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<br />'"""'P"""". <br /> <br />000717 <br /> <br />issues are fascinating and daunting.7 Here is a preview of some of th~m. <br /> <br /> <br />First, note that water management, however broadly defined, is much narrower than watershed <br />management. When we talk about the watershed, we necessarily embrace land use affecting water. A <br />great deal of governance-traditionally far beyond the scope of water policy-- is swept in as one moves <br />upland from the water itself to the watershed, including matters such as urban land use, road building, <br />'and timber harvesting, to say nothing of the use of hydrologically related groundwater (a point whose <br />political and economic significance is especially highly charged in Califomia)~ In addition, even the <br />watershed does not encompass aU significant influences on the subject waters, as illustrated by the <br />familiar problem of acid rain. In short, to begin to talk about the watershed as the right or rational focus <br />for water management soon presents much of the elusiveness we earlier encountered in seeking to <br />grapple with concepts like ecosystem managernent. <br /> <br />I call attention to this matter as a signal that whenever we talk about the watershed in terms of <br />"hydrological reality (or rationality)", we also need to concern ourselves with "managerial practicability." <br />One profoundly important question as one ponders watershed management is to what extent we may have <br />to break problems down into artificial units simply to be' able cope with them at all. The watershed, or <br />whatever the hydrologically-rational unit may be, usually bears little if any relationship whatever to <br />governmental units at any level-from the county to the country. Nor is there any hydrological or <br />ecological measure of managerial capacity. One way to measure the difficulty of the task we ar.e engaging <br />is to note, in listening to the various presentations at this conference, the way in which established lines of <br />authority are being affected, and to ponder how durable and how reproducible they will prove to be. Are <br />ipstitutional arrangements being established, in the Snake/Columbia Basin, or in the Cal-Fed process, for <br />~x~ple, that can serve as workable precedents for what governance will (or should) look like elsewhere <br />..'" i\i'Qund the West, or around the country? <br /> <br />1 For a review of some modern efforts to implement the Endangered Species Act in the western <br />context, see Joseph L. Sax, "Environmental Law at the Turn of the Century: A Reportorial <br />of Contemporary History", 88 Cal. L. Rev. 2375 (Dec. 2000). <br /> <br />3 <br /> <br />3 <br />