Arid Utah
The Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend (Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).
In April I will be traveling to San Francisco for the Western Archives Meeting (WAM). This is an every-five year event where the major western archival professional organizations join together for a joint meeting (in lieu of individual annual conferences). When it was last held in 2015 (in Denver) I attended and sat on a panel that focused on the Colorado River and historical figures associated with its use and development. I was joined by water archivist experts and it I have fond memories of the whole thing.
When the call for sessions for the 2020 WAM went out, two of the panelists from my 2015 session reached out to ask if I would be interested in joining with them again on a panel exploring the history and legacy of the Colorado River Compact. Negotiated and signed in 1922, the compact is the backbone that unites a wildly disparate and complex set of laws for the Colorado River and its use. It didn’t take long for me to say yes to this proposal…
And, now I find myself re-engaging with source material that I first handled back in 2015 (and that led to the creation of a set of blogs that I have re-posted here). To get my own research and thoughts in alignment, I plan on dedicating space here (and in upcoming blog posts) to specific topics I will be focusing on for my part of our panel session. Generally speaking, I have volunteered to take on the history of the Colorado River Compact negotiation from Utah’s perspective. I will also focus on the various laws, negotiations, settlements and engineering projects that have taken place (or are still being considered) as a direct result of the compact.
It is impossible to understand Utah (or really the west) without understanding the peculiarities of water. This is the launching off point for my presentation, as I will attempt to situate Utah’s needs and concerns in 1922 as part of a larger history of water scarcity and use in the region. Utah remains the second most arid state in the nation, trailing the Great Basin interior of Nevada. This image captures this reality, as well as the truth that the western landscape of the United States is fundamentally different from its interior and eastern regions, simply because of the amount of precipitation received.
Map taken from the Utah Division of Water Resource’s report, “The Colorado River: Utah’s Perspective.”
Utah is both extremely arid, and extremely unique in terms of its environment. The western side of the state is made up largely of Great Basin desert, while the eastern side is composed of the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau. Between these two distinct regions, carving itself right through the middle of the state, runs a spur of the Rocky Mountains. These mountain ranges serve as the main source of precipitation for the state. This map captures what I’m describing here well, I think:
Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
As a result of its unique shape and geology, the precipitation that does land in Utah has two primary watersheds into which it can flow. The first is to the west, and into the great internal drainage of the Great Basin. This water is unique because it enters into the only space in North America that lacks an outlet to the sea. Water that flows to the east side of the state flows into the Colorado River watershed, which has become the most regulated and litigated water region in the world. Here is another map that illuminates what I’m talking about:
Map courtesy of the Utah State University Extension Office.
Establishing this context (and these extreme environmental realities) will set the stage for my discussion of Utah’s role in the 20th and 21st century management of the Colorado River. I look forward to exploring more of what I research and learn next week!