Law students traversing down the Grand Canyon (Courtesy of Gregor Macgregor)
I teach The Law of the River seminar at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Law School. Each alternating spring, we dive into the laws and policies that impact one of the American West’s most important resources – the Colorado River. After many readings, discussions, and guest lectures from professionals, the course culminates in a two-week floating symposium through the Grand Canyon. Students present their research and proposed solutions to the basin’s challenges by night and confront the river’s extraordinary beauty and fragility by day.
Whether or not you’re versed in Colorado River issues, it shapes the landscapes and lifeways around you. The river serves 40 million people and fuels $1.4 trillion of economic activity — and there are concerns that its flows will diminish significantly in the next 25 years. Over a dozen laws, court rulings, interstate agreements, and state and tribal law compose “The Law of the River.” This corpus governs every drop of water in the Colorado River Basin, whether it’s raging through rapids, flowing through your kitchen tap or irrigating farms and ranches. Literacy in the complexities of water governance is essential, especially for aspiring lawyers and policy professionals who are motivated to build a climate-resilient West.
It’s incredible when a student connects their study to the landscape discussed in the classroom. For some, it comes as they gaze at the turquoise waters of the Little Colorado and comprehend the sacredness Navajo activists are protecting from commercial encroachment. For others, it’s seeing the river’s endangered fish become more abundant as the water warms and flows away from Lake Powell’s cold releases. For me, having been both a student and instructor of the seminar, it was boating through the walls of silt in the former bed of Lake Mead, hundreds of feet below the bathtub ring that marks the reservoir’s former glory. That experience provided me with a visceral impetus to work in this field. The late pioneer of field education, Professor Charles Wilkinson, once counseled me that to make passionate advocates.
“You can’t just teach in the classroom, you have to get out on the ground to connect students to the people and to the land,” he said.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board agrees. In 2022, the board approved a Public Engagement, Participation and Outreach Grant through the Colorado Water Plan to fund efforts like our seminar and support Colorado’s next generation of water leaders. Resources like the CWP grant program are essential to produce professionals who understand the challenges we face academically and have a personal connection to what we seek to preserve.
Educational opportunities like the Law of the River are an investment in the next generation of Colorado River lawyers, policymakers and change advocates with the passion and knowledge to create those solutions. Those of us who rely on the Colorado River — which is to say, all of us here — need every resource available to build our future, from passionate young people educated about the Law of the River to investments from the state and federal government in advancing that education.
Contact CU Independent Guest Writer Gregor McGregor at gregor.mcgregor@colorado.edu.
