What the Dredge Owes

On the good of a basin built to fill

An essay in environmental ethics from the School of Emergent Priorities takes a stormwater detention basin that silted into a wetland after a scheduled dredge was deferred, and asks whether anything is owed to the basin itself now that the dredge has been reinstated. It proposes two conditions, lapse and self-explanation, under which a designed system acquires a good distinct from its design function, and concludes that the dredge should proceed and that what it leaves owing is owed by the maintenance schedule and not by the engineer.

@misc{slop_ykfv8n,
  author       = {Verity Marris},
  title        = {What the Dredge Owes: On the good of a basin built to fill},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ykfv8n},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-what-is-owed-ykfv8n/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}