{"id":11038,"date":"2015-08-14T18:56:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T23:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11038"},"modified":"2015-08-14T18:56:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T23:56:18","slug":"on-the-value-of-water-and-the-pain-of-drought-in-the-american-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11038","title":{"rendered":"On the Value of Water and the Pain of Drought in the American West"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><a class=\"cboxElement\" title=\"Drift boats carry fly fishermen down the Madison River, in southwestern Montana.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.circleofblue.org\/waternews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/MadisonRiver1000.jpg\" data-lightboxplus=\"lightbox[62107]\">On the Value of Water and the Pain of Drought in the American West<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-54193\" title=\"Drift boats carry fly fishermen down the Madison River, in southwestern Montana.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.circleofblue.org\/waternews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/MadisonRiver1000.jpg\" alt=\"Madison River Montana fly fishing drift boat drought circle of blue\" width=\"590\" height=\"331\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n<div class=\"photoCredit\">Photo \u00a9 Brett Walton \/ Circle of Blue<\/div>\n<div class=\"photoCaption\">Drift boats carry fly fishermen down the Madison River, in southwestern Montana.\u00a0<em>Click image to enlarge.<\/em><\/div>\n<p><strong>ENNIS, Montana \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0As roads go, the shoulder of Route 249, which flanks the broad bottomlands of the Madison River, is an inspiring path for a run.<\/p>\n<p>On a recent evening in late July, the route was particularly splendid. Golden-hour sunlight burnished the Madison Range with a honeyed glow, illuminating one of those Big Sky views that stirs wealthy urbanites to peruse ranch listings and learn horsemanship.<\/p>\n<p>I set off on a long out-and-back up the valley, but after 15 minutes I stopped running. It was not for lack of breath: sprinklers caught my eye.<\/p>\n<p>As the road doglegged, one of the great conflict zones for water use in the American West sprawled before me. Beyond, just out of sight, was the Madison River, where drift boats carried fly fishermen along some of the country\u2019s best trout habitat. In the river\u2019s floodplain were rows of alfalfa, one of the thirstiest field crops. The scene was nearly silent, interrupted only by the occasional songbird and the sprinklers, which swung left and right in a 180-degree arc, their swishes and tuts sounding like a roomful of typists reproducing an endless novel.<\/p>\n<h2>Value of Water<\/h2>\n<p>Agriculture and rivers. These are two of the chief contestants on the West\u2019s water stage. Farming, which uses, on average, at least 80 percent of the water that humans pull out of streams and aquifers, has slayed many a river. Irrigators on the Gallatin River, a neighbor to the Madison, for instance, have the legal right to dry up the waterway, according to Peter Brown of the Gallatin Valley Land Trust.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the Value of Water and the Pain of Drought in the American West Photo \u00a9 Brett Walton \/ Circle of Blue Drift boats carry fly fishermen down the Madison River, in southwestern Montana.\u00a0Click image to enlarge. ENNIS, Montana \u2014\u00a0As roads go, the shoulder of Route 249, which flanks the broad bottomlands of the Madison [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8096,8098,220,8097,2747,866],"class_list":["post-11038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-american-west","tag-circle-of-blue","tag-drought","tag-madison-river","tag-montana","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11039,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11038\/revisions\/11039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}