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Show CHAPTER ffl NEW STEPS TO DEFINE THE SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL ATTRD3UTES OF WATER, 1870 THROUGH 1895 Introduction During the twenty- five years before statehood Utahns worked to resolve a number of social and physical problems inherent in the development of water and its use. Among the most pressing problems was the need to advance beyond rule- of- thumb understanding of the physical properties and social ( informal versus formal) control of water. With science blossoming nationally and the West serving as a vast laboratory for the natural sciences and a practicum for institutional structuring, Utah made significant steps in developing technology and analytical techniques related to water and experimented with political and economic organizations necessary to its management. Scientists on field trips from Washington and eastern educational institutions influenced Utah as they worked out the methods of their disciplines and created bureaucracies to serve them. Less involved than the territory in the bitter conflict of the " Mormon problem", city governments looked to their own needs and were among the first to respond to the scientific awakening that was going on. With culinary and industrial needs as well as responsibility for irrigation in their own environs, the larger cities were among the first to see the need to define the physical and social aspects of water more closely. By contrast, the territorial government was slow to embrace change. Still locked in a tradition of pioneer development and county administration as a means of keeping control at home, the territory made only halting steps to redefine its role in water management After the district act of 1865, the impulse to update institutions apparently lay dormant until 1880. That year the legislature made changes that favored individual interests over community and gave water a dimension as private property. 1 With some prospects of help from new legislation and improved technology, private interests played a growing role. Promoters became active in the early 1870s in the wake of the transcontinental railroad, helped push the legislation of 1880 through, and came into their own in large private projects after 1885. The territorial legislature continued to make policy but did little in the way of administration and adjudication. Although until the late 1880s the Mormon majority easily controlled the legislative branch, Mormon leaders seemed reluctant to let the issue of water control get squarely into the sector of territorial government as demonstrated by the inaction of the legislature. 2 Territory of Utah, Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, of the Twenty- fourth Session, for the Year 1880( Sall Lake City: T. E. Taylor, Public Printer, The Deseret News Steam Printing Establishment, 1880), p 290. Elwood Mead, Irrigation Institutions: A Discussion of the Economic and Legal Questions Created by the Growth of Irrigated Agriculture in the West ( New York: The Macmillan Company, London: Macmillan & Company Ltd., 1903), p 224. After discussing the 18S2 law, the 1880 law, the 1897, and the 1901 law Mead states: This brief outline includes all the laws which have been enacted to govern the acquirement of water rights in Utah. |