The Annual Water Convention

This time of year, Colorado’s water leaders meet in Denver at the annual Colorado Water Congress convention. Water managers, attorneys, engineers, board members of the State’s water conservation and conservancy districts, and State water officials convene around an agenda that includes the latest conversation on current water issues, projects, new concepts to optimize water use and legislative initiatives.

How the new State administration may deal with the water plan will be on everyone’s mind.  New concepts of water appropriation and administration will be discussed with pro and con debate.  These concepts will continue to revolve around alternative transfer methods and the perennial discussion over drought and the prospect of drought.

​The culture of water use and drought are intermingled in the spirit of the West.  The aridity of the Western USA is a constant condition in the thoughts of water users. I believe it is appropriate for our readers to ponder the following poem written over 70 years ago by arguably the greatest American poet, Robert Frost.  Robert Frost was a farmer and he understood the dependence upon vagaries of weather that agriculturalists face.

​THE BROKEN DROUGHT
By: Robert Frost
The prophet of disaster ceased to shout.
Something was going right outside the hall.
A rain, though stingy, had begun to fall
That rather hurt his theory of the drought
And all the great convention was about.
A cheer went up that shook the mottoed wall.
He did as Shakespeare says, you may recall,
Good orators will do when they are out.
Yet in his heart he was unshaken sure
The drought was one no spit of rain could cure.
It was the drought of deserts. Earth would soon
Be uninhabitable as the moon.
What for that matter had it ever been?
Who advised man to come and live therein?