21st century, the general public (and perhaps the general reader) seems more interested in innovations in toilet comfort than in frank talk about what is being flushed away and where it is going.
Benidickson is no environmental crusader. Although the forward claims that the book is written with the “general reader… in mind,” the general reader does not appear to have had an important influence on the mind Benidickson was in. I have trouble picturing the “general reader” who could delight in this fairly typical statement, found on page 6: “If it should seem desirable to retain water quality or to regain it where it has been lost, there may be some virtue in examining the social and legal processes that led to deterioration and in considering mechanisms designed to forestall that result.” Furthermore, the 56 pages of endnotes clearly mark this as an academic text. In 12 chapters and a conclusion, the author walks us determinedly from “The Advantage of a Flow of Water” through “The Water Closet Revolution,” to the hopefully titled “Riparian Resurrection” and, finally, to the crux of the societal dilemma, the seeming near-impossibility of “Governing Water.” The book focuses almost entirely on 19th and early 20th century Europe and North America. The case studies reflect Benidickson’s interest in legal precedents and the ways in which streams were considered to be natural sewers for human habitations and industries, and have only recently been thought of as performing essential ecological func- tions. He catalogues the legal arguments that moved from “natural flows” to “reasonable uses,” and the depressing ways in which those who pollute have repeatedly justified dumping shit (my word, not the author’s) into public waters until there were dramatic, publicized human deaths, or substantial costs were incurred by another industry (often also a polluting one) wishing to use the same waterway. Even today, there is a preference in North America for trying to clean up water (at public expense) for drinking purposes after it has been fouled (for private gain). In the early 21st century, the general public (and perhaps the general reader) seems more interested in innovations in toilet comfort than in frank talk about what is being flushed away and where it is going.
I recommend this book for students interested in environmental law, but not, alas, for the general reader.
David Waltner-Toews, an epidemiologist at the University of Guelph, specializes in foodborne, waterborne and zoonotic diseases. His most recent book is The Chickens Fight Back: Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases that Jump from Animals to Humans.
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