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Romancing the River: The Desert River
In the last post, I suggested that the Colorado River Compact with its ‘temporary equitable division’ into two basins could now be considered irrelevant (or worse, obstructive) because we have finally effectively accomplished, over the past century, the goal that brought the seven-state Compact commission together in 1922, but which they were unable to achieve…
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Romancing the River: Back to Basics?
Note in passing: this is the 50th post on this ‘weblog’ (a meaningful number to a ten-digit species). I am grateful to those who continue to open and even read these posts. I am obviously writing as much for my own edification and clarification as for yours, in the spirit of British writer E.M. Forster,…
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Romancing the River: Win-winning the West and our Unimaginable Future
Way too much is happening in the world today, beyond the Colorado River. An Armageddon is shaping up in the mideastern Cradle of Too Many Civilizations that makes Colorado River problems look like sandlot scuffles; we’re in a long slog toward an election in the Untied (sic) States that would not even be close in…
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Romancing the River: Cowboys and Indians
The maze design above is the Great Seal of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, inhabiting a relatively small First People Reservation (53,600 acres) in Arizona at the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers. The Gila River system drains most of the state of Arizona – what there is to drain in the subtropical…
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Romancing the River: To Halve and Have Not
In my last post, I reported that the water mavens of both the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins had each presented the Bureau of Reclamation with plans for managing the river after 2026, when the current, amended ‘Interim Guidelines’ expire. The Interim Guidelines had been implemented in 2007, remember, when it was obvious that…
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Romancing the River: Running the Real River
I really like the AI image above, created by a couple creatives at American Whitewater, Scott Harding and Kestrel Kunz. for a presentation at the Colorado River Water Users Association convention in January. It shows ‘the people who run the river’ running the river. But if you have ever been in that whitewater situation, you…
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Romancing the River: The Appropriation Doctrine – and Its Appropriation
‘The single biggest roadblock to solving the problem of stabilizing the river is the priority system.’ – Tom Buschatzke, Director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resource Last post, I laid out some reasons why the water mavens now engaged in mapping out Colorado River management strategies beyond 2026 – the year ‘interim’ management…
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Romancing the River: Prior Appropriation and Present Priorities
‘Fiddling while Rome burns’ – that’s what the Roman emperor Nero is remembered for, practicing on his fiddle while mobs tore up the city. In Ortega’s memorable phrase: responding to the lack of bread by burning down the bakery. But – ‘fiddling while Rome burns’: I often feel like that’s my life these days. We…
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Romancing the River: Thinking Like a River
Greetings in 2024, which promises to be an interesting year, along the Colorado River and beyond it too. May we come out of it affirmed nationally in our commitment to democratic governance, and improved in our execution of it on our river. Back in the earlier part of the last century, the great conservationist and…
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Romancing the River: Sun and Water
I was planning for this post to be tip-toeing into a conversation about the prior appropriation doctrine, a conversation which we badly need to have throughout the interior West, but which will likely be vigorously, even violently, opposed by those holding senior water rights in every western watershed. But instead of that – I’ve been…
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Romancing the River: What Am I Talking About?
Romancing the River – I am aware, as you are probably aware, that when I title these posts ‘Romancing the River,’ I am talking about the life work of the kinds of people who do not usually think of themselves as ‘romantics,’ or of their water-related work as ‘romancing the river.’ Engineers, lawyers, politicians, managers,…
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Romancing the River We’ve Created
We are no longer developing the resource; We are learning how to share the developed resources. – The Late Justice Greg Hobbs Colorado Supreme Court The graph above may look familiar; I used it in a post last summer (June 27, ‘Beyond 2026’). It illuminates a study by three ‘Colorado River elders’: hydrologist Jack…
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First Peoples 5: Civilized enough to get some water
We’re seeing not just being at the table, but actually having an influence on the agenda. We’re looking at the next step – because you can have a seat at the table, but not be taken seriously. And tribes, especially now in regards to water, we have to be taken seriously. – Stephen Roe Lewis,…