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Public Waters: A Discussion with the Author

  • Mountain Studies Institute San Juan Mountains Silverton & Durango, Colorado (map)
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Join Maria's Bookshop and Mountain Studies Institute for a virtual discussion with author Anne Mackinnon about her new book, "Public Waters: Lessons From Wyoming for the American West."

Wyoming’s colorful story of water management illuminates the powerful forces that impact water use in the rural American West. The state’s rich history of managing this valuable natural resource provides insights and lessons for the twenty-first-century American West as it faces drought and climate change. Public Waters shows how, as popular hopes and dreams meet tough terrain, a central idea that has historically structured water management can guide water policy for Western states today.

Drawing on forty years as a journalist with training in water law and economics, Anne MacKinnon paints a lively picture of the arcane twists in the notable record of water law in Wyoming. She maintains that other Western states should examine how local people control water and that states must draw on historical understandings of water as a public resource to find effective approaches to essential water issues in the West.

Catch the conversation here on zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81944898055