‘The Desert Empire’ is a long essay Sibley wrote for Harper’s magazine in 1977, a drought year throughout the American West, and one of the five driest years in the recorded history of Colorado River flows. It is part celebration of the accomplishments that enabled the Colorado River Basin to survive that year on close to a ‘business as usual’ status, part a reflection on the history that led to those achievements, and part a rumination on how more of the same in a heavy growth environment could undermine the whole river enterprise.
In its desperate search for water, the American West meets the limits of the technological ideal.
~ George Sibley
Anyone interested, for whatever reason, in the :study of water in ‘the West will in the end concen-trate on the Colbrado, wildest of rivers, foaming, raging, rushing southward-erratic, headlong, in-congruous in the desert.
~ John McPhee · Encounters with the Archdruid
“THIS IS A STORY about a river, but it is also about the desert. I should begin by admitting that I am no lover of the desert. I find a certain fascination in its strange, disturbing beau-ty; but I am ultimately repelled by the heat, by the dead stillness when it’s still and the spinning dust sentinels when it’s not, but most of all by the dryness…. ”
To read the essay, click here.
Recent Posts
- Romancing the River: In Pursuit of the Real 1922 Compact
Wonk warning: I’ll be explicating the chart above. If this sort of thing bores you, or just gets you more, not less confused about what’s going on with the river today as the negotiators for post-2026 system management continue to negotiate with a November 11 deadline, then I’d say take a break until next post, ... Read More - Romancing the River: Why not do the Compact now they wanted to do in 1922?
Hard times in the Colorado River region. A near-average snowpack dissipated into an inflow into Powell Reservoir of only 40 percent of average; dry soils in the headwaters and high deserts, and increased evaporation and plant transpiration in a warming world are taking big tolls. And the negotiators for the seven Basin states, trying to ... Read More - Romancing the River We Have – sort of….
We left the Colorado River a couple months ago to explore the Trumpsters’ effort to use the public lands in the river basin to ‘unleash American energy’ and return us to the glorious age of cheap petroleum – and why it’s not happening. At that time, the seven states in the river’s basin were in ... Read More - Romancing the River: The Empire Strikes the Public Lands, Part 3
We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. – Journalist Ron Suskind quoting unnamed George W. Bush advisor in a 2004 New Yorker essay. There it is again – the invocation for most of the 20th century. But – wait: aren’t we in the 21st century? Well, ... Read More