The water law under which the "west was won" came from a time when the frontier seemed like an endless resource and the development and utilization of the boundless resources were essential to becoming a world power. For resources like water and minerals the first to consume the resource acquired the ownership. The good news is that it worked. The bad news is that we didn't learn to turn off our appetite for consumption when the frontier was gone. We will continue to pay social, economic and environmental penalties for that in places like the eastern Sierra.
Dale B. Dalrymple
