Perspectives of a Manager of the "Pasturage Lands Between"

Comparing current notions of community based watershed groups with Powell’s proposal for hydrographic districts

by Ann J. Morgan, Colorado State Director
Bureau of Land Management
Presented at the
Stegner Center 7th Annual Symposium
April 12, 2002
Salt Lake City, Utah

I plan to compare our current understanding of community based watershed groups with Powell’s hydrographic districts in several key areas including scale, local economies, what is considered local, collaboration versus regulation, the role of science and scientists, diversity of people and cultures, and 19th century versus 21st century values.

Community based watershed groups are place-based in that they focus their work on a specific geographic locale and they are driven by local leaders and volunteers not by federal agency employees or interest groups. Here in the West, they are often focused on the management of public lands, waters or other resources.

Scale: The question of scale always comes up with watersheds and ecosystems. How big are we talking about? Powell highlighted 24 river basins encompassing 1,340,000 square miles subdivided into between 152-158 hydrographic units or watersheds. These watersheds were the basis for the districts Powell recommended as the boundaries for administrative units. If you take the average, you come up with about 5 to 6 million acres in each district. About the size of Massachusetts. How "local" would that feel to most community based watershed groups?

The Sonoran Institute’s field guide to collaborative conservation on the west’s public lands called Beyond the 100th Meeting offers some insight into scale.

"The most promising collaborative initiatives work on a relatively small scale that makes sense as a landscape with which local people can identify."

"In large landscapes, sense of place no longer holds people together. As the scale gets larger or the issue of broader significance, the number of stakeholders, and level of complexity increases exponentially, requiring a sophistication in facilitating broad participation that so far seems to elude most interest groups."

In my experience, a watershed of 5 or 6 million acres is many times too big to be considered a viable scale for a community based watershed group. An area of this size would require full time professionals for the group rather than local interested citizens.

Even the concept of what is "local" has changed dramatically in this era of high speed transportation and cyberspace. There is no doubt that in Powell’s time local meant the people who actually lived and worked in the district. These days, local community often has more to do with where you shop, which Little League your kids belong to, and where your family goes camping every summer rather than which watershed you live in.

Economies: The economies envisioned by Powell included agriculture, ranching, timbering and mining with all products produced and consumed within the watershed district. This framework dissolves in the face of refrigerated railcars and multinational corporations which insure we have fresh strawberries year round. Powell’s underlying focus on local self sufficiency is somewhat surprising given the era in which he lived and worked. By the 1870s economies in the east, north and even the south were based on industrialism not agriculture. By the time Powell wrote the Report to Congress cross-country rail transportation was moving people and goods. The 1860 United States census population was 31 million with 20% living in urban areas. By 1880 it was 50 million people with nearly 30% living in urban areas.

The economies today where you see many of the community based watershed groups formed tend to have non-labor income and services as their dominant economic sector. Agriculture, timber and mining tend to be relatively small portions of the overall economy. The communities often have lots of retirees, second homes, and a focus on public land recreation. Most are near major highways and an airport allowing residents and visitors easy movement in and out of the community.

Collaboration versus regulation: Powell’s districts were envisioned as local governmental entities that could, and would have to, tax their citizens and borrow money in order to manage the waters, pasturage and timber. They would create regulations to ensure appropriate resource utilization and construction of improvements. They would hire inspectors, water masters, foresters, and herders. They would have a system of courts.

Community based watershed groups, on the other hand, are based on collaboration that works despite the overlay of federal regulation. Partners might contribute financially to the extent they are able but they do not have to pay to join. These groups may hire an executive director but they rarely hire inspectors and resource managers. Every party to the group brings something unique but all are required to commit the time to attend meetings.

Role of Science and Scientist: Powell believed in the power of good science and data to drive decisions. He believed in government surveyors and scientists coming in and providing the science and then leaving because he believed that the science would point to the one true course and good people would follow that course. The federal land management institutions were built with the same belief. Send the young people to college to learn the science of forestry, or wildlife biology, or range management and this army of experts will appropriately manage the resources.

Community based solutions mean that everyone needs to buy into the science, not just the professional. Most often there is not good data and good science is up to interpretation; what I call "dualing scientists". Sometimes science takes a back seat to economics, politics, visual aesthetics, culture and historic preservation. The professional scientist or resource manager does not have all the answers and is only one part of the group that needs to develop the solution.

Diversity of people: Powell apparently based many of his notions of community governance on his exposure to Morman communities and communities based on Spanish land grants. These communities tended to be stable, homogenous and have an emphasis on the good of the community over the individual self interest. Today’s communities are anything but stable or homogenous. People move in and out of communities with great frequency. There are often great economic divides between the retirees, trust-funders, and dot-commers and the working class people of the community. Most communities have more cultural and ethnic diversity than the ones Powell based his models on resulting in various and sometimes conflicting values within the community.

Values: 19th century values are substantially different from 21st century values. With the exception of some conservation thinkers like John Muir, a contemporary of Powell, people saw the vast west as a place to be conquered and reclaimed. Today people, and watershed groups, value free flowing rivers with native fisheries at least as much as they value dams and ditches. What Powell saw as "wasted land" many people today see as spectacular red rock country worthy of a spiritual retreat. The people of the 19th century did not understand the concept of biodiversity and the concept of preserving wilderness attributes rather than taming those same attributes would have been foreign. Many 19th century immigrants were just moving into a new country and a new place and they wouldn’t have understood the notion of trying to prevent change to protect a sense of place. Local citizens are more likely today to come together to protect water resources from development rather than coming together to pool finances and develop water resources.

Summary: Community based watershed groups are a good thing even if they are substantially different than what John Wesley Powell recommended 125 years ago. The boundaries for science do not need to match administrative or jurisdictional boundaries in order for us to make good use of the science. Technology is making boundaries less and less important in decision making anyway. As long as we keep the big picture in mind, look outside the lines, and keep talking with our neighbors we can make good decisions. Sometimes a community based on a set of common interests and passion makes for better natural resource decisions than a community based on the hydrologic properties of the land.

-BLM-