Straha
Banned
What if American West had been settled as John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Grand Canyon and many of the desert lands of the Southwest, had suggested. This proposal was originally presented as a map and testimon on February 27, 1890, before the US Senate Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclaimation of Arid Lands.
On this map, Powell had drawn what he saw as an answer to the resource dilemmas that increasingly had begun to plague officials. Once beyond this invisible, yet real, boundary of the West, the hundreth meridian, the landscape was dominated by one constant, common denominator: aridity. Between the eastern and western thresholds of the arid lands, Powell had highlighted twenty-four distinct river basins totaling roughly 1,340,000 square miles. Subdivided within these major river basins were 152-158 individual hydrographic units or "watersheds." Each one represented, as Powell stated, a region of the country that must be considered as a unit, and collectively, as ecosystemic pieces of a grand landscape puzzle.
Powell intended each drainage basin district to be analogous to a county and
function as natural, self-governing body politic, cooperatively and prudently using the watershed's resources. Further still, he believed that this watershed framework could support an alternative, more sustainable relationship between the people and places of the arid West. The map represented his insight into the arid region's environmental complexity and framed the architecture for a new political landscape. Powell's insight was grounded in the distinct geography of the American West.
Thanks to http://www.tnews.com/text/powell_story.html for the above information, something that had been on my mind for a while. I have long been a fan of his.
What if he had been listend to, at least partially? Instead of the states and counties that developed in the West, what if Powell's proposed "watershed communites" were formed instead? Or at least, more attention had been paid to his insights at the time?
On this map, Powell had drawn what he saw as an answer to the resource dilemmas that increasingly had begun to plague officials. Once beyond this invisible, yet real, boundary of the West, the hundreth meridian, the landscape was dominated by one constant, common denominator: aridity. Between the eastern and western thresholds of the arid lands, Powell had highlighted twenty-four distinct river basins totaling roughly 1,340,000 square miles. Subdivided within these major river basins were 152-158 individual hydrographic units or "watersheds." Each one represented, as Powell stated, a region of the country that must be considered as a unit, and collectively, as ecosystemic pieces of a grand landscape puzzle.
Powell intended each drainage basin district to be analogous to a county and
function as natural, self-governing body politic, cooperatively and prudently using the watershed's resources. Further still, he believed that this watershed framework could support an alternative, more sustainable relationship between the people and places of the arid West. The map represented his insight into the arid region's environmental complexity and framed the architecture for a new political landscape. Powell's insight was grounded in the distinct geography of the American West.
Thanks to http://www.tnews.com/text/powell_story.html for the above information, something that had been on my mind for a while. I have long been a fan of his.
What if he had been listend to, at least partially? Instead of the states and counties that developed in the West, what if Powell's proposed "watershed communites" were formed instead? Or at least, more attention had been paid to his insights at the time?