Semester in the West Podcast SITW Students

The Colorado River was long ago tamed: Manifest Destiny and a can-do attitude built dams and canals that take nearly all its water to Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Mexico, home of the Colorado's mouth, was left with what remained: water that existed mostly on paper. After 100 years, this dynamic is slowly shifting.

Conservation work is frequently funded by large corporations and rich individuals trying to make an impact, but these supporters sustain their fortunes by exploiting natural resources and people. Is this hypocritical? Does it matter?

In America's rivers, the removal of beavers prompted a precipitous decline in water storage and riparian ecosystem health. By the same token, their reintroduction could transform these places for the better, but it's not as simple as putting them back where they came from.

The Navajo Nation has long benefitted and suffered from the presence of coal mines and generating stations. As these mines shut down due to increased regulation and a smaller coal market, the Navajo must transition to other sources of funding and employment. The Herder family and solar developer Brett Isaacs have some ideas for how to do that.

Ranchers have long bent the West to their will, putting cattle out to graze in deserts, mountains, and grasslands belonging to the American people. In an era of climate change and environmentalism, the landscape itself dictates what happens in the West. The icons of a prior age most likely to survive into a new one are those adaptable to this period of sudden change.

In the early 20th century, the Colorado River Delta was teeming with life and full of water. Now, it is dry and barren. The Sonoran Institute, a regional non-profit, seeks to reconnect the people of the Delta with the memory of what was lost and a dream of what could be regained.