Thesis Accelerating Waters: an Anthropocene History
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THESIS ACCELERATING WATERS: AN ANTHROPOCENE HISTORY OF COLORADO’S 1976 BIG THOMPSON FLOOD Submitted by Will Wright Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Summer 2016 Master’s committee: Advisor: Mark Fiege Jared Orsi Adrian Howkins Jill Baron Copyright by Will Wright 2016 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT ACCELERATING WATERS: AN ANTHROPOCENE HISTORY OF COLORADO’S 1976 BIG THOMPSON FLOOD Scale matters. But in the Anthropocene, it is not clear how environmental scholars navigate between analytical levels from local and regional phenomena on the one hand, to global Earth-system processes on the other. The Anthropocene, in particular, challenges the ways in which history has traditionally been conceived and narrated, as this new geological epoch suggests that humans now rival the great forces of nature. The Big Thompson River Flood of 1976 provides an opportunity to explore these issues. Over the Anthropocene’s “Great Acceleration” spike, human activities and environmental change intensified both in Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon and across much of the world. The same forces that amplified human vulnerability to the catastrophic deluge on a micro-level through highway construction, automobile vacationing, and suburban development were also at work with the planetary upsurge in roads, cars, tourism, atmospheric carbon dioxide, and flooding on the macro-level. As a theoretical tool, the Anthropocene offers a more ecological means to think and write about relationships among time and space. ii PREFACE The idea for this thesis started with several disasters and a cartoon—though not together. When I was first admitted to Colorado State University, it seemed like environmental catastrophes were all around me. In Helena, Montana, where I had previously called home, the year 2011 brought flooding to the Ten Mile and Prickly Pear Creeks. I found myself stacking sandbags for community defense, but houses still got swamped. One poor soul extracted some humor from the inundation, erecting a makeshift sign that read: “House for sale, newly-installed indoor pool.” During roughly the same time, entire tracts of the surrounding coniferous forest turned from evergreen to rust-orange as mountain pine beetle outbreaks reached epidemic (not endemic) proportions. In Fort Collins, Colorado, where I was soon to live, the 2012 High Park Fire consumed thousands of acres. To the south in Colorado Springs, not even a month later, the Waldo Canyon Fire threatened ex-urban residences. Finally, a week-long rain event struck the Front Range of northern Colorado in 2013. I remember traveling through the Big Thompson Canyon when I first arrived at CSU and seeing a washing-machine dangling out from the gaping floor of a cabin that had its foundation eroded away. All these extreme events seemed to be connected somehow, someway. I wanted to know more. In summer 2014, my thoughts about these disasters more or less came together during the WEST Network Conference in the Tobacco Root Mountains of Montana. At one of the sessions, historian Tim LeCain had utilized dry-erase markers and a whiteboard to sketch a cartoon for his presentation. While the drawings were meant to be comical (one panel contained a Superman hero crest, while another included a caricatured earth with devilish features), the ensuing debate was not. The topic for this scholarly exchange was the intellectual validity of the Anthropocene, a new geologic epoch popularly referred to as the “Age of Humans.” The concept posited that iii many, if not most, of the Earth’s systems had become driven by human activities over the modern era. Some defended it. Others disparaged it. Still others didn’t know what to think about it. But from the most junior of junior scholars like myself at the time to most senior of senior scholars, all participants were engrossed by the subject. After an intense debate, my graduate advisor Mark Fiege walked up to me and said something along the lines of: “This is the type of conversation you want your thesis to speak to.” From then on, I knew that my thesis would explore the intersections of disaster and the Anthropocene. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like any ecological relationship, this project connected me to numerous people and institutions. Mark Fiege has opened my eyes to seeing the world in a totally different way. Good conversation, bottomless coffee, and yet another book recommendation were always at the ready. I owe deep gratitude to Mark for my intellectual development and for any (good) ideas that spill over these pages. I also must thank him for getting me interested in environmental history in the first place: the irrigated fields of Idaho’s Snake River Plain were both the subject of his first book and the substance of my childhood home. Jared Orsi has been a phenomenal writing coach, a great mentor, and a constant reminder on the cosmic significance of “three.” Adrian Howkins has always pushed me to expand my horizons by relentlessly asking me how history looks different from a trans-national perspective. Jill Baron has provided an excellent model of someone who has reached across the divides of academia. I thank her and Ruth Alexander for allowing me to be a participant in the Global Challenge Research Team, an interdisciplinary group of ecologists, environmental historians, and public-lands managers during my first year at CSU. Day after day, I thought about the special bond between history and science. No doubt this thesis challenged me to read a good deal in geology, hydrology, and climatology. In addition to those mentioned above, I thank Janet Ore, Sarah Payne, Robert Gudmestad, Elizabeth Jones, Maren Bzdek, Dane Vanhoozer, Mark Boxell, Katelyn Weber, Sean Fallon, Maggie Moss Jones, Poppie Gullett, among countless others, for shaping the direction of my project with our conversations. All of them make Colorado State University one of the best places for environmental history. Generous financial support from CSU’s History Department and College of Liberal Arts, the American Society for Environmental History and National Science Foundation, and Brigham Young University’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies v afforded me opportunities for research and conference travel. I also relied on many people to navigate various repositories and I am grateful for their kind assistance: Patty Rettig and Clarrisa Trapp at CSU’s Water Resources Archive; Kelly Cahill at the Rocky Mountain National Park Archives; Naomi Gerakios Mucci at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and Estes Park Museum; Sharlynn Wamsley with the Big Thompson Canyon Association; Marene Baker at the National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Region; Lisa Schoch at the Colorado Department of Transportation; Greg Silkensen at the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District; and the archivists and staff at the Colorado State Archives, Denver Public Library, and History Colorado. I thank Chrissy Esposito and Sophia Lynn at CSU’s Geospatial Centroid for creating the maps to complement this project. I am particularly indebted to the historical collections of Kenneth Wright (no relation) and David McComb, as they make up the backbone of this work. A community of friends and family sustained me through the intimidating challenges of graduate school and thesis writing. I thank Mike Fitch and Bob Swartout for first cultivating my sense of wonder and fascination with the past. I also wish to thank Ashten and Dane Broadhead for pulling Carly and me away from Colorado enough to keep our loving connection with Montana. I am indebted to Ryan, Adam, Clint, Rachel, Lexie, Leah, Cleve, Tohlina, Braxton, and Cara for supporting us in one way or another. I am very grateful for my parents, Russ and Andrea Wright, for their unceasing love and our “long” hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. I am also thankful for an “extra” set of parents, Robie and Brad Culver, with their unfailing support and not-so-subtle prompts that adventures are preferable to work every once in a while. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Carly Culver Wright. She has known when and how to guide me back to the things that matter most. Carly has been my companion through the vi thick-and-thin of life: always sharing, always devoting, and always loving. It is to her that I dedicate this work. vii DEDICATION For Carly viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................. viii LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................x INTRODUCTION The Challenge of the Anthropocene ..........................................................................................1 NOTES ...........................................................................................................................................19 CHAPTER ONE Accelerating Road-Building, Accelerating Cars......................................................................26