The water feud goes back 30 years to the previous land owner and the dead husband next door, it landed in our laps 7:30 on a Sunday morning with a call from the water master. It has to do with pressure and shares of water, auxiliary water systems, it has to do with some getting too much and some getting more, with large pastures fighting to stay green in the desert, cows stripping every last bit from the land, it has to do with what I think is right and what my neighbor insists is right. The water feud was long buried, both with the sale of the land and the death of the neighbor. But 30 years of water flowing against your will is something hard to get over, the ole lady next door jumping back into the fight.
She is really sweet, not a push over, she plays with the baby teaching her tricks, like sticking her hand in a water glass. She always sends me home with brownies or cookies pulled from her deep freezer. Usually she has a fire going, it is chilly here even in the summer and she likes to be comfortable. Her husband died before I ever landed here.
It’s not personal, I tell my husband. He is pulling hay from the field, hundreds and hundreds of bails by hand. Of course it’s personal. I want to defend my neighbor, the ole lady, her nephew, his wife. I don’t want to grimace when I see the water master, our friend, who left carrots and fresh tomatoes on our trailer steps. I don’t want to feel guilty that our partner is taking all the heat on this, himself a member of the Church, going every Sunday, seeing these people. What happened to the small community I was a part of?
My husband is right. It is personal. Water is personal out here. And though no one is starving, the cattle are still fat, and the overflow of our neighbor’s water seeps down to our fields, one day it might not be that way.
Carcass Creek feeds the valley. It used to freely wind through the valley catching cattle and sheep in its steep banks, devouring them, pioneers finding their livelihood drowned. Cottonwoods hugged its sides, deer, elk, coyote, mountain lion, all drank from it. Whose creek is this? Who owns the water, the underground springs, the snow that melts in the spring? The Grover Irrigation Company does. They divvy the shares of water – all taken now- to the residents of the valley. New residents threaten to drill deep wells to tap into underground water, to access what they are not allowed to buy into.
The creek ran free for centuries until now. On the upper side of it, up the mountain a ways, the wild roses, moss covered rocks, a spongy green oasis still exists. It rushes over rocks in the soothing tone water gets as it moves wild and untethered. Below it hits the head gates, is diverted to both sides of the valley.
From the top of the hill this morning I could see our pastures and our neighbors’ pastures, I could see the cows, the deer my dog chased from the field, jack rabbits running from my daughter’s sounds, ravens flying below me, their wings flapping loudly- sending wind across my ears. And from everywhere I could hear the swish swish swishing of irrigation heads spitting onto the fields.
A sprinkler is a bird, and the number of birds you can run depends on the shares you have. And you can’t buy more shares. They are already designated, a long time ago, before we were here. Newcomers beware, you can put up a house, but this valley is closed for ranching and farming.
A rich guy up the highway doesn’t worry about the non existence of new water shares. He can afford a deep down well drilled into the earth’s core, tapping the underground aquifer that feeds all of our wells. He uses it for several acres of pasture that will feed a few horses, that will look good and awe his guests. His property has the bright red barn and three car garage, you can’t miss it, when you head up the mountain. He is the last house before Dixie Forest. His bright green water hungry pastures stand in the middle of the pinions, pines, junipers, red rock cliffs that come natural to these parts.
But it’s nothing personal, he says. Land is for sale. Water shares are not. He is just making due with what he’s got. The ole lady next door relents at the pleading and persuading of her grown children. Her nephew waves hi and thanks us for our help with his loose calf earlier. We are not bad people. We are neighbors. We are all making due with what we can. Stretching the hay fields as long as they’ll last. Pasturing the cows a little too long in each field. All this tension and it hasn’t even been a dry year.