There’s a bit of a lull in the multiple conversations up and down the Colorado River Basin, with some positions staked out, while the Bureau of Reclamation initiates an ‘emergency environmental impact statement’ to ascertain, supposedly by late summer, what resolution it will either accept from the seven Basin states, or impose on the states, to reduce consumptive use throughout the Basin by two million acre-feet or more. All of this is of course being covered in the mainstream media as a ‘water war,’ in their constant efforts to pump any cultural exchange up to a ‘let’s you and him fight’ situation. To call cultural negotiations a ‘war,’ even noisy negotitions among parties with interests at stake, both trivializes the terrible nature of ‘war’ and casts the exchange in an often exaggerated aspect of belligerent violence. If you want to read about a Colorado River water war – fictional of course – pick up a copy of The Water Knife … Read More