Decluttering was something of a rage a few years ago. To a degree I suppose it still is. Books hawking advice and decluttering mindsets from the orient were on best seller lists for months. Yet we still fill our lives with all manner of needless junk. Convenience is often the main selling point from the hucksters on TV. But is an electric can opener actually that much more convenient? It is novel, and when my mother got one many years ago she loved it, until it broke. Many of the things we “consume” are sold largely on the fad, cutting edge technology aspect. I’ve resisted many of them. Do I really need a tent that pops up like and emerging mushroom after a rain from a rack over the back of my truck? A tent that needs a ladder to climb into, and that the dog will never scale on his own?

After fifty years of fly fishing and gathering various clutter, I have done some serious shedding. It is astonishing how much stuff one can attract into their personal orbit over time. Paula too was a serious fly fisher and guide, as her husband before me. Chuck was also a fly shop owner. He was twenty years her senior and while known for his spartan approach to the sport, he had accumulated a fair amount that she inherited.

With Paula’s passing I’ve decided to sell the house and move on in life. Real estate agents number one advice is to declutter. I took that to heart and started going through all the stuff. Twenty plus rods, some eighteen reels with line, and literally thousands of flies. Nearly all of this is going, through donations and garage sales. I’ll still hang on to the essentials for western fly fishing, a five weight rod I built thirty years ago, a three weight rod I built around the same time, and a bamboo rod that a friend built in his shop about ten years ago. I’ll keep a couple rods that were Paula’s favorites, mainly for sentimental reasons and to share (they are really nice to cast!), as well as my one homage to fad, a telescoping Tenkara rod. Tenkara is a Japanese style of flyfishing, and actually pretty interesting. There is no reel and only eleven feet of line. It works well in small stream settings.

One of my favorite non-essential items for fishing are those long, expensive rod holding tubes that compete for space on your car rack with the tent. You can have your fly rod fully assembled and ready to go fishing before the dust settles from your fast pull in on the gravel side of the road. And you never see just one. Usually, they come in sets of four. I’ve seen cars with as many as eight. Eight rods, all rigged for a specific type of fishing. Dry fly fishing, nymph fishing, streamer fishing, multiple variations and flies all on one rod rigged and ready to go instantly. Time is of the essence and not to be wasted!

I can see having this setup for guides, people who make a living taking others out on the river to fish. But for the rest of us? Fishing is supposed to be enjoyable and relaxing. A break from the harried stress of the workday. Now we stress over how fast we can get on the water, as if the fish will clock out and leave their posts if we dawdle.

None of these things are cheap either. Roof racks, top side tents and the rod cases can run thousands of dollars. But in the end, are they really an improvement? Are they really worth it? I’ll still pull up to the stream and set up a camp chair or the tailgate, pull my rod from its case, attach the reel, slide the line through guides and tie on a fly or two. Maybe I need to put on a new leader or tippet. I take the time slowly, looking and listening to the world around me and the stream, searching for the insects coming off the water and the rings from a rise that give away a fish’s location. Learning which flies are likely to attract a feeding trout from the blackboard at the fly shop is a start, but it’s always best to take a minute and see for yourself as well. Some old timers would even take the time to sit on the bank and tie a fly, on the spot, that would work. And it usually did.

Two thirds of our economy is based on consumption, mostly of goods and gadgets we really don’t need. Back when I first started fly fishing in the late 1970’s, I built my own rod, fiberglass, for about $35. It worked fine. I built other rods later when graphite came out. I also tended to find simple things for the tasks at hand when standing in a stream. I used a set of inexpensive fingernail clippers to cut line, leader and tippet. Now you can buy nippers, with the brand name of course, that cost nearly $100. They do exactly the same thing as fingernail clippers, with the same effort.

Fly fishing is big business now at the retail level. Special clothing, vests and packs, waders, rods, lines flies, etc. You’ll see fisherman standing out in the river with thousands of dollars of gear, what a now retired game warden I knew referred to as an “Orvis Hatch”. And often they are standing right in the spot where they should be casting the fly to. I guess money can buy lessons and instruction on how the stream habitat and structure works, but it still can’t buy experience or knowledge from simple observation.

Nearly all of these things will end up stored in the garage, or a storage unit at some point. Boxes and boxes of stuff used a few times then abandoned for something newer and flashier.

I’ve also gotten rid of most of the books, furniture and clothing. I’ll likely be moving to a small apartment at some point, but my primary plan is to spend a lot of time traveling with a smallish RV trailer. Those don’t hold much more than the essentials, and really do you need a lot more? The movers original on-line estimate was over $2000. When he came out to actually see what I had to move the estimate was halved. There is even still considerable room in my small 10x10 storage unit. The house, three floors with its four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a large family room, is now mostly empty. What furniture remains is on the main floor, and even that is sparse. There is now a lot more space in the kitchen cupboards as whole sets of dishes, glasses, silverware, bowls and other things gathered over the years is gone to thrift store shelves. Used clutter for those in need of more stuff.

Some of the things were hard to let go of, mainly for sentimental reasons. But once gone the feeling is liberating. I’m a fan of Henry Thoreau, whose advise was “simplify, simplify, simplify”. He lived that advice every day of his too short life. He had little tolerance for clutter, both in his life and his writing. His cabin at Walden Pond was a model of spartan simplicity. Yes, he would go over to the Emerson’s for dinner on occasion, but that wasn’t out of bonds in my thinking. My small RV will be spartan, but I’ll still stay at RV parks with hook ups and showers, and I’ll dine out occasionally. I’ll need the service of laundromats from time to time as well. I will need to curb any urge to buy more books though and get more acquainted with local libraries.

I’ll still buy a few flies here and there. That is a small pleasure from visiting fly shops that nearly all fly fishermen understand. I don’t need any new rods or reels despite what new technological advances may be hyped. The rods I built 30 years ago seem to work just as well at catching fish as any with new “flex technology”. Bamboo rods have been built the same way, by hand, for a very long time and still work just as well. I’ll keep a second camp chair in case someone joins me to contemplate the river while rigging the rod and pulling on waders.

Sorry if I’m not pulling my weight much anymore in support of our economy. There are other things worth more than money and following Henry’s advice helps to see that more clearly.

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Recently the water level at Glen Canyon Dam hit a new record low, just a bit lower than 3520 feet. That’s only 30 feet above the point where Lake Powell will reach “power pool”, the point at which the dam can no longer generate electricity. At the same time the Colorado River flowing in to the reservoir is about 4750 cubic feet per second (cfs) while the outflow at the dam is around 7700 cfs. The lake level has been dropping consistently since the end of the record low spring runoff from melting snow in the Rockies. Today will see another new record low, and tomorrow, and the day after that. And its only August.

Something has to give. The system has reached a point where it can no longer bend.

The Colorado River has shrunk by more than 20% since the beginning of the mega-drought 26 years ago. This has been a growing crisis with predictable results, yet the powers that be who govern the river have continuously failed to heed the warnings and reality. The river is shrinking and will not return to the flows that so many have become dependent on over the past 100 years. Climate driven aridification has reduced the flow by 20% from twentieth century norms, and it will shrink even more as the aridification intensifies. Overuse and over dependance will not be solved by token measures or the wishful thinking of outdated economic paradigms.

The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) released their Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on future river management, and while I don’t think it goes far enough, others in the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California think it goes too far.

The seven Colorado River states worked for over two years to try and reach an agreement on how to proceed after the various stop gap measures put in place since 2007 expire at the end of this year. They couldn’t do it, so the BOR has stepped in, taking proposals from the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada as a framework for their plan. The Lower Basin had proposed cuts in use up to 3 million acre feet (maf) over a two year period if needed. One acre foot is one acre, about the area of a football field, one foot deep, enough water for 2 to 3 families over a year. The BOR plan is supposed to be for ten years, with review and adjustments made in agreement by all the states every two years. But they went a bit further than those three states would have liked, calling for cuts of up to 3 million acre feet (MAF) per year for the next two years.

Arizona would be hit the hardest with cuts as much as 31%, Nevada next at 28% and California by 12%. The Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are asked to take voluntary cuts of up to 200,000 acre feet.

The Lower Basin states, especially Arizona, are calling this plan unacceptable, unrealistic and unfair. The Arizona Department of Water Resources claims, “Such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy” (Denver Post). Gov. Hobbs of Arizona said “contains unacceptable options that include the federal government forcing Arizona to take the majority of draconian water cutbacks.” (LA Times). Nevada’s Gov. Joe Lombardo said “Unfortunately, the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) released by the Department of the Interior today seeks to impose unrealistic reductions on Nevada and our water users” (KLAS Las Vegas 8 News).

They also decry the small request of voluntary cuts in water use by the Upper Basin. The Lower Basin thinks that the water shortages need to be shared by all seven basin states. The Upper Basin claims that they shouldn’t have to face cuts like the Lower Basin because they have never come close to using their full Colorado River Compact allotment. In fact they have historically used about half that amount.

A little background. In 1922 the seven basin states adopted the Colorado Compact, which became the foundation for all subsequent agreements and legislation known as The Law of the River. The Colorado River watershed was divided into two basins, Upper and Lower. Each were allotted 7.5 maf in consumptive use per year.

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were constructed in the 1930’s, along with the All American Canal feeding vast amounts of Colorado River water to the Imperial Valley. This was the beginning of the Lower Basin’s dependance on a reliable and constant supply of water despite what might be happening with climate and weather. The dependency became institutional, some might say an addiction, even as reliability declined after 2000.

In 1963, after decades of lawsuits and bitter fighting between Arizona and California, the Supreme Court cemented allocations of water based on the Compact for the three Lower Basin states. Each state had equal standing in claims for their share of the river. The 1963 decision also allows the Interior Department, through BOR, to be the River Master in times of emergency. Like the one we are in now. BOR can make decisions on who gets what, regardless of seniority.

Then, in 1968, Arizona, desperate to get congress to pass the bill creating their long dreamed of Central Arizona Project agreed to subordinate their rights to California. That was a deal with the devil that is now coming back to haunt them as Arizona is targeted for the largest share of cuts.

And they don’t like it one bit.

To hear the Arizona leaders you would think the state will simply cease to exist if these draconian cuts in water from the Colorado River become reality. Reality can be a hard pill to swallow, but the river, and nature, are not swayed by political rhetoric or legal theory.

While the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico were, for the most part spared any drastic measures, they have very little water to cut back on compared to the Lower Basin diversions. Also, the BOR has no real authority to impose significant cuts in the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin did not have the contentious and litigious history the Lower Basin experienced. In fact, they got together just fine, creating their own Upper Basin Compact in 1948, distributing their 7.5 maf share by percentages rather than hard amounts.

The low flows this summer are still hitting the Upper Basin states hard. Prior appropriation, first in time, first in right, is curtailing water uses in all four states, with rights dating back into the 1870’s and “60’s being cut off. The Upper Basin states, unlike the Lower Basin, have no large reservoirs, nothing near as large as Lakes Mead and Powell, to rely on. What reservoirs they do have are seriously drained.

This multi decadal “megadrought” has been here for a long time and will likely continue to worsen in the future. This is climate driven aridification, not just drought. Droughts are defined by a beginning and an end. There is no end in sight with this one.

The cuts in water diverted from the Colorado River will likely increase in future years, rather than decrease. The BOR clings to a somewhat unrealistic goal of keeping “reliable” amounts of water in both of the large reservoirs to maintain hydro power generation, protect infrastructure and make deliveries to downstream Lower Basin users. They dismiss the idea of building a river level outlet ay Glen Canyon as unrealistic. Yet both Powell and Mead continue to drop. Combined storage is at its lowest on record. Lake Meade is at a record low, lowest levels since it was built nearly 100 years ago. Releases from small BOR reservoirs upstream are proving to be of little help. With more water continuing to flow out than is flowing in, the inevitable result is much more realistic than not.

The seven basin states need to face that reality and adapt. There is no return to the hydrology of the past. An economic growth structure built on the idea of endlessly reliable stored water is what’s truly unrealistic and unacceptable. The BOR and the Upper Basin states simply cannot deliver water that doesn’t exist. If the states don’t adapt, all seven, but especially in the Lower Basin, they may very well cease to exist as they do now.

I like books. Maybe a stronger word is needed. I treasure books, particularly those about the Colorado River and, more broadly, water in the West.

Scores of books have been published over the years, and more yet will arrive as climate-driven aridity increases its grip on the Southwest, shrinking the Colorado River even more. The seven states that rely on water from the Colorado River are at loggerheads, each blaming the others for the impasse preventing a long-term agreement on sharing the rivers waters. They all interpret the laws, history, agreements, and particularly the Colorado River Compact of 1922 in ways that favor their particular positions.

In reading comments from the myriad reports and posts on this issue it’s clear that many people who are now concerned about the river have scant knowledge about the law, the history, and the culture that has shaped use and management of the river during the past 100-plus years. Perhaps the most common and incorrect belief is that California is stealing our water. They aren’t.

For those who really would like to learn more, here are some suggestions.

For the Colorado River Compact, the foundation of what is known as the Law of the River, no book beats Norris Hundley Jr.’s Water and the West, Second Edition. A historian, Hundley detailed what caused the seven states to pursue a compact for sharing, the process of its creation in 1922, and the subsequent political squabbles until its final ratification in 1928. The book’s first edition came out in 1975, but the second edition, with a new preface, updates much of his thinking. This one book is essential for understanding how the river’s waters were divided over a hundred years ago. Hundley dives into the contentious politics of the time, which aren’t so different from today. The 1922 Colorado River Compact is at the heart of all the subsequent agreements and arguments about the river. Hundley’s depth and eloquence with this complex topic explains it well. For a document that is only four pages long the Compact has packed a lot of baggage.

The second must-read is Science be Dammed, How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River, by Eric Kuhn and John Fleck. In this 2019 book, Kuhn and Fleck examine the history of the compact and its aftermath through the lens of hydrology, the flow of the river itself. They explain how the creators of the compact chose to divide the waters based on optimistic, and incorrect, flow measurements and projections for the future despite having more realistic numbers at hand. Our current problems were born by this hopeful fantasy. The dreams of the old booster mentality remain very much alive, premised in these 100-year-old miscalculations.

Frank Waters The Colorado provides insights into the early history and culture of the Colorado River. Published in 1946, the book is a series of stories about the river, the lands it flows through and the people who lived along it, from the headwaters to the sea. Waters stories come from his personal experiences in a world of the river that no longer exists. He also wrote with a perspective from Native America that was unusual for that time. One chapter covers a trip down the river from Yuma, Ariz., to the Gulf of California on a regularly scheduled steamer. That hasn’t been possible since the river was first dammed in the 1930s. The book may be a bit dated, but it’s a delightful read.

A more recent book, a comprehensive look at the river and the cultures it supports, is Philip Fradkin’s A River No More. Published in 1981, it details Fradkin’s exploration of the Colorado River basin during the drought years of the late 1970’s. It is prescient in so many ways. The climate crisis wasn’t yet prominent on the radar of most of us. Even then, however, he was clear that the river had no more water to give. The promises of the dam-building era and the boosters early in the century was a fantasy. Mismanagement, drought and the reality of trying to create a paradise in the desert had drained the river completely. Fradkin was the first author to note that the Colorado River no longer reached the sea. I place this book as one of the essential reads about the Colorado River. Get the second release with his updated 1995 preface.

A few years after Fradkin’s book, Marc Reisner came out with the classic Cadillac Desert, which I think was inspired by Fradkin’s book. Most know of Reisner’s book but read Fradkin’s as well. Reisner’s primary target is the Bureau of Reclamation, and deservedly so. Reisner reiterates many of Fradkin’s observations but takes a much wider perspective looking at how western rivers from California to North Dakota were developed and managed, or to his mind mismanaged. It is a story of western zeal, a modern version of manifest destiny, the successes and failures of a drive to make the vast desert and cities bloom. The Colorado isn’t the only western river with problems stemming from our ideas of progress and living in an arid land.

Another excellent volume along these lines, published in 1985, is Donald Worster’s Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity and the Growth of the American West.

The many Native American tribes who have called the Colorado River basin home for millennia have a long history of abuse, theft, neglect, and outright hostility by the white establishment and federal government. The compact devoted one sentence to the tribes.

Daniel McCool has written two books on tribal water matters, Command of the Waters and Native Waters. Eric Perramond’s book, Unsettled Waters, looks at the complexities of clashing customs and traditions in New Mexico where imposing Western ideas of water law on top of long standing communal and Native rights is not easy.

If you are a fan of early Colorado River exploration, then Wallace Stegner’s Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is probably already on your shelf. Stegner was one of the finest writers America has ever produced (recent charges of plagiarism in the case of one book notwithstanding), and most of his work centered on the West. His focus in this book is on John Wesley Powell, both his two river voyages and what came afterword in the political arena of Western development during the late 1800’s. It’s another classic.

Powell’s own account, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons is also a must-read for river runners and armchair explorers. Add to that Frederick S. Dellenbaugh’s more readable The Romance of the Colorado River. Dellenbaugh was a member of Powells second expedition down the Colorado. He’s a better writer and covers a wider range of the Colorado River and its surroundings as seen from a late 19^th century perspective.

Among the more important books recently written about the early years of the Grand Canyon is Mellisa Sevigny’s Brave the Wild River, about two women botanists and their cataloging of the vegetation along the Colorado River before Glen Canyon Dam was built. They did this in 1938, a time when men were the primary figures of Colorado River exploration. It’s a marvelous story of both science and adventure at a time when women were not supposed to be there.

For adventure itself, there are several great books. First would be Kevin Fedarko’s The Emerald Mile. This book weaves the story of the fastest run through the Grand Canyon in a dory with the near loss of Lake Powell in the flood year of 1984. It is a fast paced and gripping read. Don’t think you’ll read it to relax before going to bed in the evening!

Katie Lee’s book All My Rivers Are Gone is a memorial story of loss, the drowning of Glen Canyon by the Bureau of Reclamations last great monument to misguided progress. So is Edward Abby’s book, Down the River. Both good books are about a place now gone, that few people knew, but which is returning as the flows of the river diminish and the demands downstream drain the second largest reservoir in the United States.

More recent books on the evolving situation of the river are Zak Podmore’s Life After Deadpool, about the returning canyons and ecosystems of Glen Canyon as the reservoir shrinks. Another is Melissa Sevigny’s Mythical River, a poignant story about the never-ending dream of rivers, water and wealth in the Southwest. Manifest destiny still provides the rhythm of hope in a land that refuses to behave like the well-watered lands of the East.

All the books on the Colorado River, the West and water, can fill a library, as they have mine. Here is a short list I’ve compiled from my own shelves. Some are out of print but still readily available through used book sites such as Alibris.

Colorado River Compact and The Law of the River:

· Water and the West, Second Edition, Norris Hundley, Jr., University of California Press, 2009

· Forging New Rights in Western Water, Robert G. Dunbar’ University of Nebraska Press, 1983. (Out of Print)

· Water, Land, & Law in the West, Donald J. Pisani, University Press of Kansas, 1996

· Dividing Western Waters, Mark Wilmer, TCU Press, 2007

· The Colorado Doctrine, David Schorr, Yale University Press, 2012

· Science Be Dammed, Eric Kuhn and John Fleck, University of Arizona Press, 2019

· Water Law in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition, David H Getches, Sandra B Zellmer, Adell L Amos, West Academic Publishing, 1997

History, Culture and Climate

· The Colorado, Frank Waters, Rinehart & Company, 1946 (Out of print)

· Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner, Penguin Books, 1993

· A River No More, Philip L. Fradkin, University of California Press, 1995

· Rivers of Empire, Donald Worster, Oxford University Press, 1985

· Crossing the Next Meridian, Charles F. Wilkinson, Island Press, 1992

· Water is for Fighting Over, John Fleck, Island Press, 2016

· Where the Water Goes, David Owen, Riverhead Books, 2017

· Dead Pool, James Lawrence Powell, University of California Press, 2008

· Mythical River, Melissa L. Sevigny, University of Iowa Press, 2016

· Down River, Heather Hansman, University of Chicago Press, 2019

· Life After Dead Pool, Zak Podmore, Torrey House Press, 2024

· River Notes, Wade Davis, Greystone Books, 2023

· Deadbeat Dams, Danial P. Beard, Johnson Books, 2015

· Echo Park, Jon M. Cosco, in cooperation with the Dinosaur Nature Association, 1995

John Wesley Powell

· Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner, Sentry Books, 1954

· A River Running West, Donald Worster, Oxford Press, 2001

· Down the Great Unknown, Edward Dolnick, HarperCollins, 2001

· The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, John Wesley Powell, Dover Press, 1961 (Originally published as The Canyons of the Colorado, 1895)

· A Canyon Voyage, and The Romance of the Colorado River, Frederick S Dellenbaugh, Yale University, 1962, and The Rio Grand Press, 1904

Tribal Water Rights

· Native Waters, Danial McCool, University of Arizona Press, 2002

· Command of the Waters, Danial McCool, University of Arizona Press, 1994

· Unsettled Waters, Eric P Perramond, University of California Press, 2019

Good Reads

· The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko, Scribner, 2013

· The Sound of Mountain Water, Wallace Stegner, Penguin Books, 1980

· Marking the Sparrow’s Fall, Wallace Stegner, Henry Holt and Company, 1992

· All My Rivers Are Gone, Katie Lee, Johnson Books, 1998

· River, Colin Fletcher, Vintage Books, 1998

· Down the River, Edward Abbey, Plume, 1991

Crystal River - August 2012. It will be like this a lot sooner this year

The February 14 deadline for the seven Colorado River Basin States to come up with an agreement on future management of the river is long gone, and still no agreement in sight. The deadline for submitting comments on the Bureau of Reclamations Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is also past. Reclamation didn’t have a “preferred alternative”, which is not normal. They were hoping the States would have an agreement so that could become the preferred alternative. So they are left with their suite of six alternatives. All six are fraught with what Reclamation calls “decision making under deep uncertainty” (DMDU, they love acronyms).

That is an understatement.

No one seems to be very happy with any single proposed alternative. Some are calling for a new DEIS, or at least a Supplemental DEIS. This would only push any deadline further down the road. Reclamation is caught between a rock and a hard place.

The only real alternatives that they can implement without full approval by the States are No Action and the Basic Coordination Alternative. Both would be disastrous. They would simply be going back to how things were done prior to the 2007 Interim Guidelines and even earlier policies, none of which reflect the needs of the Colorado River we have today.

Adding to that is the very dry record low snowpack in the Rockies. This annual winter snowpack is the ultimate water storage reservoir for the entire basin, from Pinedale, Wyoming, to Yuma, Arizona. It is what puts water into the two great reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead, that the Lower Basin desert states of California, Arizona and Nevada depend on. It is the only real reservoir that the needs of the arid Upper Basin states, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming depend on. This year that snowpack reservoir is as low as it has ever been, even eclipsing the former record year of 2002 when all this mega-drought started. The recent heat dome setting up over the Four Corners area is melting and sublimating what little snowpack there is fast.

Lakes Powell and Mead are already at very low levels, and the 1.7 maf projected inflow from spring runoff is looking smaller every day. Reclamation predicts that the water level in Lake Powell will drop to a point where no hydropower can be generated, power pool, by as soon as late July or at least in December. That, in effect, could be dead pool, with very limited releases from the lower “river outlet” tunnels. In effect, the flows from Lake Powell will become run of the river, what comes in is what goes out. No more storage for expected water deliveries downstream except what they might risk in lowering Lake Mead even more.

Needless to say this has sparked a war of words between the Upper and Lower Basins, with the Lower Basin being particularly vitriolic. As the February 14 deadline passed, JB Hamby of California declared “The 1922 Colorado River Compact requires the Upper Basin to deliver an average of 8.25 million acre-feet (maf) annually to the Lower Basin and Mexico. That delivery obligation is fixed in law, even if the river produces less water.” Arizona has gone even further, declaring in TV ads that the water delivery is not only an obligation, but a “guarantee” for delivery.

Huh??? Fixed in law and a guarantee? The reality of the river disagrees. The requirements of the Compact are, yes, written in law. On paper. It is “paper water”, not real, or “wet” water. Colorado’s commissioner Becky Mitchell was more to the point, if less vitriolic, “We are being asked to solve a problem we didn’t create, with water we do not have.” At least someone understands the reality of the situation.

John Wesley Powell, the hero of the Colorado River was invited as the honored guest and keynote speaker at the second International Irrigation Congress, held in Los Angeles in 1893. He was held in high regard by the many boosters, speculators and people hoping to cash in with irrigated farms all across the Colorado River basin. After listening to what they were saying, Powell pocketed his prepared remarks and said,

“When all the rivers are used, when all the creeks in the ravines, when all the brooks, when all the springs are used, when all the canyon waters are taken up, when all the artesian waters are taken up, when all the wells are sunk or dug that can be dug in all this arid region, there is still not sufficient water to irrigate all this arid region.”

The delegates didn’t want to hear that. As they booed him off the stage he added,

“I tell you gentlemen that you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights for there is not sufficient water to supply the land.”

Powell was right, but the boosters didn’t listen. Many still aren’t listening. Agricultural dreams have faded and new dreams of housing developments and data centers are taking their place. The boosters, in both Basins, are still booing reality off the stage. Dreams continue to grow as the river continues to shrink.

I read of fears that the Upper Basin will take advantage of Lower Basin cuts by taking more themselves. Really? From where? That vast winter snowpack reservoir that is expected to “guarantee” so much water for the Lower Basin, to refill Powell and Mead, is the same shrinking reservoir that the Upper Basin depends on. Upper Basin diversions are being curtailed every year, not expanded. There isn’t enough water. The Upper Colorado River Commission’s “Amended 2016 Upper Division States Depletion Demand Schedule”, published in June 2022, was used in BOR’s modeling of Upper Basin demands, but the optimistic projections of that report have never born fruit. The report is a projection of potential future depletions from the Upper Colorado River, but they are just that, projections. And relatively modest ones at that. The report begins with a resolution of the Commission that states,

WHEREAS Depletion Demand Schedules issued by the Commission are not a prediction of future water use or depletions. The Depletion Demand Schedules are estimates that presume the continuation of the observed historically available supply and other demand drivers used for planning purposes and are useful for modeling purposes.

It is simply and estimate based on “observed historically available supply”. Observation and history have made some changes to any anticipated future depletions. The report cites 5.7 maf as the current historical use as of 2022, with potential for increased depletions up to 5.8 maf in 2020 and 6.6 maf by 2070. In reality the annual depletion has dropped to 4 maf or less. With continued aridification and dwindling snowpack Upper Basin depletions will likely stagnate, if not decline. That is just the reality.

Under Colorado law, and constitution, the right to divert water to a beneficial use “shall never be denied”. What that means, as I stated in the previous post, is that anyone can dig a ditch or throw a small pump into any stream and divert water. New applications for water rights are filed every month with the Water Courts, and their decrees will likely be granted. That is again, all on paper. The reality is they probably won’t get much if any water. When the river is flowing high in the spring it is a “free river”, meaning anyone can stick in their straw for a drink. But as soon as the first senior call is placed all that stops, and senior calls are happening earlier and earlier every year. And the local Water Commissioners, the ones who can shut down diversions, are getting busier.

The 1922 Compact has a fairly senior right on all streams and rivers in the Upper Basin. So far, the non-depletion requirement for flows averaging 75 maf over a ten year running average hasn’t been breached. Lake Powell will probably hit power pool or worse before then.

The difference between the demands, hopes, and fantasies of paper water and the hard reality of actual wet water are growing starker every winter and have been since the three giant reservoirs, Powell, Mead and the winter snowpack, have shrunk over the past 25 years. Nature doesn’t care much about paper, reports, lawyers or the dreams of boosters past and present. She always wins in the end.

And as Becky Mitchell, said, litigation won’t create any new water.

A correction/addition to my previous post about misunderstandings on the Colorado River

I need to make a correction on my previous post. The three large Upper Basin’s reservoirs, Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo do provide some water for Upper Basin use, especially Navajo, which provides water to the San Juan-Chama diversion to the Rio Grande basin and Albuquerque. It supplies on average 91 kaf of diverted water. It is expected that there will be no diversion this year. Navajo also provides water for Tribal use to the Navaho and Jicarilla Apachie. Downstream flows from Flaming Gorge, the largest of the three can provide smaller amounts for hay fields in Browns Park and the melons in Green River, but that’s pretty small too. Blue Mesa releases can benefit the Gunnison Tunnel diversions and Redlands downstream, but both are well senior to the Compact.

I knew better.

The main storage of the three reservoirs is still primarily as that Compact compliance savings account, and they will be called upon soon to bolster the levels of Lake Powell, where the inflow from runoff projection is dropping below 2 maf. If things keep going like this for another few weeks it will likely be lower.

The seven states that take water from the Colorado River have a deadline of February 14 to come up with a river management plan that they can all agree on. And every day that passes it looks as if that deadline, not the first one they have faced, will also be missed. Valentines Day may not be one of shared love by all.

The Colorado River basin is experiencing the greatest drought and loss of flows in the past 1200 years and the various agreements crafted to deal with deepening drought, particularly the 2007 Interim Guidelines and subsequent Drought Contingency Plans, are set to expire at the end of this year.

The major sticking point is centered around how water diversions from the river will be cut, and there will be substantial cuts. Most of that burden will fall on the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. They are the largest users of Colorado River water. Cuts for the four Upper Basin states; Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico are not considered in either the previous guideline and agreements nor in the recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Post-2026 Operational Guidelines and Strategies for Lake Powell and Lake Mead by the Bureau of Reclamation. The DEIS only looks at the river below the upper reaches of Lake Powell.

This has the Lower Basin up in arms. They are demanding mandatory, verifiable and enforceable cuts by the river diversions in the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin is refusing this demand, and Arizona in particular is threatening to unleash its historical use of litigation to try and get what it wants.

Underlying this, however, is a very fundamental misunderstanding of how water diversions work between the Lower and Upper Basins. I’m starting to think that misunderstanding is deliberate, primarily to mislead the public constituents within the Lower Basin states.

Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources, has said, “We need certainty there are reductions in upper basin usage because that is one of the two tools that we have… You can’t make it snow or rain. But you can reduce your demand”.

But in the Upper Basin that is not as easy as it sounds.

I have read that the true skill of a good negotiator is in being able to truly understand the other sides position. There are skilled and knowledgeable negotiators in the Lower basin, but I don’t think that they truly understand the Upper Basins position. They have been accustomed, some would say addicted, to the reliable delivery of stored water for all their needs since Hoover Dam was built and began releasing stored water some 90 years ago. Only until very recently, even in the face of an unrelenting drought, have they had to deal with shortages. For the Upper Basin shortage is an annual reality.

The Lower Basin takes water from the Colorado River mainly through a small handful of very large diversions such as the All American Canal, which provides water for Imperial and Coachella Valley agriculture, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) providing water for Pheonix, Tucson, Tribes, and Arizona agriculture and the California Aqueduct, which provides water for Los Angeles, San Diego and most Southern California cities. While distribution from these few large diversions to individual contract uses may be complicated by drought, reducing the intake at their diversion points isn’t.

That situation is very different in the Upper Basin. In Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico there are many thousands if small diversions taking water from the Colorado River, the Green River and their myriad headwater tributaries. There are a few large diversions in the Upper Basin, primarily for water taken out of the basin to Colorado’s East Slope cities and farms and to Utah’s Wasatch Front, but these diversions are still quite small compared to those in the Lower Basin.

The largest reservoirs in the Upper Basin are those built through the Colorado River Storage Act (CRSP, 1956), such as Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and Navajo. These reservoirs were not built to supply Upper Basin water needs, but to provide a “bank account” for Colorado River Compact compliance. In other words, for the benefit of the Lower Basin. Releases from these reservoirs are contemplated in the Post-2026 DEIS to maintain water elevations in Lake Powell that protect vital dam infrastructure and hydropower generation.

Lake Powell is also an Upper Basin reservoir in the CRSP Act of 1956. It was built entirely for Compact compliance and water deliveries to the Lower Basin. It has no water supply benefit to the Upper Basin other than as a Compact savings account.

A major wrinkle in any mandatory curtailments in Upper Basin diversions is simply in administrative logistics. It would be a complete nightmare for water administration and the State water engineers offices. And in Colorado it would be in the Water Courts as well.

A little legal background is needed here as well.

All of the Colorado Basin states have Prior Appropriation as the bedrock doctrine for their water laws. California has a bit of a mix with Riparian law, but as far as the Colorado River diversions are concerned prior appropriation rules. Prior appropriation is the doctrine of “first in time, first in right” to divert the available water. Colorado was the first to codify prior appropriation in its state constitution, in 1876. Article 16, Section 6:

The right to divert the unappropriated waters of any natural stream to beneficial uses shall never be denied. Priority of appropriation shall give the better right as between those using the water for the same purpose; but when the waters of any natural stream are not sufficient for the service of all those desiring the use of the same, those using the water for domestic purposes shall have the preference over those claiming for any other purpose, and those using the water for agricultural purposes shall have preference over those using the same for manufacturing purposes.

In Colorado you don’t actually need a court decreed right to divert water to a beneficial use. Just a shovel and a ditch. However, you are still subject to prior appropriation and can be the first cut off if a call is placed on the stream. There are a lot of such small diversions without an adjudicated right. I used to water my lawn in Eagle that way.

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 was created to avoid prior appropriation between the states. The US Supreme Court had decided that when there is a dispute over water between States that held prior appropriation as their foundational water law, seniority applies across state lines. Southern California was starting to grow at a much more rapid pace than the other states, greatly alarming the headwater, Upper Basin states. The Compact was crafted so that water from the river could be allocated “equitably”, allowing each state to grow and develop its water at its own pace. The Compact became the foundation of what is now known as the Law of the River. Laws based on prior appropriation still govern water use and administration within each State.

Arizona and California began arguing and litigating almost immediately, with Arizona usually on the losing end. That changed in 1963 when the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that once and for all set the water allocations for the Lower Basin, based on the allocations created in the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act, which finally ratified the Compact and paved the way for Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and the All American Canal.

Then the seniority picture between states changed with the passage of the 1968 Colorado River Projects Act that authorized construction of Arizona’s long fought for dream of the Central Arizona Project. To get passage, Arizona had to subordinate its water rights to California, making it the junior and first to take cuts in times of drought.

None of that extended into the Upper Basin, where the States had been getting along just fine, mostly, since the Compact was signed. These four states drafted their own Upper Colorado River Basin Compact in 1948, mainly so they could get more money from the Federal Government to build water storage and delivery projects. They did something novel, allocating each states share by a percentage of the rivers flow, not by set volumes of water as the 1922 Compact had done.

Everything was fine so long as the major reservoirs of Lakes Mead and Powell were full. That has changed considerably since the onset of the current mega, or Millennial drought began in 2000. The two reservoirs have dropped to very low levels, levels never anticipated or planned for.

Here is the crux of the matter. The Lower Basin is demanding mandatory cuts from Upper Basin uses so that more water can flow downstream for their use. The 1922 Compact says clearly that the Upper Basin states “will not cause the river flow at Lee Ferry to be depleted below and aggregate of 75,000,000 acre feet for any period of ten consecutive years…”. The Lower Basin states argue that this constitutes an “obligation” to deliver that much water to them. The Upper Basin states say no, there is no delivery obligation. It is a non-depletion requirement, that through diversions and actual consumption the states can’t let those flows drop below 75 million acre feet (maf) in a ten year running average.

That has never been a problem, until now. The 1922 Compact and its non-depletion requirement is a priority right in itself. Any water right in the Upper Basin that was adjudicated, perfected by actual use and consumption, after 1922 is subject to curtailment for fulfilling the non-depletion requirement. Any and all rights perfected prior to November 1922 are exempt.

So far, as of 2026, the required flows over a ten year running average have not yet hit that non-depletion trigger of 75 maf running average over ten years. Not yet, but it could be getting close.

The Upper Basin states live by a “run of the river” system as there are no large storage units dedicated to their use as the Lower Basin has with Powell and Mead. There are many small reservoirs used for a single irrigation season, filled with the spring runoff and then empty by the end of the growing season. But they also are subject to how much water comes in the spring and downstream senior calls.

Every year, especially since this mega drought and increased aridification began, Upper Basin irrigators are curtailed each summer as the streams shrink and the small reservoirs are drained. Some years this curtailment includes water rights that are senior to the Compact as well.

The Upper basin, in short, is forced to leave within its means, with what it has and no more than Mother Nature provides with the winter snowpack. As Tom Buschatzke said, “You can’t make it snow or rain. But you can reduce your demand”. The Upper Basin does exactly that every year, especially in years like this with a record low snowpack.

The mandatory, verifiable and enforceable cuts demanded by the Lower Basin would be more than difficult to achieve. And again, it would be an administrative and legal nightmare for those assigned the task on the thousands of relatively small, individual diversions that make up the Upper Basin’s water use from the Colorado River. There are those larger trans-basin diversions to the Colorado East Slope and cities, but even if they took substantial cuts, it would still be a pretty small amount of water. No where near the amounts that the Lower Basin has become accustomed to.

Right now the Upper Basin uses roughly half their Compact allocation, roughly around 4 maf a year, while the Lower Basin has historically used more than their full Compact allocation. To their credit, the Lower Basin has made substantial cuts, some voluntary and some enforced by agreements and obligations. California was forced to cut their water use by 800,000 acre-feet with the 2007 Interim Guidelines, back to their actual decreed limit, a cut some claim as an example of how much “sacrifice” they have made. They and Arizona have made additional cuts as well, now taking around 6 maf, from a historic high near 10 maf per year.

I agree that the Upper basin needs to work harder at conservation, and they have been trying hard over the last few years. They haven’t been hording water or ignoring the needs of the Lower Basin or those spelled out in the Compact and subsequent agreements as some in the Lower Basin claim. But “mandatory” cuts beyond those already happening each and every summer will require significant changes with state water law and administration. In Colorado’s case it could well require a change to Article 16, Section Six, of the state’s constitution which has held unaltered since 1876.

We live now in a very different world from the 1800’s and 1922 when the Compact was drafted, using highly optimistic flow calculations that they already knew were wrong. But the men who drafted it were boosters, as were their fathers, seeing the West as they wanted to, not as it really was. America’s westward expansion has always been driven by dreams of abundance, and for a while the river was able to provide that through massive engineering, a still small but growing population and some pretty wet years. Many still hold on to that misguided dream of abundance in an increasingly arid region.

That has all evaporated. All water users in the West, especially the Colorado River basin, expect certainty and reliability, as Tom Buschatzke declared. We’ve built an entire system, and an entire economy based on those principals. Certainty and reliability are now fading rapidly in the rear view mirror, if we dare to look. Many won’t. The Colorado River has made the desert bloom and let us build great cities. But its dwindling supply is placing all that in jeopardy. We need to adapt. The only certain and reliable future is one with less water, greater aridity and warmer and much drier climate.

Maybe our great civilization built on a desert river will go the way of the Hohokam who filled the valley Pheonix now inhabits with irrigation canals and a thriving population. Maybe. We can change that scenario if we adapt to the new reality. That will be both hard and painful. Parochial self-interest must be balanced with regional ties and interests, and that is never easy. Nor is it politically palatable. The Lower Basin is railing against the Upper Basin’s refusal to provide water it just doesn’t have. The Upper Basin is living within its means while honoring its commitments to the Compact as best it can.

The Bureau of Reclamation in its DEIS for Post-2026 river management introduced a new concept, at least new for Colorado River management. Decision making under Deep Uncertainty, or DMDU. Many, seemingly, aren’t familiar with that concept. Even the Bureau’s recommendations may not go far enough with that concept. They don’t seriously engage the reality that both Powell and Mead are headed for deadpool, meaning that the only water available from either reservoir will be what flows in. There will be no storage to rely on. None. That will have far more devastating impacts than what any of the alternatives contemplate.

But when the well runs dry there isn’t much we can do. A few years ago the concept of stationarity in climate norms, basing predictions within the parameters of historical extremes, was declared dead. The ideas of certainty and reliability are now headed for the same graveyard.

My life has been upended with the passing of Paula back in December, two days before what would have been her 73^rdbirthday. It seems like I was the one least prepared, even though I knew the inevitable was coming. Nursing her, sitting with her and holding her hand through the three weeks of hospice and many weeks before that had become my daily habit. Her death, literally in my arms in the wee hours of a cold winter morning, was still a jolt. I had given her medications at 10, a routine of every four hours, and was going to do so again when suddenly there was no more need. My routine took a turn, from medication and tiny sips of water to calling the hospice nurse, handling the details and waiting for the funeral home to pick her up.

I didn’t really break down until the fellow from the funeral home was about to wheel her out on the cot to the waiting van and asked if I wanted to say any final goodbyes. That’s when it hit me, that she was truly gone and I’d never see her again. I bent over, kissed her forehead and started sobbing.

That was the true moment of tremendous change in my life.

So, what now? I’m sure I’m not the only husband or life partner who has asked that when the full weight of such change settles in. Ther long task of 24/7 caregiving has lifted and it is now a different world. Adjusting to that new reality has been slow, but it is happening. I can travel again, go fishing again and see friends I haven’t been with for years. I can pick up my life and plans that were cut short, first with the pandemic and then Paula’s declining condition. It’s been a long strange trip.

So, what now? Seven years ago, Paula and I had planned to take some serious time off, traveling in our little RV to retrace Philip Fradkin’s book “A River No More, The Colorado River and the West”, which came out first in 1981. He had traveled form the headwaters of the Green River downstream to the delta, talking with many people about how the river was shrinking as demands were growing. He was the first writer to take on the reality of the river. His motivation was drought, the two dry years of 1976-77. He saw the future of the basin and wrote a warning. That warning was largely ignored after the overabundance of snowmelt water filled all the reservoirs, literally to overflowing, in 1983-84.

Most people I mention his book to, even people with a long history in the challenges of this now 26 year megadrought, have never heard of it. It is time to pick it up again, as the seven basin States break from cooperation and once more fall into the patterns of bickering and litigation.

The world has changed, and no amount of wishful thinking will bring it back. The past is gone. Now we can only hope that a vision of reality somehow takes hold, that we learn from the past, that this “drought” is perhaps more than just a longer period of pain than usual.

My plan is to pick up on that trip planned way back when with Paula, to sell the house, get rid of a lot of accumulated material baggage, get another RV and travel the river from top to bottom as Fradkin did. To see what has changed and what the future might hold in store with this contested water supply and the communities that depend on it.

I’ll be podcasting and writing from the road, joining the rest of the trailer trash in Arizona where the river comes to a dusty end in the sand long before reaching the sea.

Stay tuned. It’s a whole new world we need to adapt to. The epilog from my previous life is beginning, and I will get out fishing too, and spreading Paula’s ashes in our favorite stream, most of which are tributary to, and include the mainstem of the Colorado River.

I’m keeping a little container of her ashes in my fishing gear so that she will always be with me again on the river. That’s one thing that won’t change.

I should mention that Paula is now in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. A couple weeks ago she developed a thrush infection in her mouth and throat, making it even harder for her to swallow. She sipped water and has been on a diet of Ensure, jello and ice cream. And generally not much of that. She did manage to get most of the “magic mouthwash” into her mouth, although she tended to drink the doses rather than swish and spit. She is well beyond understanding instructions like that. She refused the other mouthwash. We tried a lozenge medication, which worked for a day, but then she refused that as well. The final medication has been a systemic fungicide, a once a day pill, which has been successful. But it has interesting side effects and doesn’t mix well with other daily medications she is on. It can cause dizziness, fatigue and confusion. But it has been clearing the thrush invasion in her body.

So, over the past couple weeks she has become increasingly dehydrated and undernourished, hence the lower blood pressure, collapse and ER visit. She has fallen a couple times since we came home trying to get up to go to the bathroom without help. She just slid off the bed and ended up sitting on the floor where I found her, pulled her up back to the bed or to the bathroom.

Being Thanksgiving I was seeing a lot of messages about gratitude and the things in life we should be thankful for. I have been pondering that quite a bit as I walk Walter in the mornings as Paula sleeps. I have been pretty much a full time caretaker now for over 5 years, although I did have to take on various tasks that Paula did before she started on this long journey into increasing decline and darkness.

Still, there has been much in the few years together while she was whole that I remember with gratitude. Many days fishing on the rivers flowing through our home. The Roaring Fork, Fryingpan and especially the Crystal. There were the day trips to the Gunnison, upper Colorado and Eagle. We explored the small headwater streams of these rivers and more. We had a small raft too. I’d row, happy to watch her cast and land fish in the bow as we drifted the rivers. Our old dog, Gus, enjoyed the trips as well, blessing the trout with a kiss before they were released back into the current.

There were the longer trips, several to Yellowstone and Montana, the San Juan and the Big Horn,10 days in Mexico, fishing everyday for bonefish, tarpan and permit. Three days by boat down the Gunnison Gorge where she fished with a rod and I with a camera.

There were the non-fishing trips too, the Rotary International convention to Bangkok and three weeks in London, northern Sweden and Iceland. There were other longer domestic trips as well, to California, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, Cleveland and Oshkosh, Oregon, Florida, Wyoming and all over Colorado. Our last road trip was to Great Basin NP, where we fished the spring runoff of Lehman Creek. Then to Cedar City, Bryce and that beautiful winding road to Escalante and Torrey. We spent the morning poking about in Capital Reef before a late breakfast in Hanksville and home.

Paula loved to travel and explore.

And on this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to have had Paula in my life. I still am, even as I preside over her decline. Alzheimer’s is called “The Long Goodbye”. It is, although I still greet her in the mornings with a hug and a kiss, the same when saying goodnight and a few times in between. It hasn’t been easy, for either of us. Mostly for her though. I still get to take long walks with our little dog Walter, work on photography and writing, and talk to friends and neighbors with a clear mind. Paula is long past that.

Alzheimer’s dementia is a nasty disease. It is far more than simple memory loss or forgetting where you put your keys. It robs one of more than memory. The brain is the control center for the body itself, and as it starts to shut down, so do otherwise normal bodily functions. Aspirational pneumonia, inhaling food or liquids into the lungs as swallowing becomes difficult is one of the most common causes of death. Difficulty in swallowing, leading to dehydration and malnutrition, along with an increased susceptibility to infection are up there as well. Severe dehydration can lead to kidney and other organ failure, sometimes quickly.

Paula’s thrush infection has been a compounding of these things. The fungal infection in her mouth and throat made swallowing painful and almost impossible. As some of the assorted anti-fungal medications began to work she could drink more and slurp a bit of Jello. Nothing solid. By the day before Thanksgiving that little bit wasn’t enough. The first thing the paramedics did once she was in the ambulance was start an IV. After another bag of saline with dextrose in the ER she started to come around. Now the challenge at home is to keep her hydrated, with some nourishment from Ensure as a bonus.

Alzheimer’s is also among the most feared disease, overtaking even cancer as our population ages. It robs lives, both the one who suffers from the disease and those loved ones near her. Paula’s life, as she knew it, has ended. My life has changed dramatically. Neither of us expected or planned for this. It will kill Paula, eventually, but only after many years of mutual suffering. The disease seems to delight in the twists and turns of anguish it can inflict, like a cat toying with a mouse before finally putting an end to the pain.

Alzheimer’s is also one of the last “taboo” diseases, one we as a society don’t really want to see, much less talk about. Even the medical community has a difficult time. Doctors are trained to be healers, measuring success in survival rates. Yet I’m continually surprised at how many people I meet who have had a similar experience with relatives. It almost seems common.

There is no surviving Alzheimer’s. It is terminal. The Alzheimer’s itself, the junking of the brain with proteins, may not directly kill, but the gradual loss of the body functions it controls do. So, in a sense it is the Alzheimer’s that is the root cause of death. Drugs can slow the progress of the disease, sometimes making the patient more comfortable, but there is no cure, no hope, and in the end no survival. Some of the drugs are good for comfort, both of the patient and caregiver, but I often wonder if slowing the progression is simply prolonging the pain, the inevitable, because we just can’t bear to deal with decline and death.

The disease has a stigma throughout our society and is shunned. Families and old friends who have never dealt with significant diseases of decline and death tend to avoid it. They would rather not deal with it. Even I had a difficult time seeing what was evolving within Paula’s mind at the beginning. When the disease really takes hold we often look to others, nursing homes with assisted and memory care to deal with it. We have our own lives to live, and this is too depressing. Seeing it reminds us that we are not immune. Old friends promise to come visit but never do. I suppose there is also not wanting to see someone you once knew well, enjoyed, loved and respected reduced to this condition. Better to seal that away from view.

Paula is home now and was fairly responsive during the day of Thanksgiving. The next day not so much. Today a bit better. She has drunk a fair amount of water and Gatorade, nearly two glasses, so I am hopeful. She took the last dose of the anti-fungal medication this morning and hopefully that has eased her throat and mouth so she can start to eat and drink at least somewhat normally again. This has just been one more bump in the road on the long Alzheimer’s journey.

Eventually though we will reach the end of the trip, the final chapter of the long goodbye. Then I will travel again. The epilog to this long story, spreading her ashes in the streams and rivers of Montana and Yellowstone, the San Juan, Gunnison, Colorado, Roaring Fork, and especially the Crystal River. And I will do so with a heart full of gratitude, thanksgiving, for all the good times we had together, and for the hard times. They are all part of the same story.

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Others have recently cried out similar warnings. We really are sleepwalking into the end of our democratic republic and into the national suicide of authoritarian rule. Ever since the day that He Who Would Be King stepped into the White House we have seen some of the strongest pillars of our system eroded or collapsed entirely. We are still, for maybe a short while, guided by a Constitution specifically created to avoid such a calamity. But with a Congress meekly acquiescing to the demands of the executive and the Courts increasingly ignored we have lost the checks that document created. Executive orders creating fabricated national emergencies go unchallenged by the cowards in Congress. When they are challenged in the courts they are counter challenged with fanciful fabrications and distortions of law or ignored completely with some patently flimsy excuse. The steamroller of dictatorship keeps rolling on every day.

Yet many Americans are either willfully ignorant, apathetic or actually supportive of what is happening. Why? They know little of our actual history or how our government is supposed to work. The schools and education system has been so seriously degraded that it is now failing us in the very hour that it was originally designed to save.

The far right has understood this for years and worked hard to achieve it. Social media has taken the place of teachers, text books and rational discussion that was the mainstay of my education years ago. If you want to try and talk about our history you are accused of being “woke”. You are attacked personally and viciously. No discussion, no rational argument, no factual basis at all. You are threatened and insulted, all in the too often successful attempt to intimidate and shut you up. That is what tyrants and bullies do.

I guess Lincoln was “woke”.

The far right has also learned a valuable lesson from the ancient Roman despots. Bread and circuses. Keep the masses comfortable with consumer goods, inexpensive basics, endless sources of entertainment and they will be happy, preoccupied and not paying attention. So of course they don’t want people to be “woke”. Stay slumbering in a comfortable fantasy world.

It is interesting how so much of today’s entertainment, from TV and video games to talk shows on the radio have become so much more violent than they used to be. Just like the gladiators in the arenas.

I speak here of the far right because that is where the present threat and danger is coming from. The far left is just as capable of tyrannical intolerance, sometimes even more so, than the far right. The idea of being “woke” was founded in the telling of American history as it truly is, warts, blemishes and all, the ugly as well as the grand and beautiful. In some places it was morphed by the far left into a focus mainly on the ugly, ignoring what is truly great about America’s long road to where we are today. The far right seized on that and further distorted the idea of “woke”. They would have us return to the old mythology of America where the blemishes are covered by makeup, ignorance and racism through the crude surgery of banning books and revisionist history. I have no doubt that far left extremists would do the same were they in power. Such are the perils of extremist ideology regardless of whether it is left or right.

History is crowded with examples of people who fervently believe that the, and only they, hold the correct ideology, the divinely right way of thinking, believing, and above all, behaving. They want to take charge confidant in the true belief that their’s is the only correct path forward. Often those who are really only interested in power and wealth take advantage of these fervent believers and their mythic realities to achieve their goals. Once in power the hold it with oppressive force, superficial obeyance to the Myth and restructuring education by controlling what people know. This has happened from ancient times to the present, from the Roman Emperors to Popes, medieval despots to modern demigods like Hitler and Stalin.

It has happened throughout American history as well. Jim Crow, regional racism, McCarthy and the Red Scare are all examples. The rebellion of the southern plantation oligarchs opposed to the founding principals of the Declaration of Independence and gaining control in Washington DC is perhaps the best example. The Civil War was the result of their losing that control and ability to spread their gospel of slavery and rule by the wealthy few collapsing. It is said that history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.

Now we see it happening again with Trump’s imperial administration. Attacks on the free press is nothing new, but deep financial and even physical threats intending to bully and intimidate into forced compliance with the will of authoritarian control is, at this scale, unprecedented. Now there are Marine’s, the active armed forces, being deployed to quell unrest in Los Angeles. This, along with many other recent actions by the Emperor and his enablers, are patently illegal. Yet the Congress, just as the Roman Senate, simply does nothing.

America has come a long way since its founding 250 years ago, filled with the ideal of Enlightenment philosophy, that all people are created equal and that the power of government should come from the consent of the governed. It has been a long evolving road, but our country is much closer to those ideals now than we were in 1776. That road has been paved with much blood and suffering, as well as many grand success’s, ideals and hard won triumphs. Democracy is fragile and vigilance must be constant lest the Lords of Yesterday come back. Benjiman Franklin, when asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was asked what kind of government they had decided on to run the American Experiment. He responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

I hope that I am not seeing the end of the American experiment. I hope it is just another painful setback on that long and evolving road to success. I fear that it may well be an end without strong resistance and vigilance to defend what we have gained.

I for one will not be intimidated nor shut up. People who speak up and resist are now being called “the enemy within” and “terrorists”, a recent term commonly used by dictators wishing to quell descent. I guess I’m all of those. Those who would govern from narrow minded ideology through force, intimidation and fear are the real enemy within, the real terrorists.

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