“For there is not sufficient water to supply the land.” – John Wesley Powell, 1893

The basic tenet of capitalism is that continuous growth is necessary for the economy. And indeed, our politicians from both major parties wholeheartedly and without question embrace the unrealistic concept that you can have infinite growth on a finite resource base. 

But as the West’s climate-caused mega-drought continues, it appears Mother Nature is about to tune us up to the fact that she, not the theoretical economists, calls the shots and will, whether they like it or not, limit Montana’s out-of-control and out-of-resources growth. 

Not that this wasn’t foreseen. 

“Gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights. For there is not sufficient water to supply the land.” That prescient advice was rendered at an irrigation conference in 1893 by John Wesley Powell, who had a vast wealth of experience in the West, including being the first to take open boats down the raging — and now drying — Colorado River in his 1869 expedition. 

His prophetic vision was ignored by powerful railroad barons, intent on “settling the West” and plundering its vast resources.  Yet, only 30 years after Powell’s warning, their dreams of continuous growth and vast profits did nothing to fend off the Dust Bowl that would bring an end to thousands of subsistence farmers, literally blowing them off the powdered, bone-dry land due to a lack of rain and snow.

A century later, the West is now faced with a similar lack of precipitation, and as Powell predicted, the “heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights” is sweeping the West thanks in large part to the fact that state governments have awarded more water rights than there is water in the rivers to fulfill them.

The examples are many, and stacking up every day.  Here in Montana the Big Hole, our once world-famous trout stream, is experiencing collapsing trout populations due to low flows and high water temperatures.  Even the rivers draining Glacier National Park are struggling with lack of water due to increasingly lower snowpacks.  One only need look at our brown mountains in December to see the proof and wonder “when will it snow?”

Or how about the continuing desiccation of the Great Salt Lake — which threatens to make Salt Lake City unlivable for its three million residents due to the toxic dusts blowing off the dry salt flats?  In desperation, the state has already spent tens of millions of dollars trying to re-water the lake.  And now, some $50 million of federal money is being thrown down that black hole trying to deny the drought while another $10 million is slated to lease water rights.  But here’s the rub, water leasing only works if there’s water in the rivers to lease.

Closer to home, a real estate developer is proposing “Old Town Sheridan,” an 800-home development in Sheridan, Montana, that is being pitched “as a veteran-centered, faith-based community with everything from light manufacturing to an equine center and a golf club.”  It’s laughable since the would-be developer has no land and apparently hasn’t checked the flows in the Jefferson River, which saw its golden days as a trout stream pass many years ago and now barely trickles to the confluence with the Gallatin and Madison at Three Forks.

It’s obvious there’s no limit to greed in the West.  But in the end, as Powell predicted, it will be Mother Nature that puts the limits on growth in our naturally arid region — and it’s about time we acknowledged that inescapable truth.