Notes from Espeland (1998)

I don't know how this book escaped my attention for so long but Wendy N. Espeland's "The Struggle for Water" discusses the dam that never was (Orme), in central Arizona, and how the Yavapai fought its construction with an unusal blend of allies. Her use of commensuration as one of the facets of how measurement "rationality" is critical to water management is quite interesting, even if perhaps over-repeated. But it does present an interesting framework for understanding adjudication in its current context; taking a system that works (autonomous irrigation) and making it more commensurate (quantified) with prior appropriation and American jurisprudence. We'll see how this pans out in the long run.