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<br />OO:D2" <br /> <br />scrutiny over their use are intensifying, the political power of agricultural interests are on the <br />wane.! <br /> <br />In the long run, maintenance of traditional patterns of agricultural water use is not a <br /> <br />viable option. The key issue is how will changes be orchestrated -- through voluntary trades <br /> <br />and agreements, regulatory orders, legislative mandates, court decisions, or some combination of <br /> <br />all four. The choice will not be the result of a "definitive, one-time" policy decision embodied <br /> <br />in a blockbuster omnibus bill, governor's policy statement, landmark court decision, or bold <br /> <br />regulatory order. Instead, the outcome will evolve from a multitude of decisions laken by <br /> <br />interested parties who make strategic judgments about whether their objectives are best pursued <br /> <br />in the market through voluntary trades, at the bargaining table through negotiated settlement, <br /> <br />in the halls of the legislature through the exercise of political power, or in the courtroom or <br /> <br />before the regulatory agency through the exercise of deft statutory interpretation and innovative .' <br /> <br />explorations in legal theory. <br /> <br />This essay identifies issues which bear on the ability of irrigation organizations to adapt to <br /> <br />the new economic, legal, and political realities of western water policy. I do so for two reasons <br /> <br />-- one (perhaps) trivial and the other substantive. Erst, Lany MacDonnell asked me to do so. <br /> <br />Second, it is time we focus our attention on the problems confronting these organizations. <br /> <br />Over the past ten years, most policy analysts, commentators, and policy-makers have focussed <br /> <br />1 For example, over 80 percent of Arizona's population resides in the three largest <br />metropolitan areas that conStitute three of the state's five Active Management Areas defined by <br />the 1980 Groundwater Act Therefore, legislative action on urban/agricultural water issues will <br />be decided by legislators from urban districts. <br /> <br />2 <br />