4202

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 4202
• Author: Wilkinson, C. F.
• Title: Colorado Water and the Lords of Yesterday.
• USFW Year: 1987.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

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The issue we ought to be discussing, therefore, is not one
of hindsight. The question is not whether the policies of the
era of manifest destiny were right for those times. The question
is whether they are right for these times.
Two or three decades after the turn of the century,
disparate events began to take hold and gradually create a
society and climate increasingly at odds with the old policies.
You are well familiar with the forces that changed societal atti-
tudes. The boom-and-bust mentality fueled by the "take-it-now"
laws left too many western towns in shambles. The stress of
population growth became ever more visible on landscapes from Los
Angeles to the Front Range. Deep economic currents veered away
from the heavy extractive industries toward lighter local econo-
mies oriented toward recreation and tourism. Our supplies of
resources began to dwindle. In the field of water, for example,
we hear the generality that "most of the best reservoir sites
have been used up." The actual numbers lend depth to that
generality. Before 1930, the dams produced 10.4 acre-feet of
water for each cubic yard of dam volume. In the 1930's, the
ratio dropped to 2.1 acre-feet/cubic yard. Since World War II,
the ratio has dropped to .3 acre-feet/cubic yard. This means
that the recent dams are just 1/7 as efficient as the dams of the
1930's and are 1/30 as efficient as the dams before 1930.
We are a practical people and we react to lunchpail issues
and to close-to-home events and pressures. But we are also a
thinking people and our minds and destinies can be turned by
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