Letter by Slim Wolfe
SLV Water – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
It isn’t only Boyce’s greed that leads to Water Wars
Editors:
So bully for Quillen smoking Boyce’s cigars. Haven’t I passed the hookah myself with a farmer or two? Farmers and ranchers at least earn our respect for hard work and earthiness. What irritates about selling water is the brazen ease of getting rich without sweat.
But hey, why walk if you can ride, why put all that water into alfalfa if you can sell it straight up? Honest day’s work? Never heard of it.
Ancient Babylon and Rome also devised urban water delivery. Rome (like us) imported so much food from its neighbors that more local farmers went broke and descended on the city, a thirsty army of unemployed. We as people are not always good at profiting from the mistakes of history. As long as there’s greed, somebody seems to step forward to fill the need.
I know one family farm, at least, that upholds the Jeffersonian solution. By raising their own food and selling some surplus, they stretch $40,000 to cover the needs of ten, including college for one and a new house. Their vehicles and their clothes are older, but no one hollers for more.
Every person or family that learns to keep its needs within its means (and within the means of the land) is part of the solution. Every person or family that hollers for more contributes to water wars and other problems.
Slim Wolfe Villa Grove