In this history of agricultural water use in Colorado's San Luis Valley, David Stiller seeks to understand his “valley's water habits” and “to answer how agriculture came to dominate the river in my valley and so many others in the West” (xii). San Luis is Costilla County's largest town, settled by Spanish pobladores in 1849 and built on irrigated farming and ranching, which supported and in turn benefited from the region's mining activities. Stiller follows the development in the San Luis Valley of water law and practice, infrastructure, and irrigation districts, as well as the Rio Grande Compact of 1939 and the Rio Grande Water Conservation District in 1967. Also addressed are recent conflicts between urban and environmental uses and over increasing water scarcity, which threaten long-established practices.
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