TY - JOUR T1 - Future water issues: Confrontation or compromise JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 96 LP - 99 VL - 46 IS - 2 AU - Scott M. Matheson Y1 - 1991/03/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/46/2/96.abstract N2 - 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. … ER -