Attitudinal Assessment

By Jeff Vincent, KU School of Journalism

Recently, I sat down and read through the KVHA funded Attitudes of Kaw Valley Residents toward Surface Water Quality. Strange as it may seem, it made me think of family vacations from my childhood, which had no immediate connection to issues of water quality. Mostly we went to Florida to visit my mother’s family, but wherever we went we were invariably pegged as tourists and asked where we were from. When one of us answered Kansas, these people’s responses seemed always to include Toto, Dorothy’s lovable little dog.

I remember being a little miffed at this continual reduction of my home to the stomping grounds of a fictional dog, but now I wonder if I haven’t been guilty of the same thing to a lesser degree. In reading the report, one thing that stood out to me is the great cultural diversity of the Kaw Valley. It covers seven counties, and within this space lies a broad range of urban to rural landscapes and an equally diverse range of people that inhabit them. As I read it, the report’s greatest achievement is to solidify into workability various segments of this diverse population and the opinions that are most prevalent within them.

Within this framework, it becomes clear that some of the variance in opinion related to issues of water quality stems from variations in knowledge base. We see, for instance, that rural populations are—not surprisingly—generally more familiar with atrazine than their urban counterparts. Unfortunately this knowledge, which has the potential to be a tool to effect positive change, has instead taken the form of a cinderblock in a wall of mistrust that divides the population of the Kaw Valley. Inconsistencies in reporting concerning the safety of atrazine has been central to this.

This veritable wall of mistrust is silhouetted in language throughout the report. The fundamental divide seems to be between what are designated farm and non-farm families. On the one hand, the urban population seems to feel that the farm-families are recklessly pursuing personal gain at the cost of healthy water. On the other, rural populations seem to feel that they are unfairly targeted. In the words of one man, they “…love [their] families, too, and [they] don’t want to poison them.” Moreover, they feel that the criticism is hollow in that relatively little attention is given to sources of urban runoff.

The Kaw Valley is a physical landscape, but it is the diverse people who inhabit it that ultimately hold its fate in their hands. This attitudinal report and other tools like are as near to blueprints of this debilitating mistrust that divides these people as are possible. They provide insight into its construction and the social gridlock that arises from it. In doing so, they tell of the most effective ways to dismantle it and work together for a community that we can all call better.