Water and Agriculture in Colorado and the American West

First in Line for the Rio Grande

David Stiller

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781948908801
• eBook ISBN:
  9781948908818
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Amérique du Nord

Water has always been one of the American West's most precious and limited resources. The earliest inhabitants—Native Americans and later Hispanics—learned to share the region's scant rainfall and snowmelt. When Euro-Americans arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century, they brought with them not only an interest in large-scale commercial agriculture but also new practices and laws about access to, and control of, the water essential for their survival and success. This included the concept of private rights to water, a critical resource that had previously been regarded as a communal asset.

David Stiller's thoughtful study focuses on the history of agricultural water use of the Rio Grande in Colorado's San Luis Valley. After surveying the practices of early farmers in the region, he focuses on the impacts of Euro-American settlement and the ways these new agrarians endeavored to control the river. Using the Rio Grande as a case study, Stiller offers an informed and accessible history of the development of practices and technologies to store, distribute, and exploit water in Colorado and other western states, as well as an account of the creation of water rights and laws that govern this essential commodity throughout the West to this day. Stiller's work ranges from meticulously monitored fields of irrigated alfalfa and potatoes to the local and state water agencies and halls of Congress. He also includes perceptive comments on the future of western water as these arid states become increasingly urbanized during a period of worsening drought and climate change.

An excellent read for anyone curious about important issues in the West, Water and Agriculture in Colorado and the American West offers a succinct summary and analysis of Colorado's use of water by agricultural interests, in addition to a valuable discussion of the past, present, and future of struggles over this necessary and endangered resource.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1. The River, the Valley, and Early Customs with Water
• 2. Mining and Farming—One Fed the Other
• 3. A Doctrine for Water Takes Shape
• 4. Agriculture Settles In
• 5. Era of Bonanza Farming
• 6. The Role and Importance of Storage
• 7. Making an Aquifer
• 8. The Compact and the Closed Basin
• 9. Competing Interests Butt Heads
• 10. A Fire and a Kitchen Sink
• 11. Crisis in the Valley
• 12. Collaboration as an Economic and Cultural Tool
• 13. Elsewhere in Colorado and the West
• 14. A New Normal
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author