Excerpt
THE past 15 years have brought dramatic changes in federal and state water policies, particularly when contrasted with historical and traditional means of dealing with water problems in the western United States. The history of water and water policy, particularly in the West, offers some insight as to how these recent changes will affect future water policies.
Water history and traditions
Use of water is as old as life. Water was and remains today the sine qua non of society. Without it there is nothing; with it the opportunities are endless.
Irrigation commenced in this country and the West when the Hohokam Indians of the Southwest built canals to irrigate crops in the Salt River Valley of Arizona, 100 years before Christ. That system irrigated more than a quarter million acres and supported a half million people.
In the early 1700s, a dispute developed between Virginia and Maryland over improvement of navigation on the Potomac River. That dispute became the immediate cause for calling the convention that drafted the Constitution of the United States. It is an interesting irony that a dispute over a waterway provided the catalyst that eventually made 13 colonies a Union. …
Footnotes
Scott M. Matheson was governor of Utah from 1977 to 1985. During that period he served as Chairman of the National Governor's Association (1982–83) and Chairman of the Western Governor's Policy Office (1979–80). He was the first Chairman of the National Governor's Association Subcommittee on Water Management and served in that position from 1977 to 1982. In 1985, Governor Matheson returned to the private practice of law with Parsons, Behle & Latimer in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he continued to speak out on water policy issues. This article is based on a speech to the SWCS annual meeting on August 1, 1990 in Salt Lake City. That speech was Governor Matheson's last major public address. He died of cancer on October 7, 1990. This article was prepared from Governor Matheson's notes and a tape of the speechs.
- Copyright 1991 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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