HoleInTheRiverHistoryOfGroundwater

Home Browse Search

Nicolai A. Kryloff 7/12/07 Hole in the River: A History of Groundwater in the South Platte Valley, 1858-1969 [DRAFT] Water moves underground. Beneath sheets of ancient shale, through gravel beds of elder rivers, its presence has long been regarded as mysterious. It moves unseen. Dowsers, or water witches, claim a special ab ility to auger its locat ion; a court in Ohio once described it as “so secret, occult and con cealed” that no set of laws could be applied 1 to it. Yet in many parts of the American West, extensive regional economies have become invested in groundwater extraction, with both farms and cities supplied by it. The valley of the South Platte River, home to Colorado’s largest urban centers and most productive agricultural operat ions, is such a place. In the early twentieth cent ury, as groundwater’s physical mysteries began to fade under scientific scrutiny, deeper paradoxes em erged from beneath the South Platte valley floor. In this region, water’s relentle ss movement underground steadily eroded Colorado’s approach to water administra tion, turning old maxims upside-down and creating new friction between water users. Ultimately, the movement of water caused human and natural systems to become entw ined and entangled, resulting in unexpected opportunities and intractable difficulties for water users and mana gers alike. This historical account rests on th ree central assumptions. First, water itself was an active element of historical change, and so c ontinues to be today. Second, differing human conceptions of groundwater’s fundamental meaning also influenced its use and 1 Frazier v. Brown , 12 Ohio 294, 311 (1861). For a historical account of dowsing, see Walker D. Wyman, Witching for Water, Oil, Pipes, and Precious Metals: A Persistent Folk Belief from Frontier Days Down to the Present (River Falls: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). 1