鲍勃·克里法西(鲍勃Crifasi)的新书深入探讨了科罗拉多州的水史

想想罗伯特·R. “Bob” Crifasi as a kind of Zelig or Forrest Gump when it comes to water in Boulder, Denver and northern Colorado — he spent a quarter century getting his hands wet, 无论是字面上还是比喻上, 以无数的方式.

他被丹佛水务公司聘为环境规划师, Front Range水务公司800磅重的鳟鱼, to explore alternatives to the controversial proposed 615-foot-high Two Forks Dam 在南普拉特 River, 该法案被美国否决了.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1991 under pressure from anglers and environmentalists.

Crifasi, who earned bachelor’s degrees in geology and chemistry and master’s degrees in geology and environmental science from the 博彩平台推荐 in the 1980s and ‘90s, 经常在董事会任职吗, pitchfork杂草, trash and the occasional dead skunk for—11 Boulder County ditch companies, 包括历史悠久的安德森沟, 这条路穿过科罗拉多大学-博尔德校区.

And he spent 16 years as the “water wizard” — aka water resources administrator — for the City of Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, 管理城市所有的配水沟渠.

这段经历的每一滴都浇灌了他所谓的“爱的劳动”,“非常容易接近”, 深入研究新书, A Land Made From Water: Appropriation and the Evolution of Colorado’s Landscape, 沟渠, 水务机构s (科罗拉多大学出版社). The book focuses on Boulder but explores much larger questions about the past, 和未来的, 西部的水资源短缺.

“个人, I find histories that only deal with the very local are missing something,克里法西说. 有了这本书, 我想真正了解丹佛发生了什么, 在南普拉特, 以及这些东西是如何嵌套的.”

The book (whose title echoes a line by Colorado poet Thomas Ferril Hornsby: “Here is a 土地 where life is written in water.)，首先简要介绍了西方水资源开发的历史, 注意到普韦布洛人的祖先, who inhabited the area around Mesa Verde National Park in the Four Corners region, were building ditches and reservoirs for irrigation as early as 900 BCE.

The Spanish took some of those ideas and blended them with a cultural and political system of “acequias,这个词改编自阿拉伯语的“al saqiya”,意为“水管”.”

Crifasi then explores the development of Boulder County’s earliest ditches. The area was dry indeed before pioneers began digging the first ditches 1859, 使用铁锹和马拉的“弗雷斯诺刮刀”犁.

“我想博彩平台推荐可以有把握地说，在山麓以东, 从南部的煤溪附近到圣. Vrain在北边, 在人类活跃定居之前，这里几乎没有湖泊,克里法西写道.

“今天, Colorado’s Prior Appropriation system has become a symbol for the preference of private property over common property, 公共资源私有化, 以及市场分配自然资源的规则,克里法西写道.

具有讽刺意味的是, 他指出, prior appropriation was widely understood at the time as a blow against control of water by the wealthy who could afford to buy 土地 — and the establishment of the 左手沟连 in 1863 grew out of the kind of cooperative that many would revile as “socialist” today.

Crifasi also relates the history of large-scale public water projects on the Front Range, from the Moffat Tunnel pipeline to Gross Dam and Reservoir and the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.

He ranged far afield chasing down sometimes-tiny details to enrich the text and delves into subjects that would not, 乍一看, 必须显得与主题相关. He went to a tiny town in New Mexico, for example, to learn more about Marcellus St. 负责管理圣堡的Vrain. Vrain在南普拉特.

Crifasi also plunged into one of Colorado’s most shameful historical incidents, 150至500名阿拉帕霍印第安妇女惨遭屠杀, 1864年在沙溪的儿童和老人. The military units that carried out the slaughter included many prominent Boulder County water pioneers—Jonas Anderson Jr. 波特M. 他帮助创立了左手，莫尔斯·科芬和船长. David H. Nichols, the co-founder of North Boulder Farmers Ditch, who helped lead the massacre.

这一事件, 证人在国会委员会面前详细描述, 是在铁路政治的驱使下导致了“土地掠夺”.”

(2)因为美国人赢了, 定居者可以强制推行他们管理水资源的法律体系, 土地, 矿物质, 和其他资源,克里法西写道.

他说:“那些国会报告读起来令人震惊。. “我曾带领科罗拉多大学的团队参观安德森沟, 这让我很震惊, 我给这些孩子做了一个演讲, 这是一段紧张的历史. 它对我的影响不仅仅是学术上的.”

这本书是一部历史，但并不完全是回顾过去. 克里法西探讨了农民和土地管理者之间的冲突. 有一次，他遇到了一位发现豹纹蛙的年轻生物学家, 联邦政府关注的物种, 在当地的一个沟渠里，并下令不要打扰该地区.

“我全心全意地赞同他保护这个物种的愿望. But the problem was that these frogs migrated into and now occupy habitat that was created by people,克里法西写道.

“如果像我这样的人没有把侧面清理干净，没关系, there would be no point for the rancher to turn water into the laterals so he might irrigate his hay meadow. The laterals would simply dry out and cease providing tadpole habitat or a source of water for the hay meadow. 我感觉他想要某种青蛙英灵殿. Our conversation made me feel like a callous frog killer for even suggesting it might be necessary to occasionally disturb the habitat … so that we might perpetuate it.”

But don’t think Crifasi is the sort of guy who might spend a weekend taking potshots at feds alongside the likes of the anti-government group that recently occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon; he has absolutely no truck with ranchers who refuse to see the value of preservation.

“Those guys just want to take down the sign that says ‘welcome to your public 土地s’ and put up a ‘no trespassing’ sign, 免费,他说. “People who support them are forgetting that these 土地s once were private, 首先从印第安人手中夺走, 下一个私有化, then overgrazed until the owners were bailed out by the federal government.”

克莱·埃文斯是博尔德的一名自由撰稿人.