By: Sean P. Harvey, aka: A Very Thirsty Student In the 1950s, Tucson, Arizona seemed to be the ideal place for businesses or residents to relocate. In Tucson, people and corporations could find 350 days of sunshine, a leisurely Western lifestyle and panoramic vistas. But, one might pause to think about the fact that Tucson is a desert-town and may have difficulty procuring water for its corporate and residential citizens. In order to assuage the hydrological concerns of those who were contemplating a move to the Old Pueblo, the Chamber of Commerce produced a pamphlet on the issue. Titled the “Truth About Water” (cover image at left by courtesy of University of Arizona, Special Collections) the document refuted all claims that there was a water shortage and delivered the promise that one would always have all the water one could possibly need for agricultural, industrial or recreational purposes. For those who were familiar with Tucson and its parched environs, the guarantee for unlimited water in perpetuity seemed absurd. Local hydrologists such as George Smith railed against such “misleading and untrue” accounts. However, the pleas of residents and experts such as Smith went unheeded as the water table in Tucson and the rest of Arizona would continue decline throughout the twentieth century.
The debate over groundwater regulation that occurred in Arizona during the mid-twentieth century, as exemplified in this pamphlet, illuminates several concepts that relate to how the environmental sciences relate to the regulation of natural resources. First, it allows us to see how legal definitions of environmental resources or concerns can hinder the conservation of resources. When the framers of the territorial Arizona constitution first applied the doctrine of prior-appropriation to water resources, they only applied that legal regime to surface waters only and not groundwater. As a result, groundwater occupied a legal netherworld which allowed people to hoard and waste the resource without contemplating its effect on the environment and the livelihood of their neighbors. When environmental resources and situations are placed outside the scope of a regulatory apparatus, the environment and those who depend upon those resources suffer. Secondly, it allows us to see what happens when economic priorities are placed ahead of environmental concerns. In its calculations, the Chamber decided that more business and population would outweigh the negative effects of possible groundwater depletion. This prioritization of economic benefit over environmental health would lead not only to dry riverbeds and the elimination of the greasewood and cottonwood copses that once surrounded the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers, but also deprived farmers and other local businesses of a resource that they depended upon. Lastly, it allows us to see how science can be relegated to the realm of opinion and not fact. Hydrologists such as Smith advised the legislature about the dangers posed by groundwater depletion on official advisory councils, as well as in correspondence and on his annual radio show. However, his expertise was shunted aside as overly-cautious and unrealistic. As such, the legislature and local boosters were able to manufacture their own ‘truth’ about the state of groundwater in the Old Pueblo.
Sean, this is really interesting because I am currently writing a paper about efforts to dam Sabino Canyon. In the thirties there was overwhelming community support for a 250 foot dam that would create a lake that could be used as a recreational attraction. Nobody seemed to be concerned with the effect it would have the communities fed by the canyon.
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