Colleen Thurston
One Earth (OE): Your film explores communities impacted by rising water and environmental change. What stories stayed with you the most after filming?
Colleen Thurston(CT): The story that immediately piqued my interest - and horror - in this project was that of Sardis Lake. Sardis is a man-made reservoir built in the late 1970s by damming a tributary of the Kiamichi River and flooding the town of Sardis, Oklahoma in the Choctaw Nation. The entire town was decimated, with the cemetery the only remaining relic. The Army Corps of Engineers opted to raise the cemetery by removing the headstones, piling on several feet of soil, and then replacing the headstones. But as Joe Brown says in Drowned Land, "Some people say they didn't put them back in the right place." The cemetery is now an island in the middle of the lake, only accessible via a narrow land bridge. Locals say there were other cemeteries, mainly of Native residents of the area, which were flooded and now are at the bottom of the lake. As someone who has a family cemetery in rural Choctaw Nation that is nearly 200 years old, the idea of losing our ancestors in this way is absolutely horrific. As I came to find out, this story is not unique to Sardis, but it stays with me as visual symbolism of how far the federal government will go to exploit the land and water. If we don't even value our ancestors, if we don't value our water and land - where do our values sit?
(OE): How do these communities demonstrate the importance of collective resilience in the face of climate challenges?
(CT): The communities profiled in Drowned Land are the face of resilience. Displaced generation after generation due to resource exploitation, they now face not only the continued commodification of their water sources, but also the effects of rising water temperature. Nevertheless, for people who rely on farming, hunting and fishing, adaptation is the name of the game. Rural communities have deep relationships with the land and water, and tracking the changes in weather patterns, water flow, and drought is imperative. Rural communities like those who live in the Kiamichi watershed are the waterkeepers, the land stewards and the ecological knowledge keepers from whom we all can learn more.
(OE): What do you hope audiences understand differently about land, water, and climate after watching the film?
(CT): I hope audiences can understand the importance of having deep relationships with our land and water sources, and are encouraged to learn more about where their drinking water comes from, who the current and ancestral stewards of that water are, and what challenges that water currently faces. We want people to form lasting relationships with their water sources, viewing them as living entities who can share memories and experiences with us.
