Our turn now
THERE's a story out West with the usual cast of a contemporary Western— ranchers and developers, Indians and greens, government money and Washington politicians, and people trying to make a living in the middle of nowhere. It is a story about a big dam, the Animas-La Plata water-diversion project, maybe the last great effort to squeeze water out of the arid West. This is the monumental sort of federal project that will be good if you like the way it turned out, and bad if you don't. The environmentalists hate it, worrying that pollution levels will rise, lovely rivers will subside and fish will have a rough time. Nearby property-owners argue what property-owners always argue: the dam is necessary to save a destitute area, and aren't people more important than squawfish?
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Our turn now”
From the June 14th 1997 edition
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