INDUCED TRAFFIC | 3 | LOST LANGUAGES | 5 | NEIGHBORHOOD SOLAR | 7

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West Unite and Conquer Las Vegas’ notorious water czar was pugnacious and volatile. But Pat Mulroy launched a quiet revolution that could shield 40 million Colorado River users from the worst effects of catastrophic drought. By Matt Jenkins | Page 10 March 2, 2015 | $5 | Vol. 47 No. 4 | www.hcn.org No. 47 | $5 Vol. March 2, 2015 Editor’s notE ContEnts Glass half full?

On Jan. 1, I joined 15 friends Brazilian tourists Fernando, left, on a raft trip down the and Enrico Gil take a selfie with Colorado River through the Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” as a Grand Canyon. That morning, backdrop. JOhN GuRzINSkI/ LASVEGASPhOTOGRAPhy.COM our boats were covered in snow; the canyon’s red cliffs, capped with white, looked like giant slabs of frosted carrot cake. The ranger said locals had never seen the FEAtUrE place so wintry. So we were delighted to return to Colorado — 10 Unite and Conquer CoVEr thousands of feet higher, where the river’s Rocky Las Vegas’ notorious water czar Mountain headwaters lie — and find no sign of was pugnacious and volatile. winter. “Mountain biking in a tank top. Suck it, But Pat Mulroy launched a New England,” one of our trip leaders crowed quiet revolution that could shield from Durango on Facebook as a blizzard battered 40 million Colorado River users the East Coast. from the worst effects of But as the endless warm days slushed snow catastrophic drought. into mud and turned mud into hardpan, a By Matt Jenkins growing alarm replaced our lizard-like impulse to bask. Between Jan. 25 and Feb. 8, 174 Colorado communities met or broke high temperature records. A few on the state’s eastern plains even CUrrEnts dEPArtMEnts neared or surpassed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The Colorado River, which supplies 40 million 3 Big dig, big disgrace 4 LETTERS people and a $1.4 trillion economy, is already gripped by one of the worst droughts in 1,200 5 Endangered languages 8 THE HCN COMMUNITY years, so the balmy weather doesn’t bode well. Research Fund, Dear Friends 6 Ted Schade: Dust devil And Lake Mead, the giant reservoir that supplies 20 MARKETPLACE Las Vegas, may this year drop dangerously close 6 The Latest: Produced water to an official shortage. 25 WRITERS ON THE RANGE This was among the grim possibilities that 7 A share in the sun ‘Paradise’ has turned a little grim By Jenny Emery Davidson Patricia Mulroy, the former head of the Southern 7 The Latest: Aerial spraying Nevada Water Authority, spent the latter half of 26 BOOKS in Oregon forests her 25-year career preparing for. Now, a year after The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings. her retirement, cover story writer Matt Jenkins Reviewed by Annie Dawid looks back at Mulroy’s long fight to ensure that CoVEr Patricia Mulroy, former The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan. Vegas retained enough water to feed its growth Reviewed by Jenny Shank even as the Colorado River shrank. Though many head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, readers associate Vegas with selfish excess, poses at Las Vegas Springs, 27 ESSAY Mulroy used its predicament to help push the the city’s original water The Other Journey Home By Nathaniel Brodie river’s water managers into a new era of deal- source. JOhN GuRzINSkI/ making and shared sacrifice. The goal is to stretch LASVEGASPhOTOGRAPhy.COM 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston existing supplies as far as possible — with the side benefit of lessening the need for expensive and environmentally damaging new water infrastructure. WEb o nly www.hcn.org Though Mulroy has moved on, that part of her legacy is increasingly relevant: A NASA study When I worked in one, they released Feb. 12 suggests that if greenhouse called“ it ‘an explosion with a fence gas emissions continue to rise at current rates, the Southwest and Central Plains have an 80 around it.’ I got into trouble for percent chance of succumbing to multi-decade pointing out hazards. Hated it. megadrought in the latter half of this century. --Bruce Ostermann, commenting via Facebook on “There are degrees of screwed,” Peter Gleick of “Refinery workers strike for safety” by kate Schimel.” hcne.ws/workerstrike

the Pacific Institute pointedly told Slate, “and this Join tHE ConVErsAtion paper suggests we’re falling off the cliff.” Maybe. But how far we fall, and the severity of impact, may depend on how we choose to adapt — especially as Congress continues to ignore climate change. Mulroy reminds us that looming disaster can be a catalyst for change: A glass half-empty is still a glass half-full. So how Complete access to subscriber-only will we make the best of this dry new normal — content one where any snow along the Colorado, even in In the first installment of “Ranch Diaries,” a new hcn.org series, Laura Jean Schneider tells how HCn’s website hcn.org the Grand Canyon, must be seen as an ever more she and her husband decided to start their own digital edition hcne.ws/digi-4704 precious blessing? cattle company in New Mexico. iPhone app hcne.ws/wuzsWu —Sarah Gilman, contributing editor hcne.ws/ranchdiary1 iPad app hcne.ws/NGtByx

2 High Country News March 2, 2015 CUrrenTS

“I am in Dept. of trA nsportAtIon ple will drive more. “What’s interesting is that traffic increases in almost exactly a love. I do one-to-one relationship with road capac- not believe Big dig, big disgrace ity,” says Matthew Turner, an economist A new mega-tunnel won’t save Seattle from the tyranny of traffic at Brown University and author of a 2011 I have been paper called The Fundamental Law of blinded. I am Road Congestion. “You cannot build your eyes wide long the Seattle water- Bertha into an 8,000-foot dig. way out of problems.” A front, beneath 60 feet of by the numbers More than a year later, Ber- Back in the mid-2000s, many com- open.” earth, lies a monument to hu- tha has barely moved another munity leaders argued — and still argue —Former Oregon man ingenuity. Her name is $80 mI llIon inch, the timeline for comple- — that Seattle didn’t need to replace the Gov. John Kitzhaber, Bertha, and she’s the biggest Cost of machine tion has been pushed back 20 viaduct. Improving surface roads and weeks before he tunnel-boring machine ever $1.00 — $1.25 months, and Seattleites are transit, they said, would be cheaper, safer, announced his proposed tunnel toll resignation amid a built: longer than a football restless. The viaduct is still and more compatible with greenhouse gas field, heavy as the Eiffel Tower, 439 standing, shaky as ever. Build- reduction goals. But the so-called “surface/ federal investigation number of days into whether his endowed with a tooth-studded between movement ings in nearby Pioneer Square transit option” never got far. Abandon the fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, benefitted face five stories tall. Like a gi- 30 have settled and cracked, per- highway, then-Gov. Christine Gregoire financially from their ant earthworm, she can chew approximate number haps as a result of attempts said in 2009, and “you can shut down busi- relationship, in a through dirt and eject it as of buildings that have to rescue the stalled drill. In ness in Seattle.” romance based on slurry; in good soil, she’s capa- settled since rescue January, two Republican state Seattle’s traffic is undeniably terrible a shared belief in a operations began ble of digesting 35 feet per day. senators introduced a bill that — the fourth-worst in the country. Yet greenerf uture. 496 The New York Times On one of her Twitter accounts twitter followers for would kill the $4.2 billion proj- driving rates in Seattle and Washington (@BerthaDigsSR99), she has @StuckBertha ect altogether. “We can’t just state have largely been stagnant — and, over 14,000 followers. She is, 51.4% continue to pour billions of dol- in some places, falling — for over a de- in every respect, a marvel, percentage of Yakima lars into a hole with no sign of cade. National rates have also dropped ev- Herald readers who come to rescue Seattle drivers think Bertha should success on the horizon,” said ery year since 2004. The trend is probably from an unsafe and unsightly go forward Spokane’s Michael Baumgart- generational: Young people drive far less elevated freeway. ner, one of the sponsors. than their parents did. “Bertha, to me, is There’s only one problem: Bertha’s proponents argue a failure of imagination,” says Clark Wil- She’s broken. that if the viaduct comes down liams-Derry, deputy director of the Sight- Bertha’s saga began in 2001, when an without a highway to succeed it, all those line Institute, a Seattle sustainability GOvernOr’S OFFiCe FliCKr paGe OFFiCe FliCKr GOvernOr’S earthquake damaged Seattle’s Alaskan displaced vehicles — up to 110,000 per think tank. “It comes from a mindset that Way Viaduct. In 2009, city and state lead- day — will worsen the city’s already night- can’t conceive of a world in which traffic Gov. Kitzhaber ers agreed to replace the perilous viaduct marish gridlock. But growing evidence volumes might be falling.” and Cylvia Hayes with a 2-mile-long double-decker tunnel. suggests the relationship between high- Eliminating highways could help ex- in happier times Such a tunnel would require a custom-built ways and traffic doesn’t work that way. To pedite driving’s decline: According to one machine, and on April 2, 2013, Seattle’s the contrary: If you don’t build highways, review, up to 25 percent of traffic simply mechanical savior arrived on a barge from the cars won’t come. disappears when road capacity vanishes. Osaka, Japan. “Nice place you’ve got here,” In the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta Bertha tweeted. “I was expecting rain.” magine living in Los Angeles. Once a earthquake, and the fatal, seismically in- As it turned out, Bertha would be the Iweek, you shop for groceries at a pricey duced collapse of the Cypress Street Via- one who needed saving. On Dec. 3, 2013, supermarket two miles away. You could duct, San Francisco decided to tear down she hit a steel pipe; soon after, she over- save money at the Walmart 10 miles down two elevated highways, the Embarcadero heated. Workers eventually discovered that the highway, but with traffic that becomes and Central freeways, and replace them the bearing seals on her face had suffered a half-hour trip. So you stay close to home. with surface boulevards. The much-feared damage. Bertha ground to a halt, 1,023 feet Now imagine that the city adds an ex- congestion crises never materialized. As tra lane to the highway. Surely, you think, it turns out, even improving public tran- By Ben GoldfarB the traffic will dissipate; now it’s worth sit has little influence. Only downsizing driving to Walmart. roads can change driving habits. A concrete bed, But you’re not the only Nonetheless, Bertha will almost cer- constructed at one obeying that logic. tainly survive: Too much money and too the bottom of a Once the road is ex- many reputations are at stake to entomb 120-foot access pit panded, more folks use her now; the bill to kill the project didn’t below the Alaskan it to shop, visit rela- receive so much as a hearing. Bertha re- Way Viaduct, will hold the Bertha tives, go out to mov- cently began crawling toward an access tunnel-boring ies and restaurants. shaft, from which a crane will hoist her machine during Soon, the highway is head to the surface for repairs. “There’s re- repairs. Seattle Dept. OF as clogged as ever. ally no fiscally prudent course other than tranSpOrtatiOn That’s exactly the course we’re on,” Gov. Jay Inslee said what happened when recently. L.A. opened an expen- Though it may be too late for Seattle sive car-pool lane on to turn back, other cities contemplat- I-405 last May. Four ing car-friendly mega-projects would be months later, traffic wise to learn from the city’s struggles. “In was a minute slower the 1950s, bigger and more complicated than it had been be- seemed better,” says Williams-Derry. “But fore. Economists call today’s transportation solutions are dis- this phenomenon “in- tributed, based on technology, more in- duced demand”: Build cremental, more efficient. Bertha is not a more roads, and peo- 21st-century solution.”

www.hcn.org High Country News 3 lEttErs Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. Prefer tweeting? Try #HCNletters. Letters may be edited for length or clarity.

38 High Country News ACCEss And disPArity we might lose when we densify 45 exeCUTIve dIreCTor/PUBlISher the center of our communi- Marshall Swearingen’s article on Paul Larmer ties. Will new development ManaGInG edITor the ongoing battle over access to change or replace existing, Jodi Peterson public lands (“This Land Is Their SenIor edITor often historic, neighbor- Land,” HCN, 2/2/15) highlights Jonathan Thompson hoods? Will it affect the quality arT dIreCTor two of the most crucial concepts of life of established residents, Cindy Wehling in the formation of the culture of aSSoCIaTe edITor many of whom own their the West: private ownership rights 62 Brian Calvert homes and have contributed to and the large amount of land held onlIne edITor Tay Wiles their communities for de- WrITerS on The ranGe in the public domain. These two cades? Will actual traditional edITor Betsy Marston elements and the balancing act aSSoCIaTe deSIGner (walkable) neighborhoods be Brooke Warren required to respect them both adjacent to out-of-character 22 CoPy edITor stand at the heart of what it means development that imitates as- Diane Sylvain to live in the West. While most pects of the authentic historic? ConTrIBUTInG edITorS Westerners could undoubtedly Cally Carswell, Craig Will new tall buildings block Childs, Sarah Gilman, add their own examples of denied the views and sun of estab- Judith Lewis Mernit, access, there are also numerous

Jeremy Miller, Sierra lished residents? Cast shad- CARTOONSTOCk.RIS hARDING, COM Crane-Murdoch, compromises that have continued ows or streetlights onto their Ch Michelle Nijhuis, to ensure access to wild areas. Josh Zaffos homes? Invade their privacy? Recent decisions on Colorado’s decades, I and my predecessors granted CorreSPondenTS Perhaps it is time we look at the en- Ben Goldfarb Roan Plateau and the working trade-off low-impact users permission to traverse a vironment costs of increasing the popu- Krista Langlois brokered by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah and wild single-track trail and creek bed near edITorIal felloW lation of our communities. What is the the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance homes. Sometime in the 1990s, the trail Sarah Tory carrying capacity of the arid Southwest, InTernS are two that come to mind. was taken over by gun-toting motorcycle, Kindra McQuillan anyway? Kate Schimel What the article barely alludes to, ATV and four-wheel-drive users who aSSoCIaTe PUBlISher however, is the increasing disparity widened it, created new tracks and built Duffie Westheimer Alexis Halbert in wealth in the United States. As the unauthorized fire rings. Flagstaff, Arizona develoPMenT ManaGer Alyssa Pinkerton middle class continues to shrink, count- When I closed it to motorized use, develoPMenT aSSISTanT less Americans will be added to the ranks local Jeep clubs forcibly re-opened it, Christine List of those able to find recreational oppor- claiming that I had illegally blocked a FACEbooK FEEdbACK SUBSCrIPTIonS MarKeTer tunities only on public lands, unable to “public highway.” Boulder County refused facebook.com/highcountrynews JoAnn Kalenak afford the prices of prime Western lands to enforce trespassing laws, even though WeB develoPer Eric Strebel ... on Judith lewis Mernit’s story, “Why are or the fees of trophy-hunting outfitters. there was no recorded easement (invert- CIrCUlaTIon analyST environmentalists mad at Jerry brown?” Kathy Martinez The problem is exacerbated in a climate ing the standard burden of proof). No gov- CoMMUnITy enGaGeMenT in which increasingly wealthy inter- ernment entity filed any access claim, but Fred Rinne: “Brown takes big money from Gretchen King aCCoUnTanT ests (whether private or corporate) are it still appeared on Forest Service maps, the Western States Petroleum Association Beckie Avera allowed to treat the public domain as a even though on private property. and will not end fracking in our state. His fInanCIal advISer private holding. My only recourse was to make it phys- water plan would, if enacted, wipe out Paul Gibb ically impassable and to win a lawsuit. river, estuary and bay ecosystems to ben- CIrCUlaTIon ManaGer W. Vance Grace The victims of the standard all-or-nothing efit a few billionaire agribusiness crooks Tammy York Grand Junction, Colorado CIrCUlaTIon access mentality were the traditional day and developers.” Doris Teel, Kati Johnson, hikers and birdwatchers who can no lon- Stephanie Kyle bUllEts, oil, FirE Herb Alexander: “Sometimes you have to ger hike in a place that was ruined by the adverTISInG dIreCTor take yes for an answer. Help him, don’t David J. Anderson “This Land Is Their Land” exposes the bullets, oil and fire of those who treated trash him.” adverTISInG SaleS problems of blocked access, but frames it as if it were their land, all their land, and Jenny Hill Margaret Gilfoyle in terms of landowners vs. access seek- only their land. Now it is de facto wilder- Michael Prather: “The governor needs GranTWrITer Janet Reasoner ers. I have been on both sides of the ness, unused even by me. to kill the tunnels concept and direct foUnder Tom Bell issue, and I understand that it is not that funding to the saving of the Salton Sea, a Mark Boslough [email protected] simple. critical migratory bird pathway. His bul- [email protected] Albuquerque, New Mexico [email protected] Like many residents of Albuquerque’s let train running through counties with [email protected] wildland-urban interface, I live a 10-min- 30 percent unemployment reminds me of tHE doWnsidE oF dEnsiFiCAtion Board of dIreCTorS ute walk from public land that connects India, with its 60 percent poverty, going John Belkin, Colo. to the wilderness. Unfortunately, develop- As an Arizona resident for more than 30 to Mars. Sheesh. ...” Sean Benton, Mont. Beth Conover, Colo. ers have made access difficult for hikers, years, I read “Transportation Transforma- Jay Dean, Calif. even though people have walked up the tion” with great interest (HCN, 11/24/15). Bob Fulkerson, Nev. Wayne Hare, Colo. arroyos for centuries. I applaud the light rail, more bikes and Laura Helmuth, Md. Our arroyos are now platted into walking. However, I believe there are John Heyneman, Wyo. Nicole Lampe, Ore. private lots. Our closest formal public unacknowledged consequences to the new, Wendy Pabich, Idaho access requires that we drive to a paved denser development. In reality, this push Marla Painter, N.M. Not Lou Patterson, Colo. lot several miles away (when it is open). for infill in the center of communities is from Dan Stonington, Wash. In an age of permissive open-carry rules, another building boom to accommodate Rick Tallman, Colo. HCN! Luis Torres, N.M. combined with “make-my-day” laws higher populations. This is not about Andy Wiessner, Colo. for confrontations on private property, stopping sprawl — the outlying suburbs Florence Williams, D.C. Subscriber alert! unresolved prescriptive easements are are already built. This new development An Oregon company is targeting HCN potential gunfight zones. Still, hikers will just put more roofs over more heads subscribers with unauthorized renewal offers. High walk up the arroyos. and use more resources. Where will the These offers are not from HCN! Find out Country I have been on the other side of the is- additional water come from? more and report any offers you’ve received News sue, too, in Boulder County, Colorado. For Another consequence involves what from the company at hcn.org/renewalscam. Printed on recycled paper.

High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent media organization that (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 times a year, by high Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other covers the issues that define the American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire post offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes toh igh Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. 800-905-1155. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are people to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human communities. reserved. See www.hcn.org for submission guidelines. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155 | www.hcn.org 4 High Country News March 2, 2015 CHEyEnnE In August, 40 snAPsHot 57 Cheyenne 38 16 12 tribal members 33 56 participated in 42 KlAllAM hazel the first language Simpson, the last 45 37 39 immersion camp in native klallam Bear Butte, South 46 speaker, died last 21 13 18 Dakota. 52 year at age 103. Today, the majority 51 of klallam speakers 7 9 are children who nortHErn learn it as a second PAiUtE Part of language at sev- 62 an extensive fam- eral schools on the ily of uto-Aztecan 8 Olympic Peninsula. 47 languages once 17 spoken across the 19 40 49 Southwestern u.S., nAVAJo Navajo Northern Paiute, or has the most native 50 Paviotso, is “criti- speakers of any in- 22 58 CoCoPAH Since cally endangered” the mid-2000s, digenous language 32 and down to its last tribal language in the u.S., with 62 three speakers, and preservationists over 170,000 — 54 55 35 two of them are in have tried several but, according to 20 their 90s. novel methods to Census figures, only keep Cocopah alive, a quarter of those

RIS hARDING, CARTOONSTOCk.RIS hARDING, COM 36 60 including a bingo- speak it “very well.” Ch like game using 15 29 14 basic vocabulary. A student copies Lakota words during a class at the Native American Community Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. BRIAN LEDDy 26 48 28 23 5 24 1 11 3 6 10 Endangered languages 63 44 30 Most of the native tongues of the West are all but lost 61 59 4353 2 25 31 4 34 41 ast February, 103-year-old Hazel roughly 70 Native languages still spoken l Simpson of Port Angeles, Washington, in the region, Navajo is by far the healthi- died. This was notable not only because est, with more than 170,000 speakers. 27 of her age, but because she was the last Many languages, however, are down Native speaker of Klallam, the language to their last speakers. Northern Paiute is of the S’Klallam Tribe of the Olympic one of dozens of Western tongues classi- Peninsula. fied as “critically endangered.” Northern roughly 250,000 speakers The S’Klallams have worked hard Paiute, also known as Paviotso, belongs to over the last decade to revitalize their the Uto-Aztecan family of languages, once of more than 60 languages live in the West language, publishing a dictionary and spoken by dozens of tribes from southern starting a program to teach Klallam as Mexico to Oregon. number number a second language to schoolchildren on Today, there are only three surviving on number on number the Elwha Reservation. But something native Paviotso speakers, all of whom live map language of speakers map language of speakers irreplaceable died along with Simpson, in Bridgeport, California, on the eastern 1 Navajo 170,822 33 Okanogan 284 the last living person to learn Klallam at slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Maziar Too- 2 Apache 14,012 34 Diegueno 228 home and speak it as a primary language. sarvandani, a linguist from University of 3 zuni 9,432 35 Washo 227 Like endangered species, languages California, Santa Cruz, is working with 4 Pima 8,190 36 Sierra Miwok 216 are dying across the planet. By one these last speakers — two of them in 5 hopi 6,776 37 Puget Sound Salish 207 estimate, one language vanishes every 14 their 90s — to build an online dictionary 6 Tewa 5,123 38 Makah 176 days. At this rate, according to language and a compendium of tribal stories. 7 Crow 3,962 39 Coeur d’Alene 174 researchers from the University of Such efforts have proven invaluable. 8 Shoshone 2,512 40 hupa 174 9 Cheyenne 2,399 41 yuma 172 Hawaii, between half and 90 percent of Toosarvandani points to the case of the 10 Tiwa 2,269 42 klallam 146 the world’s 7,000 distinct languages will Oklahoma-based Miami Tribe, where a 11 Towa 2,192 43 yavapai 139 disappear by the end of the century –– a scholar reconstructed the phonetics and 12 Blackfoot 1,970 44 Cahuilla 139 higher rate than the loss of the planet’s grammar of this dormant language us- 13 Sahaptian 1,654 45 Quinault 128 biodiversity. Of the 176 known languages ing 200 years of anthropological records. 14 Southern Paiute 1,638 46 Cowlitz 110 once spoken in the U.S., 52 are thought to Today, the language is being taught to lo- 15 ute 1,625 47 klamath 95 be dormant or extinct. cal schoolchildren through the Myaamia 16 Northern Straits Salish 1,233 48 havasupai 90 Languages die for complex reasons. Center at Miami University in Oxford, Chasta Costa 84 17 Arapaho 1,087 49 But research suggests a combination of Ohio. “There are examples of languages 18 Nez Perce 942 50 Achumawi 68 19 karok 700 51 upper Chinook 58 imperialism, economic development and that have been extremely endangered or 20 Pomo 648 52 Santiam 50 mass urbanization, all of which tend dormant, and that have been revitalized,” 21 Chinook Wawa 644 53 Maricopa 44 to favor dominant national languages, Toosarvandani said. “It’s possible. But 22 yurok 491 54 Northwest Maidu 32 such as English, Spanish, Mandarin and you’ve got to have the documents to do it.” 23 Cocopah 483 55 Wintu/Nomalak 62 French. A recent study by an interna- The Endangered Languages Project, an 24 Walapai 458 56 Spokane 20 tional group found a striking connection ambitious partnership between Google and 25 Chiricahua 457 57 Columbia 17 between economic growth and the disap- the University of Hawaii at Manoa, not 26 Jicarilla 455 58 Atsugewi 15 pearance of indigenous languages. only collects troves of information about 27 yaqui 425 59 Chemehuevi 15 According to data from the U.S. Census the world’s threatened languages but plots 28 Foothill N.yokuts/Tachi 452 60 Northern Paiute 12 Bureau, roughly 370,000 Native-language them on an interactive online map. 29 Mono 349 61 Cupeno 11 30 Mohave 330 62 Siuslaw 6 speakers live in the United States, approxi- These initiatives will not preserve 31 Luiseno 327 63 Serrano 5 mately 250,000 of them in the West. Of the threatened tongues. The hope, however, 32 Mountain Maidu 319 247,580 remains that linguistic information can be saved in a sort of time capsule, await- SOuRCES: uS CENSuS AMERICAN COMMuNITy SuRVEy (2010) By JereMy MIller AND CATALOGuE OF ENDANGERED LANGuAGES AT ThE uNIVERSITy OF hAWAII. ing future rebirth.

www.hcn.org High Country News 5 tHE lAtE st Backstory California oil produc- tion has slid since the mid-1980s, but one drilling byprod- uct has soared. In some fields, the ratio of “produced water” to oil is greater than 10 barrels to one (“Oil and water don’t mix with California agriculture,” HCN, 12/15/10). Produced “water” is actually a briny fluid often laced with contaminants including benzene, heavy metals and radiation. Most of the 130 billion gallons generated annu- ally is pumped into underground disposal wells, or dumped into evaporation ponds. State regulation has remained spotty. Followup In February, the Envi- UnCoMMon WE stErnEr ronmental Protec- tion Agency found that state regula- tors had permitted Ted Schade: Dust devil more than 2,500 wells to inject pro- A civil engineer tackles a massive cleanup duced water into LITTLE federally protected aquifers — many of on’t call Ted Schade a hero — defi- of the Owens Lake Mining District and which may contain nitely not an environmental one. a small pencil drawing of a snowy plo- water clean enough d Even though he’s largely responsible ver, the lake’s iconic bird. The miniature BRAx TONJANE to drink. Nearly half the permits were for the cleanup of cancer-causing dust Japanese-inspired water fountain Schade issued in the last four from Southern California’s Owens Lake, built, complete with tiny bamboo spout, Vocation years, according to something he accomplished by waging burbles. Civil engineer, on his Dec. 31 the Associated Press, a decades-long David vs. Goliath battle “I’m a water guy, and this is the des- retirement: “My job here is done.” corresponding to in- against the Los Angeles Department of ert,” he explains with a shrug and quick Hometown creased drilling in the Water and Power –– Schade will tell you: smile. Orange County, California Monterey shale forma- He is not a hero. For much of the last 24 years, he has tion, which underlies The director of the Great Basin Unified haunted the dusty shores and crusty dry botanical prowess much of central Air Pollution Control District, a California bottom of Owens Lake, monitoring air pol- Grows 150 varieties of organic roses California. In addition agency, Schade views his legacy with an en- lution. Schade loved the area from child- to tighter injection literary prowess gineer’s practical logic. “I had a lawbreaker. hood visits, and, years later, on a whim, regulation, clean Wrote Owens Water Journal, a I’m a law enforcement officer,” he says, left a water-engineer job in San Diego water advocates want collection of haiku to ban the dumping rummaging in a desk drawer for the badge County at twice the salary to join the air of oil wastewater from he confesses he has seldom worn. district. When he first heard of fugitive Artistic passion hundreds of sumps A lean, mild-mannered man with thin- dust, he thought it sounded like some- Building furniture, clocks and and ponds. ning gray hair, Schade, 57, seems more thing escaped prisoners left in their wake. office fixtures. “Woodworking is the JEREMy MILLER like Mr. Rogers’ sidekick than an environ- But he soon learned that the ambient par- most useful art.” mental warrior. He is polite and genteel, ticles swirling over the basin were a ma- His ride yamaha 650. the product of a Catholic education. But jor health hazard — and a violation of the the strength that helped him successfully federal Clean Air Act. Owens Lake is the He says challenge one of the nation’s most power- largest single source of tiny particulate “We need the rabble-rousers, ful municipal departments sparkles in his matter in the United States. the alternative solution.” eyes: steely blue, penetrating and amused. The 110-square-mile lakebed has been “I like the fight,” he says. dry since 1926, 13 years after Los Angeles

CTION Schade (pronounced “shady”) works officials opened an aqueduct that diverted

TER A from Suite 9, his office under the red-tiled water 200 miles away to the young me- and other carcinogens, carrying it up to A roof of a former Bishop motel that serves tropolis. The audacious water grab, me- 50 miles and threatening the 40,000 resi- as headquarters for the tiny air pollution morialized in the 1974 movie Chinatown, dents of Owens Valley with asthma and LEAN W C district. On the wall is a mid-1800s map turned the lake into a ghostly white alkali emphysema — even heart attacks. void. Winds sweeping down the Sierra “You don’t want to breathe this stuff,” By Jane BraxTon lITTle Nevada kicked up a toxic brew of arsenic says Schade. “It can kill you.”

6 High Country News March 2, 2015 Downdrafts kick up dust over Owens Lake. BrIAn ruSSeLL/gBuAPCD

He made it his mission to improve air quality, experimenting with dust-abate- ment techniques that required the least amount of water: shallow flooding, gravel, THE LATEST saltgrass. He meticulously documented airborne particulates. And he kept poking Backstory around the lakebed and finding more pol- In recent years, tim- lution. By 1997, he was prepared to order ber companies have Los Angeles to implement dust controls begun spraying under federal clean air regulations. herbicides from he- “And then the fun began,” says Schade. licopters to kill com- petitive forest weeds L.A. balked; Schade persisted. L.A. sued. (“Fallout,” HCN, Courts backed the district. L.A. attacked. 11/10/14). Some of Schade increased monitoring. By 2013, those chemicals used, the city was devoting 25 billion gallons of such as 2,4-dichloro- water annually and had spent more than Nancy Lillquist at the Ellensburg, Washington, Renewable Park. Even though she paid a steep phenoxyacetic acid $1.3 billion on dust abatement. That re- price as an early supporter of community solar, she’s still a big fan. KATrInKA KALArChIK — an ingredient in Agent Orange — have duced dust by 90 percent — but it wasn’t sickened nearby resi- enough. ENErgy JourNAL dents; some can even Throughout the struggle, Schade re- cause kidney failure. mained committed to a fundamental prin- Oregon is alone ciple: “Los Angeles has caused a problem. A share in the sun among Western states It has to clean up after itself.” He recounts in allowing aerial spraying near homes the ensuing barrage of personal insults Community solar comes of age in the West and schools with no with obvious relish: empire builder, out-of- advance warning. control regulator, zealot. “If they stopped ancy Lillquist was never optimistic “it feels good to make energy locally.” calling me names, I’d know I was not do- Nthat solar panels would work on her “People were coming from all over the Followup ing my job.” roof in Ellensburg, Washington, a college country to look at the project,” she says. On Feb. 10, Oregon It did get ugly, says Pete Pumphrey, town on the Cascade Mountains’ dry east- Other cities followed Ellensburg’s lead. legislators proposed a retired attorney and president of East- ern slope. The neighborhood’s big conifers Municipal utilities in Ashland, Oregon, a law requiring ern Sierra Audubon. After each setback, blocked the sun. As a city council member, and St. George, Utah, soon created those timber companies Schade regrouped and returned to the she noted the irony: Even as she and her states’ only community solar arrays. In to give officials at least a week’s battlefield. “He’s one of those people able fellow council members advocated for so- 2007, the Sacramento Municipal Utility notice before aerial to see the outcome and just keep working lar, they were also encouraging planting District filled its 1-megawatt community pesticide spraying toward that vision.” more trees for shade. solar program — roughly nine times larg- and to identify which During Schade’s 24 years, three Then Lillquist found another option: er than Ellensburg’s — with 600 subscrib- chemicals they plan months and 20 days with the air district, In 2006, she invested $1,000 in a solar- ers. More than 20 other Western utilities to use and where. The bill also directs the Los Angeles went through five different powered renewable energy park the city’s have since adopted shared solar, some state’s Agriculture Department of Water and Power manag- utility had just built. The project, which with projects many times the size of El- Department to ers. Through it all, Schade stuck to his tac- would grow to 109 kilowatts over the lensburg’s. establish no-spray tic of “making agreeing agreeable because coming years — enough to power a doz- Spurred by dramatically lower solar residential buffer the alternative is so bad.” en homes — occupied open city-owned panel prices and rising demand, commu- zones. “Oregon isn’t It finally worked. When Eric Garcetti ground near soccer and baseball fields. nity solar “has reached a tipping point,” doing enough to protect the health became mayor of Los Angeles in 2013, he Lillquist’s contribution paid for about one according to Becky Campbell, a senior re- of rural citizens from brought in new managers who were inter- solar panel in the facility, whose output searcher at the Solar Electric Power Asso- aerial herbicide ested in solutions, not unending combat. would earn her and about 100 other resi- ciation. That means solar energy is on the sprays,” state Sen. “They knew a lousy legal strategy when dents a credit on their utility bills. cusp of being available to everyone. But Michael Dembrow told they saw one,” Schade says. Meanwhile, When the Renewable Park came on- it also means that Ellensburg’s ideals are The Oregonian. “It’s Schade and the air district had finalized line, it was by many accounts the birth of feeling the strain of going mainstream. time to change these outdated policies.” tests of a new waterless dust-abatement “community solar.” The concept addresses method. Late last year, the city agreed to a basic problem: While many homeown- ommunity solar hasn’t had an easy Judith Lewis Mernit control the dust on up to 53.4 square miles ers support clean energy, the majority of Cpath forward. Most people are served of lakebed, using enormous bulldozers to residential rooftops lack sufficient solar by for-profit, “investor-owned” utilities, dig deep furrows that capture and retain exposure. Renters usually can’t install which are accountable foremost to their the loose dust. The agreement promises solar panels, no matter how sunny their shareholders and are heavily regulated clean air for Owens Valley and allows Los rooftops, and some homeowners simply by states. In those utilities’ territories, Angeles to save 3 billion gallons of water can’t afford them. community solar frequently encounters annually — a classic win-win. Ellensburg’s idealistic experiment “regulatory underbrush,” says Joseph In a press release touting the settle- cost more than $1 million to complete. Wiedman, a solar law expert represent- ment, Mayor Garcetti described Schade And because the city bought in just before ing the nonprofit Interstate Renewable as “a truly great environmentalist.” Of solar began a steep price drop, its solar Energy Council. all the names he has been called over the electricity costs seven times more than Some of that underbrush involves years, this is the most surprising one and, the cheap local hydropower. Subscribers “net metering.” Forty-three states require considering the many past insults, it’s like Lillquist will probably never recoup investor-owned utilities to reimburse cus- from the office Schade least expected. “It’s their investments. Nevertheless, she says, tomers with solar on their property for ironic,” he says, with a rare full-on grin. “I the electricity they supply to the grid. But

guess I finally got through.” By MarshaLL swearingen Please see Community solar, page 24 OF LAnDBureAu MAnAgeMenT

www.hcn.org High Country News 7 The hCn CoMMUnITy

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8 High Country News March 2, 2015 DEAR FRIENDS

Nampeyo, a Tewa Hopi potter of the Hano Pueblo in northeastern Arizona, decorating pottery in 1903. Yellowware open bowl, detail, attributed to Nampeyo. c. 1905. hOMER EARLE SARGENT, JR. LIBRARy OF CONGRESS, PRIVATE COLLECTION January exodus As if the short, cold Janu- the biggest snows on record, ary days were not depressing their rafts covered with several in sEArCH oF nAMPEyo: enough, it was also a bit lonely inches of powder. But over the tHE EArly yEArs, 1875-1892 Steve Elmore at High Country News’ mother- next three weeks, as they made 220 pages, ship in Paonia, as a good portion their way through the Big Ditch, softcover: $50. of the staff deserted us for some the weather improved. So much Spirit Bird Press, 2015. or all of the month. Copyeditor so, in fact, that it was perfect for extraordinaire diane sylvain a wedding: Langlois married her made her annual pilgrimage to beau, Jesse Mogler. The bride, Nampeyo was the one of the first Native American artists to be recognized St. Benedict’s Monastery near reputedly, wore a lifejacket; no and honored by Euro-Americans. The elegant abstractions of this Snowmass, Colorado, for several word on whether the groom was traditional hopi potter brought her fame and launched an art movement days, leaving the rest of us to try equally prepared. in the late 19th century. But she rarely signed her work, and much of it to avoid lapsing into commas. was later lost. In his book, In Search of Nampeyo, Steve Elmore, a New Meanwhile, art director Cindy Visitors Mexico-based artist and gallery owner, tracks what he believes is her work Wehling bailed to Hawaii for a Fortunately, our solitude was through museum storage rooms, private collections and even old, mail- week of well-deserved vacation. broken by one visitor: Erin Minks order catalogues, where her pieces may have sold for as little 50 cents. Writers on the Range edi- of Alamosa, Colorado, who What Elmore uncovers suggests an inventive potter, who may have created over 10,000 pieces and who patiently reworked intricate ideas until she tor betsy Marston gallivanted stopped by with her daughter, was satisfied. Elmore reintroduces us to a distinctive artist whose work around the world, to Ireland noelle, while tracking down “a deserves rediscovery and celebration. and Spain, before spending a nest” of old college friends who few weeks in Berlin, Germany. live near Paonia. Erin had re- Her husband, HCN’s legendary cently unearthed an issue of the publisher Ed Marston, wrote: magazine that she’d saved, from Paul T. & Janet M. davidson | david Polster | Salt Lake City, uT Berlin is thus far living up to over 15 years ago. She says it Colorado Springs, CO Tom Pratum | Mckinleyville, CA expectations. Bitter and raw influenced her work as a staffer lillian d. dawson | Longmont, CO Irmtraud ralston | San Luis Obispo, CA “suicide” weather; overcast even for Mark Udall, Colorado’s for- dennis dimick | Arlington, VA Charles e. reiber & diane davis-reiber | when Berliners call it sunny; mer senator, and that she plans dennis & Terry divoky | West Glacier, MT Grand Junction, CO and gruff store employees who to keep reading in her next job: norris dodd | Pinetop, Az edwin & Sylvia reis | Bethesda, MD think retail service is telling forest planner for Rio Grande liz ellis | Aberdeen, WA Karen renne | Bozeman, MT you to stop bothering them. But National Forest. Marilyn & Paul felber | Alpine, CA Martin T. retzlaff | Salt Lake City, uT a wonderful city nonetheless elaine & John french | ketchum, ID Steven rock | Berkeley, CA because of its fascinating past CorrECtion Jon Gibans | Aspen, CO James ruckman | Meeker, CO and present and all the foreign- Judith Lewis Mernit, in her Feb. Wayne Goin | Montrose, CO dick & Sandy Shuptrine | Jackson, Wy ers here, in a nation that used to 2 story about Gov. Jerry Brown’s be 98 percent German. uncertain climate leadership Gary Grief & dorothy Wells | Taos, NM Peter Slattery | Salinas, CA Then there was a mass (“The Limits of Legacy”), said ronald Guidotti | Minden, NV Julie Smith | Golden, CO exodus into the Grand Can- the organization 350.org led a Catherine hansen-Stamp | Golden, CO richard Stopol | hailey, ID yon, via rafts, by Web editor Feb. 7 climate march in Oak- Christi haswell | Sheridan, Wy laura Stump | Loveland, CO tay Wiles, contributing editor land, California. A number of Kathy & Melvin haug | Indianola, WA Marian Talen | Springfield, OR sarah gilman and correspondent environmental and labor groups Will hiatt | Denver, CO Candace G. Taylor | Lakewood, CO Krista langlois and contribu- collaborated on the march, of andrea holland & Jim Sears | Jason Tennessen | Bloomington, IN Glenwood Springs, CO tor danielle Venton, along with which 350.org was just one. richmond & Sarah Thomason | Chelsea, MI many others. They got on the —Jonathan Thompson and robert S. hollis | Crystal Lake, IL James Thorne | Davis, CA river at Lees Ferry on New Kate Schimel for the staff Ian a. Jackson | Pinetop, Az Marc Tittle | Palisade, CO Year’s Day following one of Mary ann Joca | Albuquerque, NM dick T. Torkildson | Clancy, MT Melinda Kassen | Boulder, CO frances Trafton | Providence, RI david Kaye | Lakewood, CO lydia Trinca | Nibley, uT robert & Kathleen Kelley | Meeker, CO robert Utter | Anchorage, Ak Kathryn Kettler | Sebastopol, CA Patricia vadasy | Seattle, WA nancy & Karl lillquist | Ellensburg, WA norma l. van nostrand | Granby, CO Brian loughman | Grand Junction, CO Stephen verkamp | Flagstaff, Az Judith Maeda | Williams, Az Thalia venerable | Santa Fe, NM linda McCarter & Brian Tack | Iowa City, IA hal vosen | heron, MT Stephen & Christin McCollum | Smith River, CA robert Wagner | Castle Rock, CO devon Mcfarland | Trinidad, CO Philip Warburg | Newton, MA Steven Mcomber | Logan, uT Jean Warren | Seattle, WA Mary Moran & dennis Silva | Moab, uT nancy & Tim Weil | Denver, CO linda Morgan | Sagle, ID richard Wesson | Pullman, WA robert Moston | Grand Junction, CO Kate West & alan McKnight | Willow, Ny Madeleine & Thomas nash | San Francisco, CA anna Wilde | Portland, OR anne nelson | St. Cloud, MN oliver Wilgress | Bellingham, WA Pamela nelson | Warner Springs, CA linda Wilkins | Ontario, CA Jeremy nichols | Golden, CO Marc r. Williams | Etna, CA James W. nollenberger | hotchkiss, CO George r. Wilson | Coeur d’Alene, ID hiram & Judith li ordl | Corvallis, OR John Winter | Tucson, Az From left, Danielle Venton, Krista Langlois, Tay Wiles and Sarah Gilman dennis Pearson | Cañon City, CO Tim Withee | Los Angeles, CA soak up the sun in the Grand Canyon. LOGAN WOODS-DARBy Joyce Peterson | Loveland, CO James C. Woods | Littleton, CO John Platt | Bellevue, WA deborah & Will Wroth | Santa Fe, NM www.hcn.org High Country News 9 Unite and Conquer

10 High Country News March 2, 2015 FEATURE | By MATT JEnkins

Unite and Conquer Las Vegas’ notorious water czar was pugnacious and volatile. But Pat Mulroy launched a quiet revolution that could shield 40 million Colorado River users from the worst effects of catastrophic drought.

he morning of Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005, brought nonsense I was going to listen to,” she remembers. hints of a classic New Mexico fall, with a forecast “And I blew my cork.” high in the 80s and a trace of rain. But in a Bristling, she rose abruptly and warned Wyndham Hotel at the Albuquerque airport, not everyone that they stood at the brink of war. “She far from where the rugged buttress of the Sandia said, ‘Nevada has very little water, but the one Mountains rose into the autumn sky, life was thing I do have is millions and millions of dollars, anything but serene. Tensions were rising around a and I can afford to spend years in the Supreme conference table in a rented meeting room, and the Court fighting you all,’ ” remembers Farris. “ ‘So catered sandwich platters sat forgotten. you need to figure out whether you’re going to help For more than a year, the Southwest’s top water me out — or we’re going to court.’ ” bosses had been shuttling between airport hotels Then she stormed out, headed for the next all over the region. Regulators from the seven flight back to Vegas. Everyone sat in stunned states that depend on the Colorado River, together silence. “It was just like a bomb had gone off in the with major urban water-agency managers, faced a room,” says John Entsminger, then one of Mulroy’s collective crisis that threatened the water supply lead attorneys. of nearly 40 million people and a $1.4 trillion Suddenly, Mulroy burst back in — to retrieve economy: A six-year drought that showed no signs the cellphone she’d left behind in her fury. Then she of letting up. turned and disappeared once more, the heavy door No one at the table that day commanded more slamming behind her. attention than Patricia Mulroy. Then 53, Mulroy This was classic Pat Mulroy: brash, blunt, was the lead negotiator for the state of Nevada combustible and sometimes her own worst enemy. and the head of the Southern Nevada Water Yet by last February, when she retired after 25 Authority, the powerful agency that supplies Las years as Nevada’s top water boss, Mulroy had Vegas with its water. Partial to pantsuits and shirts challenged much of the legalistic dogma on the with popped collars — a look she picked up from river and forced a radical new style of deal-making Katharine Hepburn — Mulroy has a crisp, wrinkle- in the face of crisis. proof bearing and an often unnerving intensity. “She really was a major force in transforming For her, the stakes were especially high. Las the way the states worked on the Colorado River,” Vegas’ population was exploding, but the city had says Bruce Babbitt, U.S. secretary of Interior under rights to less than 2 percent of the river’s water, President Clinton. and that was running out fast. The one resource Today, the drought that the water bosses were Mulroy had in abundance was money: In 2005, the contemplating in 2005 is dragging into its 16th Former Las Vegas Water Authority would rake in more than $363 year, and scientists recognize it as one of the worst water czar Pat million. in more than 1,200 years. Mulroy was pugnacious, Mulroy earlier this Inside the Wyndham, negotiations reached but she also argued for a spirit of flexibility and year. Mulroy had an impasse as representatives from Arizona shared sacrifice. And in doing so, she helped launch a fierce reputation and Colorado locked horns over differing a quiet revolution that will shape Colorado River — and a fondness interpretations of a key part of the complex body politics far into the future, and perhaps provide a for personally of law that governs the river. “It just went on and path to safety in the face of intensifying scarcity. chauffeuring climate scientists and other on and on,” says assistant New Mexico Attorney Yet even as that transformation ripples forward, visitors to the Las General Steve Farris. “And the longer it went on, a moment of decision is nearing in another of Vegas airport to you could just see Pat getting angrier and angrier Mulroy’s campaigns — a multibillion-dollar water catch their flights. and angrier.” project that stands starkly at odds with much of John Gurzinski/ lasveGasphotoGraphy. Finally, Mulroy had enough. “I’d heard all the what she preached. com

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 number of ulroy came to the world of Western she was general manager — and found people Las Vegas population, 1989-2013 water as an outsider. Born in Ger- herself with a fight on her hands. The many in 1953, Elizabeth Patricia seven agencies were running out of wa- 2,000,000 m Gallagher was the daughter of a German ter and squabbling over what remained. mother who had herself been born in Java. “Southern Nevada was in meltdown,” she Her father was a civilian contractor who says. “It was acrimonious and ugly.” 1,500,000 helped run U.S. airbases. Mulroy also lived It took three years to find “peace and in Libya for several years. Her childhood a pathway forward,” as she puts it, by left her with a cosmopolitan sensibility. “As convincing the other agencies to cooper- a family, we had always viewed the world ate under the banner of a new superagen- 1,000,000 as one place,” she told me last March, in cy called the Southern Nevada Water a conference room just outside her former Authority, whose primary goal would be office. to ensure water supplies for the entire Mulroy first came to the city that metropolitan area. From the start, it was 500,000 would become her longtime home in 1974, clear that Mulroy would be in charge. on a scholarship to University of Nevada, “There was no way in hell,” says George Las Vegas, where she would earn her Forbes, then Boulder City manager, “that bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Ger- she was going to play Number Two to 0 man Expressionist literature. She began anybody.”

2011 a doctoral program at Stanford, but ran 2012 2013

1991 Then Mulroy turned outward. In the 2010 1997 1989 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1998 1999 2001 2007 2000 2002 2003 2005 2006 2008 2009 2004 out of money and returned to Las Vegas 1920s, when the Colorado River was in 1978. originally divvied up, Las Vegas was Lake Mead July elevations, 1935-2014 “She was broke,” says Richard Bunker, little more than a railroad stop, and Ne- 1,250 Clark County manager at the time, who vada was a sparsely populated desert. 1,225 hired Mulroy as his assistant and became The other six states that share the river 1,200 her political godfather. “And that’s when received nearly all the water — and the 1,175 I hired her at the county.” Mulroy quickly power. Mulroy was determined to change 1,150 proved her mettle. “She was the hatchet that by challenging the so-called “law of man,” he says. “She had a tough reputa- the river,” an amalgamation of more than 1,125 tion.” four-dozen statutes, international treaties 1,100 In 1978, she also met Robert Mulroy, and court decrees that other states’ man- 1,075 a county finance manager. On weekends, agers adhered to, Mulroy notes sarcasti- 1,050 Bob worked as a ski patroller at the near- cally, as if they were Moses’ tablets. With 1,025 by Lee Canyon Ski Area, and Pat rode southern Nevada’s warring agencies now levation in feet levation

e 1,000 in the rescue toboggan as a mock victim. united, Mulroy was ready to take on the 975 The two married in 1981; their son, Ryan, other states. “When we said something,” was born in 1986, their daughter, Kelley, she says, “they knew we meant it.” 950 in 1987. For his part, Bunker likens Mul- 925 In 1985, Mulroy became deputy gener- roy’s entrance into the broader realm of 900 al manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water Colorado River politics to unleashing “a 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 (Jan. 1) District, one of seven water agencies that flash-bang grenade” on a bunch of “old, sources: southern nevada Water authority; u.s. bureau of reclamation supply Vegas and its suburbs. By 1989, mossback, gray-headed guys.”

ulroy’s grand entrance came at a critical time for Las Vegas, which mwas well on its way into a major boom. In 1992, when Mulroy took charge of the Water Authority, roughly 840,000 people lived in the metropolitan area. Over the next decade, that number would nearly double. By 2002, Mulroy fully ex- pected to have hit the limits of Nevada’s full Colorado River allocation of 300,000 acre-feet — roughly 98 billion gallons per year — even as the city continued to swell. So she launched a campaign to wrest more water from the Colorado. Roughly 70 percent of the river’s water is used for agriculture, and many urban water agencies see that as a reservoir on which they might draw if necessary. But there’s very little farming in southern Nevada, so Mulroy was forced to look toward other states. This was sacrilege in a system where each state traditionally guarded its own allocation of the river as if it was more precious than gold. Her sights eventually fell on Chevron, which held rights to water that it hoped to use to extract oil shale in western Col- orado. The company needed a way to put Patricia Mulroy in 1996 at the new Southern Nevada Water Authority Desert Demonstration Garden in Las Vegas. The the water to use until the shale industry Water Authority would go on to institute conservation measures that reduced per capita household water use in Vegas took off. One way to do that might be by by about a third and slowed Vegas water usage even as the population exploded. lennox mclendon/associated press

12 High Country News March 2, 2015 A ferry navigates Lake Mead in February, framed by the famous “bathtub ring” left by receding water. The reservoir now stands just 13 feet from a critical level for triggering water cutbacks. John Gurzinski www.hcn.org High Country News 13 leasing it to Las Vegas. city already draws most of its water. been a rule of thumb for Mulroy suddenly That, however, would run headlong Though it was pitched as a banking became gospel: “We have to live 20 or 30 into a hallowed proscription in the state deal, it was really an exercise in figur- years in the future,” she says. “And we of Colorado. Owing to the structure of ing out how to move water across state have to assume the worst.” the law of the river, the upstream, Up- lines. “If you think about it, it’s pretty That year, the water level in Lake per Basin states — Colorado, Wyoming, much the exact same thing as us going Mead, one of two giant reservoirs on the Utah and New Mexico — and their down- to Arizona and buying water and moving river’s mainstem, would fall 25 feet. Were stream, Lower Basin counterparts — Ne- it to Nevada,” says David Donnelly, who it to drop another 100, one of Las Vegas’ vada, Arizona and California — form two was Mulroy’s engineering and operations two water intakes would go dry and the separate negotiating blocs, which are set chief and the principal architect of this city’s supply would be roughly halved. squarely in opposition to each other on deal. “Except in this case, Arizona buys Sixty-five feet below that, the second in- key legal controversies. And Colorado of- it, takes the water and banks it for us — take would suck air. ficials have long maintained that, under and then we get it back in the future.” The Water Authority immediately put the law of the river, transfers between the It was also the first federally sanc- itself on a water diet, ramping up a “cash- Upper and Lower basins are illegal. tioned deal for a water transfer between for-grass” program that ultimately paid Though it would be decades before two states. But Mulroy has only ever Las Vegans $189 million to tear out their Colorado needed its full river allocation, spoken about it euphemistically because lawns, cutting per-person water use in officials there saw Chevron’s water as transfers, even within the Lower Basin, the city by about a third. In 2005, the Au- “you need critical to the state’s future economic de- are so politically charged. “Don’t ever call thority approved construction of an $817 velopment. If Las Vegas came to depend it a transfer,” she scolded during a 2008 million “third straw” that would draw wa- somebody on the water, they feared, Colorado might interview. “It’s a banking agreement. That ter from deeper within Lake Mead than lose its rights through a sort of adverse thing will disappear on us tomorrow if we the existing intakes could reach. to be yelling possession. call it a transfer.” Meanwhile, the river’s flows kept So when Jim Lochhead, a strategy ad- She had learned a crucial lesson, fading — and tensions between the at the top of visor for Colorado, heard about Mulroy’s however. In the years that followed, Mul- states reached a fever pitch. Thanks to a their lungs. negotiations with Chevron, he quickly roy would — despite her reputation as a 40-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision, booked a flight to Vegas and delivered a woman who didn’t mince words — speak the U.S. Secretary of the Interior has the And Pat was warning: Back off. “She would have got- an increasingly convoluted lingua franca power to declare an official shortage in ten years and years of litigation,” Loch- that would eventually include enigmas the Lower Basin, which would effectively very willing head said last year. “And she wouldn’t like “intentionally created unused appor- allow him or her to take control of river to provide have gotten any water.” tionment.” It sounds like gobbledygook, management. In May 2005, then-Interior Mulroy turned her attention to the but it was all for a larger end. Secretary Gale Norton gave the feuding that service.” safer territory of the Lower Basin. Water “I learned it’s not what you do, it’s water bosses an ultimatum: Figure out managers there were already bandying what you call it,” Mulroy told me. “You how to deal with the drought, or face fed- —David Hayes, deputy about a series of interstate “banking” pro- find the right name for it, and you can do eral intervention. secretary of the Interior posals, under which the states could store anything.” Norton made the threat, but Mulroy under both Clinton and Obama water for each others’ use. Both Arizona The opaque language bought manag- drove people into deal-making mode. “You and California were interested, but Ne- ers leeway to try new approaches within need somebody to be yelling at the top of vada’s need was urgent. the arcane system of interstate water their lungs,” says David Hayes, deputy Finally, in 2001, Mulroy got what she management on the river. That helped secretary of the Interior under both Clin- wanted: The Southern Nevada Water Au- Mulroy in her quest for water to sustain ton and Obama. “And Pat was very will- thority inked a deal under which it would Vegas’ runaway growth. Ultimately, how- ing to provide that service” — mostly by pay a counterpart in Arizona to buy water ever, it would help all the Colorado River threatening to sue her colleagues. from farms there and store it underground. water bosses weather a much bigger Because fights over the Colorado In return, the Water Authority could, in looming disaster. River are interstate disputes, they auto- later years, take an equivalent portion of matically go before the Supreme Court. Arizona’s share of the Colorado River di- he dawn of the 21st century brought And, at least in part because water cases rectly from Lake Mead, the massive reser- signs of a grim new reality. The are such arcane, complex pieces of litiga- voir just east of Las Vegas from which the t winter of 1999-2000 was dry. So was tion, the Court has done a famously poor the next one. Then, during the winter of job of resolving them. For most water 2001-2002, snowpack in the river’s Rocky managers, sending river issues to the Mountain headwaters — source of most Court was a dangerous crapshoot. Mul- of its water — plunged to just a quarter roy, though, had little to lose and much to CoLorado riVer Basin and iTs aPPorTionMenT of average. gain — which gave her a critical strategic For decades, bright minds have advantage. Total: 16.5 million acre-feet/year warned that the compact that divides up “Mulroy was willing to be really tough mexico the river’s water — based on some of its and invite people to roll the dice,” says 1.5 arizona wettest years — promises considerably Peter Culp, an Arizona attorney who has nevada utah Wyoming 2.8 more than the river can actually deliver. been closely involved in Colorado River california Add the corrosive impacts of climate 4.4 colorado policymaking over the past decade. “She’d 3.86 change, and it’s likely that, by mid-centu- suggest that that was a really dumb utah Upper Basin 1.71 ry, water managers will have to make do thing to do — but if they wanted to roll with one-fifth to one-quarter less water the dice, she’d go find some. than they have legal rights to. By 2002, “That uncertainty,” Culp adds, “was a colorado that problem was becoming alarmingly big driver for cooperation.” nevada new mexico .3 Wyoming real for Mulroy. 1.04 new “We were holding out hope that there hat was exactly the point Mul- mexico Lower Basin 7.5 million would be a late spring storm, and it was roy was trying to make when she .84 california acre-feet/ year each not happening,” she says. t stormed out of the Albuquerque On a Friday morning in April that airport hotel in 2005. Even as she was arizona source: u.s. bureau year, Mulroy’s top managers gathered. slamming doors behind her, she knew of reclamation “Pat walked into the meeting and just that the only hope for a durable solution 1.5 million said: ‘We’ve got to have a plan,’ ” John lay in the same sense of strength in unity mexico acre-feet Entsminger remembers. What had long that had driven the creation of the Water

14 High Country News March 2, 2015 Authority 15 years earlier. “She obviously managers like Mulroy more options for enough water to buy yet one more spin of Mulroy testifies at a advocated passionately for Las Vegas. But managing the crash. “If I’m sitting at a the wheel. 2011 hearing about her plan to pump water she realized that she wasn’t going to get negotiating table and I’m agreeing to a “We’re headed for worse shortages,” from eastern Nevada. anywhere if she didn’t look at how she certain level of shortage,” she explains, “I Mulroy says. “If we can move water The project — with was going to help solve some of the bigger have a backup plan at home that tells me around, and backfill other people’s short- a price tag of more issues on the river,” says Lochhead. “Es- how I’m going to manage through that.” ages, and take advantage of every op- than $15 billion — is sentially, we were going to find solutions The shortage agreement has several portunity that comes along, then we’ve still mired in legal that protected each other.” components. One of the most important got a better chance of adapting to what is challenges. cathleen So began a marathon three-year allows the Lower Basin states to put invariably going to happen on that river allison, nevada photo round of negotiations, whose intensity did money toward water efficiency projects, system.” source little to curb Mulroy’s appetite for Benson fallowing farm fields, desalinating seawa- Mulroy was by no means the only & Hedges DeLuxe Ultra Lights. But the ter, or “importing” water from elsewhere; person responsible for the deal. It took resulting agreement, finalized in 2007 they can then sock that water away in a whole raft of open-minded, adaptable and carefully pitched as a set of “interim Lake Mead. That will help boost water counterparts from the other states, many guidelines” that will expire in 2026, lays levels and thereby postpone the moment of whom maintain far lower public profiles out a damage-control plan for when the the reservoir falls below 1,075 feet — the than Mulroy. But as her negotiating coun- river finally sinks into official shortage. first trigger for shortage. terpart and cautious ally Jim Lochhead Key to the plan is a series of trigger As a whole, the agreement is essen- — the man who flew to Vegas in 1993 to points that will force the Lower Basin tially a strategy to help water bosses stall confront Mulroy — puts it: “It wouldn’t states to throttle back their water use. for time — and pray for snow. Think of it have happened if she weren’t there.” As the surface level of Lake Mead — cur- as the roulette-wheel theory of drought The agreement could mark the begin- rently at 1,088 feet above sea level — survival: Each year that the states man- ning of a new era of hydraulic inventive- sinks below 1,075, 1,050 and 1,025 feet, age to stave off a shortage, or keep it from ness. Water managers are less and less the states will face progressively greater deepening to the next tier of cutbacks, likely to try to engineer themselves out reductions in the amount of water they they buy themselves another spin of the of a problem with massive, Hoover Dam- can pull from the river. Those cutbacks wheel. That means one more shot at the style projects. Instead, they’re becoming will sting, but they’ll slow the rate at jackpot: a big winter snowpack that re- adept at shuffling a finite — and shrink- which the shortage worsens — giving fills the reservoirs — or at least brings ing — supply of water around to cover the

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 Wheeler Peak, the most desperate shortfalls. In that sense, country “might as well have been an alien 2007 agreements — they can use in their centerpiece of Great the 2007 shortage agreement opened the planet,” Mulroy says. Soon after the turn own systems. Basin National Rubik’s Cube era of water in the West. of the 21st century, though, Mexico began “She saw opportunity in the Delta,” Park, rises from And while it was born from crisis as a insisting that it be treated as an equal Lochhead says — for adding yet more Spring Valley, near damage-control measure, the deal may partner, which meant something had to flexibility to the system to avoid shortage, the Nevada-Utah prove to be a first step toward long-term be done to restore the Delta. “My attitude and to protect Vegas’ supply. “She also border. The remote, sparsely populated sustainability. is: Let’s put the skunk in the middle of saw potential political danger.” area is a key piece the table,” says Mulroy. “Let’s talk about The Delta was but one issue in which of the Southern ust south of the U.S.-Mexico border, it. And let’s deal with it.” Mulroy’s enlightened rhetoric was a Nevada Water the river once flowed to the sea in the In fact, as long ago as 1998, Mulroy means to self-interested ends. Mulroy Authority’s planned JColorado River Delta. But after more had started sending water bosses across was initially agnostic about climate groundwater than 80 years of re-plumbing for cities the border to tour the Delta. Members of change. But 2002, that annus horribilis project. and farms, the river has rarely reached her staff would drive roughly 1,000 miles when the snowpack failed, changed her ralph mauGhan the Gulf of California, and the Delta has to ferry water managers from the San Di- mind. “The one thing that always kept turned from a fabled Eden into a kind of ego airport to Mexicali, Mexico, and then me awake at night,” she says, “was two wasteland. farther south to the river’s end. 2002s, back-to-back, with the reservoirs In 2000 and 2005, Mulroy and her Soon after the 2007 shortage agree- already down as far as they were.” Western counterparts were entangled ment was finalized, U.S. water bosses Mulroy went on to argue, far more in two lawsuits, which argued that wa- began another five years of intense nego- openly than any other water boss, that ter operations in the U.S. were harming tiation with their Mexican counterparts. it was time to take climate change seri- populations of U.S.-protected endangered That led to Minute 319, an amendment ously. “Are we just going to pretend we’re species that happened to live across the to a nearly 70-year-old water treaty be- Nero and play the fiddle?” she said last border in the Delta. The water agencies tween the two nations. At its heart was a March. “Or are we going to proactively ultimately prevailed, though not without provision for a manmade flood designed avoid a catastrophe?” an eleventh-hour congressional rider. to restart some of the natural ecological Mulroy realized that the world What’s surprising, then, is that even dynamics of the Delta. was changing in ways water managers as Mulroy battled in court, she simul- Yet when that so-called pulse flow couldn’t yet fathom, and she went out of taneously urged that Mexico’s concerns was finally released last March, Mulroy her way to court climate scientists like and the Delta itself — which she called wasn’t there to watch. Her prize had the University of Arizona’s Jonathan “a black eye for the whole river commu- always been something else. Minute 319 Overpeck. In 2009, he and his Colorado nity” — be included in discussions about also allows U.S. water agencies to fund colleague, Brad Udall, flew to Las Vegas the river. Mexico has rights to about 9 water-efficiency investments on Mexican for a climate change symposium at the percent of the river’s water, but for many farms and canals in exchange for water Palms Casino. Mulroy spent the after- U.S. water managers, the neighboring that — as under the Arizona banking and noon talking with them before shuttling

16 High Country News March 2, 2015 them back to the airport in her GMC than $133 million pushing the project oday, Colorado River bosses face Yukon. Overpeck was impressed with her forward. the frightening possibility of being concern. “I think a lot of water managers And last March, Mulroy invoked the t caught in a “megadrought” so bad don’t want the public to worry,” he says. threat of climate change as justification that, even if they do look 25 years ahead, “Pat understood that there’s a real prob- for building it: “Cities, in order to adapt the end may still be beyond view. And lem here, and that if we don’t talk about to climate change, have to diversify where while the new generation of Colorado it, we won’t solve it.” their water comes from — period, end of River agreements is unprecedented, those Mulroy was feeling the heat herself, conversation.” deals can only delay and soften the crash; in every sense of the word. Despite her Despite a shoestring budget, the proj- they can’t prevent it. longtime determination to live a quarter- ect’s foes have already managed to drag It’s not hard to imagine a point where century in the future, she was still scram- the permitting process out for a decade by the possibilities of this new style of co- bling to keep up with falling reservoir fighting it in state and federal court. And operative problem-solving will run out, levels: She would ultimately spend nearly even as regulators and the Water Author- when even the best minds on the river $1.5 billion on a series of massive water ity have whittled back the project’s scale, are outmatched by the pitiless cycles of intakes to pull water from lower and its estimated cost has ballooned to at the trade winds and the oceans, aggravat- lower levels in Lake Mead. least $15.5 billion. ed by an atmosphere full of greenhouse “sometimes, In many ways, Mulroy symbolizes the Mulroy’s groundwater crusade has gases. Mulroy has raised the prospect era in which we all are at the mercy of a constantly forced her to contend with the of the drought becoming so bad that it you need to hostile climate. Her credo of dependence ghost of William Mulholland, the notori- will necessitate “outmigrating 40 million and cooperation could become a sort of ous Los Angeles water boss who siphoned people” from the Southwest. look straight rallying cry for the 21st century’s grim water more than 200 miles from the rural Yet there’s still a tremendous safety into the eyes realities: We are all vulnerable, but we Owens Valley through the Los Angeles net for the trillion-and-a-half-dollar, pri- are in this together. Aqueduct in the early 20th century, ruin- marily urban, regional economy the river of disaster in “We all, as a larger basin, are going to ing the valley’s farming communities. feeds: that 70 percent of the river’s water be short,” Mulroy said in a notable talk at Mulroy hopes for a better legacy. She has that flows to roughly 5.7 million acres of order to start the University of Colorado law school in long argued that if Las Vegas does have farms. A 2013 study by Michael Cohen rethinking. 2013. “And we all, as a larger basin, are to tap the groundwater in eastern Ne- and colleagues at the Pacific Institute es- going to have to bring everything to the vada, it can recharge extra water into the timates that in the Colorado River Basin, People will table to bring almost 40 million people, aquifer when it’s available. Meanwhile, irrigated pasture and forage — mostly and productive agriculture, and national she says, the Water Authority can work alfalfa for cattle — uses an amount equal not change parks, and recreational uses, and tribal with local communities to ensure they’re to about a third of the water in the river. nations, and endangered species through not harmed. Freeing up just 6 percent of that, through unless they the knothole.” “The days of just going into an area, increased water efficiency or outright wa- absolutely Yet Mulroy’s proselytizing about that voiding it of its water resources, and let- ter sales, would double Las Vegas’ share perilous knothole would serve a larger ting happen what will — that can’t hap- of the river. have to.” purpose: It would become the mainstay pen anymore,” says Mulroy. “There has to Politically, it would not be easy. But of the campaign for her biggest and most be a balance.” the reality is that the Southern Nevada —Patricia Mulroy controversial idea. Yet Mulroy has steadfastly refused Water Authority and other agencies are to agree to objective triggers that would already plumbed into a system that could ulroy always had a Plan B for get- decrease or shut off pumping if it begins theoretically provide more water than ting more water. Back in 1989, she harming springs or ranches in rural they’ll need for centuries, even in the face mmade a dramatic opening move: Nevada. In fact, the legal fight against of megadroughts and climate change. She applied for permits to pump 800,000 the project now hinges on this very is- And contrary to popular rhetoric, Western acre-feet of groundwater — more than sue. Without explicitly defined triggers, cities can turn to farms for water without two-and-a-half times Las Vegas’ share of there’s no legally binding assurance that killing off farming. California is a quarter the Colorado — from a 20,000-square- the Water Authority won’t simply pump century into a successful effort to develop, mile expanse of cattle country in eastern the aquifer to exhaustion — which would test and refine ways of structuring water Nevada. The area is far off the beaten make the groundwater project an enter- transfers that allow farming to continue. path, in a starkly beautiful world of wide prise completely at odds with the credo of On the Colorado, the new generation valleys dotted with sagebrush and win- shared fate, accommodation and mutual of water agreements that Mulroy and terfat, ranch outposts, desert springs and sacrifice that Mulroy urged on the Colo- her fellow water bosses have negotiated the craggy peaks and bristlecone pines rado River. has set the stage for much broader-scale of Great Basin National Park. It’s also This is the darkest shadow hanging transfers from farms to cities, which will home to three national wildlife refuges over Mulroy’s legacy, and it has caused be especially critical in enabling cities to and at least five federally protected en- deep unease within her own camp. Steve ride out a deepening drought. It’s still far dangered species, including several rare Sisolak is the chairman of the Clark from a wide-open market, but many of desert fish. County Commission, which encompasses the old taboos are breaking down as the The $1.5 billion project, which was the the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and law of the river is revised, rewritten and largest groundwater-pumping effort ever since 2009, he has also been a member adapted for a drier future. proposed in the U.S., opened a gigantic of the Water Authority board. The more All of which points up a central para- rift between Las Vegas and rural Neva- he learned about the project’s potential dox of Pat Mulroy’s personality. She has dans. Mulroy backed off the effort to seek impacts and the resistance against it, long been known for making outrageous permits — until the dry year of 2002, and the more worried he became. “It was like: moves. In 1989, she launched the ground- pressure from the other Colorado River Wait a minute, this isn’t making sense to water project in the face of widespread water bosses, spurred her to resurrect it. me,” Sisolak remembers thinking. “This furor within Nevada. In 1993, she poked Mulroy repeatedly insisted that she isn’t a good idea.” a finger in Colorado’s eye when she tried wouldn’t actually build the project un- The challenges to the proposal, he to buy water from Chevron. In 2006, she less forced to. In 2013, she told the state says, were greater than anyone had an- seemingly threatened to have Nevada’s Legislature that it “is a project of last re- ticipated — yet Mulroy refused to back top water regulator fired — something sort. That means nothing else is possible: down. “Instead of taking a step back and she later denied. In 2009, as Barack There is no way to desalt water; there is saying, ‘OK: Let’s re-evaluate,’ ” he says, Obama was about to take office, Mulroy no way to exchange water; nothing else is “it was like, ‘No: We’re just going to put suggested that the federal government possible to save Lake Mead.” Even so, the our foot on the pedal harder to make this tap the Mississippi River — more than Water Authority has already spent more happen.’ ” 1,300 miles from Las Vegas — in a New

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 Deal-style program to create jobs and ease water shortages in the West. In 2011, when the Mississippi flooded, Mul- roy pitched the idea again. “What we’ve said, continually,” she told me last March, “is that there’s not a single option too far out there to be worth looking at.” Yet all of that may simply have been a smokescreen for the delicate chess setup — for concepts like farm transfers — that she was doing much closer to home. Ulti- mately, Mulroy’s real M.O. was incremen- talism: a tireless determination to slowly expand what was possible within the law of the river. Rather than taking a sledge- hammer to the Colorado River’s sacred tablets, she assiduously covered them with sticky notes and asterisks. Cumulatively, Mulroy was always pushing a bigger program. All of the inno- vations since the drought began — while carefully pitched as pilot programs and interim measures — have been small advances in Mulroy’s broader initiative, launched more than two decades ago, to open up the law of the river to greater possibilities. That, in large part, is her legacy: pushing everyone into the new era of aquatic contortionism that it will take to fit everything through the knothole. This is the true revolution on the riv- er. And although water managers remain profoundly reticent about the critical role that water transfers play in this transfor- mation, the proof lies in the rapidly accu- mulating addenda to the law of the river. In their 2007 “interim” agreement, water bosses included a little-remarked provi- sion that could allow Nevada, Arizona or California to buy water from farms in another Lower Basin state, as long as all three states agree. In 2012, Minute 319 added Mexico as yet another place the Lower Basin states could turn for water. Some of these provisions lie dormant — for now. But “if the system’s dropping like a rock and Southern Nevada’s out Seven years ago, there running around with a checkbook,” construction began says one person who helped write the on the “third straw,” post-drought agreements, “a lot of farm- an $817 million ers are going to take advantage of that.” water intake that In fact, over the past eight months, will allow Las Vegas agencies have developed two new to keep pace with sinking water levels programs under which they hope to begin in Lake Mead. The moving water later this year. In July, project is scheduled the Water Authority, Metropolitan, the to go into operation Central Arizona Project, Denver Water this summer. and federal Bureau of Reclamation courtesy southern approved an $11 million pilot program to nevada Water authority fund water-efficiency improvements on farms or pay farmers to temporarily idle their fields, and thereby infuse the system with an additional 75,000 acre-feet of “shared” water over the next two years. That will boost the odds that drought and climate change don’t push the reservoir levels past the crucial shortage triggers. In October, the U.S. began discussions with Mexico about that country’s participation in the program. And in December, the Lower Basin states, urban agencies and the federal government approved the Pilot Drought Response Actions program, which

18 High Country News March 2, 2015 gives the states an additional vehicle to ship positions with the Brookings Institu- pipeline, the 245 miles of high-voltage fund efficiency improvements or fallowing tion and the University of Nevada, Las power lines and all the pumps thunder- programs and add another 1.5 to 3 million Vegas, and she’s a member of the power- ing in the desert, into a monument to acre-feet of water to Lake Mead over the ful Nevada Gaming Commission, which Mulroy’s mind — to the idea that the next five years, which the water agencies oversees the state’s casino industry. future need not repeat the past, and that, can then individually recover later. No agency on the Colorado River with the benefit of hindsight from the It’s now indisputable that farm trans- bears the mark of a single person as Owens Valley, things really can be done fers will help shield 40 million people much as the Southern Nevada Water Au- differently? With her name on the line, from the worst effects of catastrophic thority, and Mulroy’s legacy will live on perhaps it really could be run as a differ- drought. The wider extent to which they for decades. But Lake Mead continues to ent kind of project: a paragon of balance GLASS might supply future urban growth re- fall, and the groundwater project lurks in and a monument to sustainability. mains a persistent riddle. the wings, potent and explosive: a rocket- Still, Mulroy helped blaze a trail into HALF Mulroy is exceedingly careful to note powered relic of the mega-engineering a new era, where real innovation comes that farm-to-city transfers “can’t be era, wreathed in whiffs of spraypaint and in the kinds of packages that can’t be FULL viewed as the easy solution.” But much grease, waiting for liftoff. This, in contrast affixed with commemorative plaques. goes unspoken on the river. And even to Mulroy’s studied incrementalism on Plenty of ambitious Western water proj- Mulroy — the consummate incremental- the river, is her go-for-broke project: the ects endure today only as yellowing blue- ist — allows that, sometimes, real change moon shot. prints, historians’ curiosities, ghosts from this is the first in an occasional series that comes only with the convulsive push of a This summer, Lake Mead could drop a different era. Ultimately, perhaps, the looks at the people and crisis. below 1,075 feet. Though an official short- greatest testament to Pat Mulroy’s vision ideas helping the West “Sometimes, you need to look straight age won’t be declared until it’s that low will be that the project that would have better understand and into the eyes of disaster in order to start on January 1 of a given year, Mulroy has borne her name finds a home among all better use its water, as rethinking,” she told me last March. “No long said that when Lake Mead does hit the dream ventures that were never built the threat of prolonged issue will be resolved until the time is 1,075 feet, the Water Authority must — because they didn’t have to be. drought looms. the right and the circumstances are right. decide whether to fully commit to the series will highlight People will not change unless they abso- groundwater project. possible solutions to matt Jenkins has lutely have to.” That project has been known various- the specific problems covered water for brought on by the ly as the Cooperative Water Project; the High Country News drought — from the ulroy retired on Feb. 6, 2014. Her “in-state” project; the Northern Resource since 2001. he way we allocate water husband, Bob, is suffering health System; and the Groundwater Develop- currently writes from to the way we consume mproblems, and as Mulroy put it ment Project. No name that’s been tried Washington, d.c. or conserve it. yes, soon after she stepped down: “There’s no has ever really stuck, and none does jus- there’s less water good time. It’s just time.” tice to its ambition. this story was funded than we’d like. and John Entsminger, whom Mulroy hired Why not call it the Patricia Mulroy with reader donations yet, there’s more than in 1999, replaced her as head of the Wa- Groundwater Extraction and Delivery to the high country enough, if we’re wise, to news research fund. ter Authority. Mulroy now holds fellow- System? Why not turn all 263 miles of keep the glass half full.

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We are www.rmfi.org/programs/earth-corps. and continue until the position is filled. St. an established and successful design-build Lawrence University is an Equal Opportunity Prickly Pear low-water landscape/contracting business. Employer. For additional information about Located in Helena, Mont., Land Trust (PPLT), is seeking a mission-fo- Will train in all aspects of xeriscaping. In- eMPLOYMeNt St. Lawrence, please visit www.stlawu.edu. cused, engaging and visionary Executive cludes website, design portfolios, bid-sheets, KGNu community radio, broadcast from equipment and some maintenance clients. Director to build on momentum within the Boulder and Denver, Colorado and streamed the Freshwater trust is seeking a Resto- organization and the greater community. For Water is a precious resource in the crowd- online, seeks a full-time Station Manager to ration Program Manager. This position will ed West, and this business only gets more a complete announcement and position de- lead our nonprofit broadcast and online me- manage the operations of the Rogue and scription, please visit pricklypearlt.org. timely and important. $179,000 Contact Liz, dia organization. See kgnu.org/StationMan- emerging opportunities in southwest Or- 801-884-8986. agerSearch for required and desired qualifica- egon, to prioritize and implement habitat tions. Please email your application to job@ restoration and ecosystem services projects.

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www.hcn.org High Country News 21 MARKETPLACE

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22 High Country News March 2, 2015 www.hcn.org High Country News 23 What’s in a Community solar, continued from page 7 sume the financial risk, even calculate the financial analyst for the National Renew- kilowatt? bill credits, as long as the utility agreed to able Energy Laboratory. Ellensburg’s Re- in most states those policies don’t apply buy the electricity and distribute the cred- newable Park cost more than $9 per watt, A kilowatt (kW) to customers who fractionally invest in a its on customers’ bills. while today the installed cost of solar — is a measure of community solar project. Some commu- Clean Energy Collective learned to solar-panel cost plus construction and per- instantaneous use nity solar organizers have instead tried of electrical power. navigate securities laws and claim federal mitting — has dropped to less than $3 per (Because electricity to distribute the returns to their investors tax credits, and built a 78kW solar array watt. users are billed for as cash — an approach that turns their near the local wastewater treatment plant. “Utilities feel a lot more comfortable the amount of total projects into profit-seeking ventures and The project turned a profit. Clean Energy with (community solar) now,” says Solar electrical energy they exposes them to securities laws. These Collective went on to partner with more Electric Power Association’s Campbell, use over a period of projects have to register with state or fed- rural co-ops, including one in New Mexico, who’s working with more than 50 utilities time, they are billed eral authorities — a process that can cost where it created that state’s first commu- now considering new programs. in kilowatt-hours, or anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million — nity solar project for a Taos school in 2012. Susannah Churchill, a policy direc- kWh.) or else apply for complicated exemptions It got a boost when a Colorado law, the tor for the nonprofit advocacy group Vote that often require costly help from law- “Community Solar Gardens Act,” cleared Solar, says big utilities are also getting 1,000 watts (W) = 1kW yers and accountants. state regulators. The law, first passed in smarter. “(They’re) seeing that people Even states that encourage communi- 2010, requires investor-owned utilities, want the ability to decide where their 1,000kW = ty solar have problems. Linda Irvine and including Colorado’s major utility, Xcel energy comes from,” she says. Unlike an 1 megawatt (1MW) 35 residents of Whidbey Island, Washing- Energy, to build 6MW of community solar individual homeowner’s rooftop solar, ton, scraped together $430,000 to build a per year into their already existing state shared solar, if managed by the utility, lets In Colorado, Xcel 50kW solar array near a community gar- renewable mandate of 30 percent by 2020. the utility be the middleman and turn a Energy’s largest den in 2011, selling the energy to the local It was the first legislation in the country profit. coal-fired power utility and collecting a 2009 state incen- to establish clear policies for how com- Even Pacific Gas and Electric, one of plant can generate tive for community solar. But navigating munity solar should work. Between 2012 California’s big three investor-owned utili- up to 1,400MW tax laws and getting exemptions from se- and 2015, Clean Energy Collective con- ties, proposed a community solar program A typical 250W curities laws made the whole experience structed 11 projects hooked to Xcel’s grid, while it fought the state’s shared solar solar panel can “a bit overwhelming,” Irvine says. most around 500kW in size — roughly five law. To Churchill, the proposal was little produce about The city of Portland, backed by the times bigger than Ellensburg’s Renewable more than another green power program, 45kWh per month U.S. Energy Department, tried to build Park. Colorado now leads the nation in in which customers would pay a premium 80kW of shared solar in 2011, but the ef- community-owned solar, and 75 percent of for generic solar energy from utility-so- To provide for its fort bogged down in state securities laws the state’s electricity customers have ac- licited projects. PG&E continued to push electrical consumption and other financing hurdles. Andria Jacob, cess to a project. that model as California’s Public Utilities with community who oversaw the project for the city, says: That’s made Colorado into a model for Commission considered rules to imple- solar … “You come up against too many barriers.” other states. Passing laws like the Com- ment the state’s 600MW of new shared … an average Colorado munity Solar Gardens Act is probably the solar, but Churchill and others pressed for residence would y 2010, the price of solar panels was most direct way to expand community so- options that would favor smaller and more need a 16 solar Bless than half of what it was in 2006, lar, says Wiedman. local projects. panels, about 4kW and consumer interest was growing. Com- But that’s “a pretty heavy lift,” he In January, California regulators is- … a supermarket munity solar was poised to become a big adds. Investor-owned utilities often re- sued a split decision: Utilities will be al- would need 3,200 business — if only someone could bring sist, lobbying hard. In 2012, for example, lowed to sell power from their shared so- panels, about 800kW an easy, replicable model to utilities that California’s two biggest utilities crushed lar projects, but they’re also now required … the entire state might not otherwise take the initiative. a bill that would require utilities to fold to buy electricity from third-party devel- of Colorado would A company called Clean Energy Col- up to 2,000MW of shared solar into their opers like Clean Energy Collective that need 112 million lective, founded in 2010, approached the renewable energy requirements. Advo- could site projects locally on brownfields solar panels, about local electric cooperative in rural north- cates pushed through a more modest bill or schools. The decision is “a really impor- 28,000MW western Colorado and proposed a com- in 2013, paving the way for up to 600MW tant moment” for shared solar as it ex- SourCES: XCEl EnErgy, munity solar project. Electric co-ops, of shared solar in California by 2019. pands across the country, Churchill says. u.S. EnErgy InforMATIon AdMInISTrATIon like municipal utilities, have regulatory It’s also a nod to community solar’s autonomy and a mandate to serve their ow, even investor-owned utilities are hardscrabble roots in Ellensburg. After members, and Clean Energy Collective Njoining the community solar game, al- all, it was there that the ideal of not just made the utility an offer it couldn’t refuse: beit on their own terms. “A lot of it is pure- clean, but local, energy took off in the first The company would build the project, as- ly economics,” explains Jason Coughlin, a place.

A solar array at Taos Academy Charter School was one of New Mexico’s first communtiy solar projects. CourTESy Sol lunA SolAr

24 High Country News March 2, 2015 WRITERS ON THE RANGE

Carbonate Mountain in March 2013, at a time of year when it’s usually deep in snow. Dan Robbins/iDahosummiTs.com ‘Paradise’ has turned a little grim January glowed brightly around us as A hike that we always considered closed soldier from Hailey who was held captive we hiked the ridgeline of Carbonate, the until April is fast becoming a January in Afghanistan for five years. mountain flanking the Big Wood River tradition. A friend once told me, “The hard on the edge of Hailey, Idaho. A year ago, the snowpack in central thing about living here is that there’s so It’s a popular hiking spot, generally Idaho was only half of average, which much pressure to be happy.” Ultimately, in late spring and fall. The entire trail is meant tough times for local businesses she retreated to a place near Magic, that open to the sky, and switchbacks quickly and a winter economy built around reservoir 30 miles downstream. Her unfurl views of the Smoky Mountains, skiing. Farther down the watershed is view from her trailer consists of a wide Camas Prairie and the star-pointed Magic Reservoir, the water storage facil- expanse of desert and a dugout lake. She peaks of the Pioneers. Even when I’m ity that allows the dry Snake River Plain finds that stark view a little easier to OPINION BY out of breath, it’s hard not to fling up my to bloom with alfalfa, sugar beets and live with. JENNY EMERY arms and whoop at the glory of it all. grain. The reservoir was predicted to fall Paradise in Idaho’s Wood River Val- DAVIDSON As my husband and I scrambled to- far short of irrigation demands, and peo- ley has some scorched edges these days, ward the summit, slushing through small ple were worried, until spring rains came and those edges might be as significant pockets of snow, our dog bounded ahead. and dampened the tension for a while as the peaks. Still, we try to look to the Dark midwinter days can be tough, and longer. This year, the snowpack started future with optimism. Perhaps more it felt good to be in the sunshine, working out fair, but it has been receding over snow will come before spring truly ar- hard. The mountainside was dotted with the past month. We’ve had rain for days rives. Perhaps the reservoirs will fill. people. A fit, gray-mustachioed gentleman at a time — in February! — that washes And when the hillsides flash green and crossed our path on his descent and gave away yet more snow. Worries about sum- the yellow balsamroot blooms, our hopes a half-cocked smile. “Just another tough mer water have surfaced again. for summer will flicker, too, and we’ll day in paradise,” he said. The ground we’ve hiked on Car- forget both snow and fire. We laughed and nodded. That line — bonate for the past two Januarys has For now, we relish the hikes we get to “just another tough day in paradise” — is suffered from more than inadequate take on Carbonate, though we probably slung around a lot in this area around snowfall. In August 2013, Carbonate should not. Much of the vegetation here the plush Sun Valley Resort. It’s a state- was engulfed in the 111,490-acre Beaver was burned by the fire, and our footsteps ment edged with both gratitude and Creek Fire. Smoke ghosted the valley; pounding away at the bare ground surely smugness. “Tough,” of course, is always ash choked the river. The south side nudge it closer to erosion. But on a mid- said ironically. We enjoy majestic views, of the mountain, thick with sage and winter day, when the sky is blue and the sparkling rivers and sage-scented air. I’m rabbitbrush, burned hot and fast. The sun is bright, we can’t resist walking the sure that some of us feel like we’re part east side burned longer, as solitary pines line — burned-out and muddy as it is — of “the geography of hope,” as Wallace torched one after another. So the ground along that rough and tender edge. Stegner called it in his wilderness letter we hiked in January 2014 was black. 50 years ago. This January, the ground still looked Jenny Emery Davidson lives in central On this particular winter day, the raw, more gray now than black. A few Idaho and serves as the executive director Pioneer peaks were embossed like crisp snow banks clung to shady spots. of The Community Library in Ketchum. white linen on a brash blue sky. Yet it As we arrived at the summit of Car- WEB EXTRA was hard to ignore that we were ap- bonate, frayed prayer flags fluttered, and To see all the current proaching the 6,720-foot summit in a mosaic of stickers from coffee shops Writers on the Range is a syndicated service of Writers on the Range January while wearing running shoes. and outdoor gear companies covered the High Country News, providing three opinion columns, and archives, columns each week to more than 70 newspapers visit HCN’s Web site, And we were walking on bare ground in metal flagpole. A faded yellow ribbon still around the West. For more information, contact www.hcn.org midwinter for the second year in a row. clung to the pole, honoring the American betsy marston, [email protected], 970-527-4898.

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 BOOKS

Grief’s possible outcomes In Kaui Hart Hemmings’ new novel, The Possibilities, the tourist town of Brecken- ridge, Colorado, becomes the setting for a family tragedy that is also a romance. Like her previous book, The Descendants, which went on to become a hit movie, The Possibilities grapples with the complexi- ties of modern family life. After a young man named Cully is killed in an ava- lanche, everything in his orbit is upended: the relationships between parents and children, lovers and ex-lovers, grandpar- The Possibilities ents and great-grandparents, the self and Kaui hart hemmings its discontents. 274 pages, hardcover: Over three days, the reader trav- $25. els with Cully’s mother, Sarah, from simon & schuster, Breckenridge to Colorado Springs for a memorial service, and back again, ac- 2014. companied by Cully’s father, grandfather and a female friend of Cully’s, whom the bereaved family has never met. Not much happens, yet everything changes. Hem- mings is a writer of humor and nuance, charting the internal trajectories of grief as they manifest in her characters. “A surprise spring of tears floods my A snowboarder triggers an avalanche. ivan chuDaKov /shuTTeRsTocK vision. … None of this makes sense. Part of me wants to jump off the balcony. Part of me wants to sing from it. I love and miners’ hamlet. Tidbits from Breckenridge ports the reader from the bottom to the hate this life.” Gazing at Pikes Peak after history sprinkle the domestic drama, like summit of life, taking in the whole hu- yet another surprising revelation about the story of the minister who deliberately man range between ecstasy and despair. her son, Sarah tries to reconcile opposing rang his morning bells early to awaken “I live in a beautiful place. The sur- realities. At the same time, she begins the hungover residents. “One day some of rounding pines, so impossibly tall, sparkle constructing a new identity for herself, the townspeople used dynamite mining with snow. I tilt my face and inhale, will- one that no longer includes motherhood. caps to blow up his church steeple.” ing my surroundings to enter me some- A native of Breckenridge and a descen- Parts of the novel elicit laughter, how and to remind me how small I am.” dant of settlers, Sarah turns a wry gaze on others flashes of the deepest sorrow. The the ritzy ski-town residents of the former Possibilities, like a sturdy chairlift, trans- BY ANNIE DAWID

Beauty and malevolence in Montana

Valentine Millimaki has hit a stretch of part because they both grew up on farms, In The Ploughmen, Zupan, who bad luck as Missoula novelist Kim Zu- and begins to regale him with tales of his teaches carpentry at Missoula Col- pan’s dark, lyrical debut The Ploughmen crimes during the long jailhouse nights. lege, explores the darkest impulses of opens. Millimaki, who works for the Cop- Millimaki’s superiors encourage the humanity and sets them alongside the per County sheriff’s department in Mon- conversations, hoping to solve old cases, incomparable loveliness of Montana, tana, is skilled at tracking missing people but even as Millimaki tries to convince which he conveys through densely poetic, in the wilderness with his trusty German himself that he’s only spending time with Faulknerian prose. Millimaki himself shepherd, searching for hunters, hikers Gload for information, a twisted friend- marvels at the contrast, wondering, and wandering children before they suc- ship blossoms between the two men. As “what in this beautiful country could cumb to hypothermia. He’s known for his Millimaki’s personal life continues to inspire such evil.” high rate of successes, but over the past unravel, and he struggles with unrelent- Death and loneliness permeate the year, he has been finding only dead bod- ing insomnia, he finds “to his horror that vast Western landscape, but the beauty ies. Millimaki is on call whenever anyone he missed the old man’s company.” with which Zupan describes them turns The Ploughmen goes missing, but as the newest member Gload, with his massive hands, calm The Ploughmen into a sort of ornate Kim Zupan of the force, he’s also expected to work the demeanor and “oddly courtly” manners, requiem. “Crows and magpies swarmed 272 pages, hardcover: jail’s graveyard shift. fits right into the literary tradition of the humming power lines overhead,” he $26. This jeopardizes his marriage to a wife the charismatic killer. He’s a smooth and writes, “awaiting the tender carrion and henry holt, 2014. he hardly sees, and brings him into the steady assassin, like Cormac McCarthy’s greeting with caws and croaks the plenti- role of a confessor for John Gload, a notori- Anton Chigurh, and can analyze and tude of the refulgent day.” ous hit man who has finally been caught. manipulate others as easily as Thomas Gload takes a shine to Millimaki, in Harris’ Hannibal Lecter. BY JENNY SHANK

26 High Country News March 2, 2015 ESSAY | BY NATHANIEl BRODIE

The other journey home

he birth of my daughter has me accepted that our biggest regret would wife and two children and headed off, in thinking about Ed Abbey. be to let our rambling detract from what his words, to “exile in the desert.” Like Not the Abbey of legend — Ol’ the distance and the desert had taught the desert prophets before him, Abbey TCactus Ed, shooter of televisions, de- us to truly value. So we married. And so was willing to sacrifice — repeatedly — fender of wolves and wild rivers. Not the I left my beloved Southwest and followed his children, his wife, and even what he Abbey whose books first spoke to me as I Kelly to the Pacific Northwest, where we admitted was significant happiness to his raged against the confines of Los Angeles have remained for an unprecedented four uncompromising love of place, his idea of as a teenager; not the Abbey who con- years, and where we recently welcomed how life should be lived. Even in this, I vinced me to work seasonal jobs in state our daughter. find something to emulate: the belief that and national parks for 10 years; and not Here, too, my life mirrors Abbey’s. one should not — one cannot — compro- the Abbey whose exhortations to “explore When Abbey was 34 — the same age I mise what one holds most dear. This is the forests, climb the mountains, bag the am now — he followed his second wife exactly why, no matter how often I se- peaks, run the rivers” I received as scrip- and two children from Albuquerque to cretly admire or perversely envy Abbey’s ture from a desert prophet. Hoboken, New Jersey, where he worked, life, no matter how often I scheme and No, I’ve been thinking of a different miserably, in a welfare office cubicle. Like dream of ways my family can live in what Abbey. The melancholic, often deeply Abbey in Hoboken, I now sit inside most remains of our nation’s wild areas, I will unhappy Abbey who struggled to bal- of the day, switching my gaze between follow Abbey no further down his particu- ance the opposing pulls of domesticity the glow of a computer screen and the lar rough and lonesome road. and wilderness. The Abbey who fled one rain dripping from the eaves outside my Instead, at the end of a long day, Kelly marriage only to immerse himself in the home office. Like Abbey, I long for simple brings our daughter into my office, and troubles of another, then another, then days on naked rock under desert sun. For we three stand and look out at the rising In a moment of another, then another. The Abbey who Abbey, those simple days became, like moon. I sound a low howl, Kelly adds her contentment, drifted from one seasonal park job to the the “black sun” in his 1971 novel of that coyote yips, and my daughter looks from Edward Abbey reads next in large part because, as his biog- name, “a blinding and terrible beauty one of us to the other, beaming bright, with his fourth wife, rapher Jack Loeffler remarked, “in his which obliterated everything but the im- and I’m as happy as I ever was alone and Renee Downing, at endless oscillation between solitude and age of itself.” free on a desert trail. a Forest Service fire lookout on Aztec society … he was rarely totally happy in Here, then, the biography of the man Peak, Arizona, in either set of circumstances. Always long- whom I’ve consciously or unconsciously Nathaniel Brodie’s essays have appeared the Sierra Ancha ing, forever turbulent, never at peace.” emulated for 20 years becomes a caution- in Creative Nonfiction, Terrain.org, The Mountains in 1978. This is the Abbey who speaks to me ary tale. For Abbey abandoned his second Humanist and other publications. Buddy MAy now. For a decade, I worked in some of the most beautiful and remote places in the world: Kachemak Bay State Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Glacier Nation- al Park, Grand Canyon National Park. Living apart from what Abbey dubbed the “clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus,” I was responsible only for myself and what fit into my car. Each spring I’d throw myself into a new place, and spend the summer building trail. When the long days shortened to wintery nubs, I’d travel or work in some sunny elsewhere. The nomadic life has its drawbacks: constantly applying for new jobs, making friends only to leave them, rarely earn- ing much money or receiving benefits. It’s a life predominantly enjoyed by 18- to 25-year-olds, but it’s one that a 29-year- old Abbey entered with a wife and two children. He’d convinced himself that sustaining both a family and a seasonal, wilderness-based life was “within the realm of concrete actuality.” Three mar- riages later, he admitted, with character- istic candor, “My wives got sick and tired of the constant moving around and the poverty-level income.” For a decade, my girlfriend, Kelly, and I both gloried in the independence of the seasonal life. We worked in different parks and places, apart almost as often as we were together. But eventually we

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HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY BETSY MARSTON

nEvAdA to have had a good time, but some observers were A “firearms tourist attraction” just a shuttle ride incensed, including David Moore, a Republican away from the Las Vegas Strip ginned up a nov- state lawmaker who clearly never wants to see a el promotion for Valentine’s Day, reports the Las biker in a thong again. Moore recently introduced Vegas Review-Journal. Machine Guns Vegas in- a bill that would expand the state’s indecent expo- vited newly divorced women to stop sobbing over sure law to prohibit “any nipple exposure, includ- their wedding gowns and “have fun shooting up ing men’s,” as well as any garment that “gives the the dress with an M1919 Browning machine appearance or simulates” any part of a person’s gun.” The gun frequently stars in shoot-’em-up nether region, reports the Billings Gazette. That movies because it fires a brisk 400-600 rounds wouldn’t include yoga pants, but Moore believes per minute. Men are also welcome to try the “should be illegal in public anyway.” The bill, $499 “Just Divorced” package, which encourages which the Legislature killed in mid-February, was the recently uncoupled to shoot any marriage- written with the help of retired professor Walt related item of their choice — excluding any Hill, who explained, “I want Montana to be known photos of recently shed partners. “They’re as a decent state where people can live within the not allowed to shoot a picture,” said the busi- security of laws and protect their children and as- ness owner, who rejoices in the name Genghis sociates from degrading and indecent practices.” Cohen. “They can do it privately, but if a nut job shoots a husband or wife … we don’t want to be WyoMIng involved in a lawsuit.” Cohen anticipates success What should a Sublette County deputy sheriff because he’s done the math: About 315 couples wear on the job? Western attire, of course, espe- get hitched in Las Vegas every day, but national cially since the county includes Pinedale, which statistics indicate that about half of those mar- True West magazine recently designated “a true” riages will flop. That adds up to thousands of uTAh Keep your money, stay clean. grEg WoodAll Western town, reports The Associated Press. heartbroken lovers who might need to soothe Not so fast, partner: Sheriff Stephen Haskell their pain by blasting faded bridal bouquets or ColorAdo has introduced a dress code requiring deputies worn-once bowties and cummerbunds into eter- Chuck Koehler was hiking in the Garden of the to wear black boots, a black ball cap, and black nity. Not that Machine Guns Vegas lacks a sense Gods near Colorado Springs on a windless, quiet trousers and tan shirt. This did not sit well with of romance: It also hosts weddings. “We facilitate day after a fresh snowfall. Suddenly, he told the Deputy Gene Bryson, who said, “I’ve had a cow- all levels of love here,” says Cohen. Independent weekly, a drone with four propel- boy hat on since 19 — I don’t know. That’s what lers appeared, flashing red and green lights and looks good to me in the sheriff’s department. It’s ColorAdo hovering just 12 feet above his head. Koehler Western. It’s Wyoming.” Bryson retired after 28 Speaking of jaundiced views of marriage, the considered picking up a rock and beaning it. But years with the department. weekly Ouray Plaindealer shared a sly remark he refrained, although he considered a noviolent from Nov. 12, 1909: “A girl is always petted and alternative, one that raises a legal (and perhaps orEgon fussed over before she is to be married, much philosophical) question: “If a man is alone deep The mysterious war between joggers and owls has like we give a Thanksgiving turkey care just in the woods and a drone approaches — and he heated up in and around Salem’s Bush Pasture before the slaughter.” moons the drone — is this public indecency?” Park. In the fourth “angry owl” attack since January, a bird plucked Brad Hilliard’s sweat- ArIZonA MonTAnA stained hat off his head, scratching his neck in The Waste Management Phoenix Open unfortu- Ah, indecency: Missoula knows something about the process, reports AP. It was identified as a nately failed to manage its own waste recently: that. Last August, 200 mostly naked bicyclists barred owl, a tough species that’s been causing Fans of the PGA tour had to step carefully to rolled through the city as part of a Dare to be trouble for endangered spotted owls as well as avoid “puddles of raw human waste when a row Bare event, celebrating the right of bicyclists of joggers. The federal government is now killing of Crowd Pleaser port-o-potties overflowed,” all types of body shapes and attire (or lack of it) thousands of barred owls in an attempt to give reports The Week magazine. to share the roads. If you saw video of the bikers their spotted kin some relief. on their tiny seats, you probably thought: That WEB EXTRA for more from heard around the West, see looks really uncomfortable. Participants seemed www.hcn.org.

High In ads and reports and TV spots, Big Oil tried Country to frame the sage grouse issue as an News “ For people who care about the West. economic rather than a scientific matter, High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a while portraying supporters of an endangered species magazine, a weekly column service, books and a Web site. For editorial comments or questions, write High listing as un savory agitators. Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428, e-mail [email protected] or call 970-527-4898. www.hcn.org. Jimmy Tobias, in his essay, “Crude tactics worked against the sage grouse,” from Writers on the Range,” www.hcn.org/wotr 28 High Country News March 2, 2015