With a quick excursion this afternoon, I went to the famous Bridge at Otowi, which is right next to the now more important Otowi Gauge. This measurement device, for Rio Grande flow, is the spatial "chokepoint" for the Rio Grande Compact between New Mexico and Texas (see photo). A certain percentage of the flow at Otowi, has to then move on (in theory, undisturbed) to the Texas border.
(Photo 1: Otowi gauge, just south of the Rt 502 bridge, along the Rio Grande).
That this small measurement device, a technology for "commensuration" as Espeland would put it (see today's earlier post), would represent inter-state politics at its best and worst, is just a small reflection of the scaled politics of water.
For contrast, during this same drive, I went to R. En Medio and Chupadero, two small villages just northeast of Tesuque, that share a splitter box on the Rio En Medio (see August post). Here, everything is scaled to the local dynamics of the water, the community, and their shared arrangements. They share a road (592), they share a community center, and the diversion reflects that scale of governance. I am not arguing for a form of environmental determinism, only that watersheds do tend to reflect our visions of what politics should be about and in this case, I thought it was reflective of the situation.
Photo 2: The shared road for the villages of Rio En Medio and Chupadero - watershed community and politics.
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