Kumbaya is not a solution to Western water rights

That's even though John Fleck claims it is.

Fleck, a former Albuquerque Journal reporter, is now an adjunct professor at UNM and director of its water resources program. He is right that collaborative water governance is needed in the Colorado basin and elsewhere in the Southwest, but his blog (with a sometimes co-author, Eric Kuhn) tends to go overboard. He claims that most past reporting on the issue has been unduly alarmist and achieved little. He's half right on that.

A lot of it has been alarmist. Unduly? Maybe, maybe not. As for whether the alarmism helped prod collaboration under fear, maybe it didn't but maybe it did.

He's wrong that past history of water issues indicate that "Kumbaya" type interactions have been how all this collaborative governance has been achieved. Often, collaborative government has only resulted after legal threats. I don't consider a mailed fist in the background, even if not actually used, to be "Kumbaya." (And, that's setting aside the times that collaboration between different water governance entities only happened AFTER the mailed fist hit something.) And unlike alarmist headlines (or even books: Fleck semi-sneers about Marc Reisner's renowned "Cadillac Desert"), where benefit or lack thereof is near-impossible to determine, lawsuits, or even the threat of them, causing change can be clearly measured.

And, yes, IMO, sneered is the right word on "Cadillac Desert." Look for yourself.

Another red flag of sorts, that I noted as I wrapped this up? Fleck's UNM position is in its department of economics, not Geography and Environmental Science, which probably says something right there.

With that in mind, I eventually decided to read his 2016 book. What's below is an adapted Goodreads review.

Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West by John Fleck
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Intellectually dishonest, in my opinion.

He, or his friends, know the numbers stuff. But, he's Preznit Kumbaya on his framing.

So, knowing Fleck had written this book, and that he had a new one coming out, I wanted to see what he was like in more than blogging depth.

Answer?

Worse than on the blog.

Let’s start with the most egregious issue. A 2016 book about Colorado River water issues doesn’t even use the words “climate change” until page 199? UNACCEPTABLE.

Second, and the point behind the header?

Much of the “Kumbaya” that Fleck mentions was only achieved with the threat of a legal mailed fist behind it. Kumbaya by force of law is hardly Kumbaya.

Other issues that pop up early on?

More dissing of Reisner. After initial mention, simply ignoring James Powell, author of “Dead Pool.” I have re-read “Cadillac Desert” have a dozen times and “Dead Pool” twice. Both are in my small “keepers” library.

Next? More Kumbaya, even as places like today’s Aral Sea basin, Jordan River, Tigris-Euphrates and Nile show that Kumbaya ain’t working so well as we speak.

We don't even need to go outside the Colorado Basin! The fate of the Hohokam should indicate that Kumbaya doesn't always win.

Next next? Ignoring that Colorado River water usage has been mitigated by ever-heavier drawdowns of groundwater, both in groundwater basins connected to the Colorado (Arizona) and in those not (California), though there it’s more to reduce Sacramento-San Joaquin water u se in the Central Valley.

Next next next? Ignoring the connection between groundwater basins and river recharge. Anybody who knows the godawful state of southern Arizona tributaries of the Gila also knows why.

And, we’ll keep going. In supporting growing alfalfa as a flexible crop, he ignores that the methane farts of the cows it feeds contribute to the climate change that is making the Colorado ever drier. But, since he doesn't mention climate change until the end of the book ...

A lot of the Kumbaya cooperation Fleck cites, like in SoCal, has the fist of threatened legal power behind it, in specific, just as has most Colorado River stuff. Doesn’t matter if the threat is rarely invoked; it exists. That’s “forced Kumbaya,” not Kumbaya.

Also, it comes off as a bit cherry-picking to discuss a couple of small Southland water districts and never discuss the massive water headaches in the Central Valley, which were a large part of Reisner’s book.

One other reviewer notes water fights in the Central Valley (speaking of) are even worse than in the Colorado, and large scale corporate farms have no problems putting their thumb on the scales.

Back inside the Colorado basin, and after the date of this book, Arizona’s state Speaker of the House Bowers nearly gutted a needed agreement for new water use reductions earlier this year with a proposed rider on the bill. Only the threat of the Maricopa affiliation of Indian tribes forced his hand. Fleck made light of it.

Speaking of that, that water agreement was required because of Lake Mead hitting 1.075 elevation. Fleck, near the end of the book, notes that a previous agreement didn’t directly address 1,075, but appears to believe there that this point wouldn’t hit until after 2020.

Well, Fleck, it hit before then, and it hit before then in spite of a record Rockies snowpack in 2019. Did you talk about climate change in your new book?

One other point vis-à-vis the Anglo water world in the Southwest in general, American Indian water rights are the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Fleck does eventually discuss them – for half a dozen pages or so in the last 10 percent of the book. But he doesn’t go into detail.

Next, he never considers whether a “moon shoot” shouldn’t overhaul the current Upper / Lower Basin divisions. (I say it should; I’d put the Virgin River in the lower basin and the Little Colorado in the upper.) Related to that, on his blog, Fleck appears wedded to giving the Upper Basin just as much water despite its lesser population and its agricultural challenges.

Something almost as inexcusable as not mentioning climate change until the end of the book? Talking early on about the Mormons and the amount of water management ideas they spread around the West while ignoring that they got much of that, in turn, by learning from the majordomos who ran (and still run, in many cases) acequias in New Mexico. It’s doubly inexcusable not to mention this since Fleck is a long term reporter at the Albuquerque Journal.

That’s even though he mentions it in his blog. While, at the same time, it's a throwaway line.

Look, some "gloom and doom" newspaper reporting and books over the state of the Colorado may have been too much. BUT, they were reasonable extrapolations from the status quo at the time they were written. Killing a perhaps sometimes overdone angle the way Fleck has done is proverbial gnat meeting sledgehammer.

Of course, a sledgehammer can't be swung quickly and accurately enough to actually kill a gnat.

Finally, beyond the thumb-on-scales slant, I just don't think the book is that well written. The throwaway nature of the Mormon comment would be one example.


View all my reviews

And, it's not just the book.

Here's a post from late September about how much Albuquerque has cut its water use.

My thoughts back?

Of course, not all of this is due to Kumbaya let's all be nice.

Any water reduction agreement with the threat of a legal mailed fist behind it is NOT Kumbaya.

And, it's not just from other Anglos or whatever. Fleck's own former paper noted how the state is fighting Navajos winning new San Juan water rights. That's even though it says it agrees with the result.

And, less non-Navajo water right on the San Juan means less water to divert to the Chama.

Various pueblos had water rights confirmed in 2017. Again, mailed legal fist, or threat of it, to established municipal users. 

There's also the issue of water purity. I'm sure that Fleck knows Isleta won a ruling on that 20 years ago. It's indirectly related to water rights, though the main issue was about treating water for quality. Non-Puebloans using less water means that water that remains, or treated water that is better treated when returned to the river, will more easily meet the requirements.

Also, the carrot of tax credits for low-flow showerheads, low-flush toilets, etc. and the stick of higher water rates have been part of the mix. The carrot could be called Kumbaya; the stick not so much.

High Country News has done a number of stories on Indian water rights. Here's one from a year ago. An important takeaway from that is that it often takes decades for the rubber of a new Indian water rights legal confirmation to hit the road of reality on how that affects other water users.

No wonder Ted Nordhaus' Breakthrough Institute has a page on him. And, you know, if you look at Breakthrough's board, tech-libertarians and their likes abound.

Yeah, Reisner is dated. That said, despite one commenter on Fleck's page, he's NOT that dated; the revised edition is 25 years old, not 40. And Powell, who DOES mention climate change, is only half a decade old and not out of date at all. Worster's not out of date either. And, he's spot on about noting issues of class and water rights, which play out especially on American Indian issues but also somewhat elsewhere.

And, instead of reading this book, or Fleck's new one, read Powell. Or the new "Downriver" from Heather Hansman. Or, beyond the narrow issue of water, Christopher Ketchum's new "This Land." Just don't bother reading John Fleck.