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It they simply k~pt fighting everyone else by insisting that they were there first and that was the end of the matter. He credits Tom Murphy for sitting over ~itchen tables with his irrigator neighbors persuading them that times had changed. RUffanno believes that many of his neighbors Came to see that "You oan't just fight--you have to get along if you're going to get anything done in the valley. tl Yet if the irrigators changed by ex[Janding their think.ing beyond the simple assertion of "First in time, first in right," there was change, too, on the part of many newcomers. ormsbee, watching the transformation of the valley through his sixtY~odd years thera, SeeS the growing pOlitical power Of the "fish people" stems primarily from an influx Of newcomers. Readily recruited by organizations like Trout Unlimited, these people IIwanted to raise a lot of money and save the river, 'I ormsbee says. IIBut.landowners tend to lOok with dark sus[Jicion on people who think they can know the river so quickly. I' Tom Ruffanno tells a story about old-timers and newcomers. weeds are a problem in irrigation ditches. The modern solution has been to overCOme the weeds with an herbicide called xylene. But xylene also damages fiSh. An anglers 1 organization ohe year decided on what they thought was a constructive alternativei they recruited a dozen or sO of their members and showed up on the ditch, ready to pull weeds. aut the old~timers Gould remember when that was how they contrOlled weedst they remembered crews of over a hundred people working for two or three days on the ditches. As RUffanno says, the irrigators laughed this little hand of anglers right off the farm. Their mistake was thinking they could know the river too quioklY. Yet newcomers do learn from the river. ormsbee tell of retirEhl,!S who come to the Bitterroot "to be by themselves; ts build a fence around a place, bUy a rifle, and be frsntlersmen.~ He says it usually takes them about ten years to come to understand the valley and the river a little better.littingon the Conservation District board, he has more than a few of these people come in with plans for fish ponds on their new places. "But after a few years, they find it isn't as simple as just digging a hole. They fight algae and weeds. Eventually; they turn more to the river as a whole for their satiSfaction; rather than to their own private domain." Given time, the river itself changes peOple, and brin~s them subtly together. AS newcomers gain a deeper appreciation for their property and the river, they may alSO come to appreciate farmer and ranchers in a new way. As ormsbee says, "Farmers ana stockmen also like to fish. As they get older, they l'1averno:re time to do it. They have an appreciation for theaesthettd values Of the river, although they WOUldn't call it that. They like to have this recognized." FrOm this perspective, the agreement about a locatiofi of Bitterroot River water waS more than a techhical solutiofi. It was also an example of theciVilizinginfltiencQof_the rive~~A~ people mature in their relationship to nature, some of theffl learn to appreciate the integrity of a river itself, 6~ oppo~Qd to their own narrow rights to it. There is no point in