Romero, Tom I.

English

University of Denver

Water Law Review Volume 14 Issue 2 Article 8 1-1-2011 Justice Greg Hobbs, Living the Four Corners: Colorado, Centennial State at the Headwaters Tom I. Romero Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/wlr Custom Citation Tom I. Romero, Justice Greg Hobbs, Living the Four Corners: Colorado, Centennial State at the Headwaters, 14 U. Denv. Water L. Rev. 355 (2011)(book review). This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Denver Sturm College of Law at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Water Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact jennifer.cox@du.edu,dig-commons@du.edu. BOOK REVIEW*Justice Greg Hobbs, Living the Four Corners: Colorado, CentennialState at the Headwaters, Continuing Legal Education in Colorado,Denver (2010); 369 pp; $19.95.**Reviewed by Tom L Romero HtThere is a Mexican dicho that says: Cuando el rio suena es que aguaieva. This proverb translates to: If the river sounds, it is because it iscarrying water. The four great rivers of the American West (theColorado, the Platte, the Arkansas, and the Rio Grande) - whoseheadwaters sit high in the peaks of Colorado's Rocky Mountains -are threatened with silence. Because of industrial mining and large-scale irrigation, energy development, rapid large-scale urban growth,and climate change, these venerable rivers seemingly are taxed beyondtheir sustainable limits. Their vulnerability threatens the livelihoods ofmillions of people who have long relied on these rivers. Once majesticand unpredictable bodies of water, the headwaters of the CentennialState have become tightly controlled, over-managed cisterns on whichevery single drop is drained.Nevertheless, as Justice Greg Hobbs reminds us in Living the FourCorners, these rivers continue to inspire awe and wonder, perhapsbecause of our deep-rooted reliance on the river systems for oureconomy, politics, and culture - or perhaps because wesimultaneously recognize and take for granted each river's persistenceand durability. Whatever the case, the book reflects the multiplepersonas of Colorado's great rivers: they are an old friend, a dearmother, a tired laborer, a doting father, a righteous advocate, a stoiccraftsman, and a never-to-be forgotten grandchild. In Justice Hobbs'scapable hands, the rivers are alive - in our collective imaginations,our lived experiences, our cautious myths, our independent politics,and our innovative law. For this very reason, we should neverunderestimate their desire to endure in spite of us.The protean lives of the headwaters of the American West and, byextension, the people who have interacted and been influenced bythese rivers are the subject of Justice Hobbs's recent.collection. Thoselooking for a linear narrative account about the people, places, and* Reproduced by permission. @ 2010 Colorado Bar Association, 39 The Colorado Lauyer60 (December 2010). All rights reserved." The Colorado Authors' League selected Living the Four Corners as a finalist for its2011 Colorado Authors' League Awards, under the "Book-length GeneralNonfiction." category.t Associate Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law.355WATER LAWREVIEWlaw that have made up the rivers of the Centennial State will be sorelydisappointed. Much like the lived experience of the rivers and thepeople themselves, this is an unpredictable book, not subject to simplecategorization. It is a collection of poems, oral testimony,multicultural teaching, inspired reflections, robust exchange, and legalreasoning about the great rivers and the varied people who compriseColorado. The book includes an audio disc that explores both the lawof prior appropriation as captured in Justice Hobbs's Citizens Guide toColorado Water Law (3d ed. Colorado Foundation for Water Education,2010), as well as an oral history of the Cache La Poudre River.Despite its eclectic nature, there is graceful symmetry in the book'sorganization. As Justice Hobbs's opening essay attests, "we arestanding in the fourth world" (emphasis added). A majority of thecolorful cast of characters detailed in the book inhabit a world thatcontains the headwaters of the four great rivers of the American West.The rivers, in turn, pivot and connect four distinct economic andcultural orientations: the Rocky Mountains, the desert Southwest, theMidwestern high plains, and the Colorado River plateau. All havebeen forever reconfigured by a legal system that holds the "fourcorners of a document" sacrosanct in its interpretation. JusticeHobbs's collection simultaneously celebrates and criticizes this systemfor its capacity to create something as beautiful and pragmatic as thedoctrine of prior appropriation, and for being as divisive andfundamentally flawed as the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision.Although water is an obvious current that flows throughout thiscollection, equally as powerful is the flow of blood, sweat, and tearsthat have comprised the history of Colorado and its people. As a stateforged out of the cauldron of the Civil War, Justice Hobbs identifiesthe ongoing struggle to align the spirit and values of the Constitution.President Abraham Lincoln, accordingly, personifies this struggle andserves as a literal bookend to the collection. From Justice Hobbs'sdiscussion of Lincoln's influence in the lives of Colorado's Latino,African American, Japanese American, Native American, and Anglocommunities in the opening pages of the book to his 2010 addressabout Lincoln to a local Denver neighborhood Rotary Club in the verylast pages of the collection, President Lincoln is emblematic of thestate and of the nation's chaotic and still unfinished struggle forequality under the law.To be sure, it is not Lincoln the man but rather his commitment tothe "rule of law" that floats through these pages. Just as Lincoln - aone-term Congressman and Constitutional Law scholar suddenlythrust into the Presidency - struggled to reconcile the legalcommitment to equality, the protection of individual civil rights, and apreservation of the balance of federal and state powers, so too haveColoradans struggled over these same questions in its water law andpolicy. The lively "Dialogue" between Justice Hobbs's "Believer" andGary Weatherford's "Skeptic" in the middle pages of the collectioncaptures the competing and at times irreconcilable visions of land use,resource distribution, and equal opportunity in the Centennial State.356 Volume 14Issue 2 LIVING THE FOUR CORNERS BOOK REVIEW 357The book makes clear that it is good - indeed, it is our constitutionalduty - to disagree and dissent.Living the Four Corners is one man's lifelong journey to understandand come to grips with the wonderful but often inequitable bounty ofColorado's rivers and its people. Sometimes, the book is an extremelypersonal account; other times, it is rich with prose and exegesis; andstill at others, it is surgical and precise in its presentation. Collectively,the book is a teaching text for all of us practicing, writing, andthinking about law. It shows us how to breathe life into our endeavors;it implores us to suck the marrow out of our shared experiences; and itempowers us to drink liberally from those waters that'have cut suchdeep canyons in the history, lives, and culture of Colorado. By "livingthe four corners," the rivers can never be silent.

Justice Greg Hobbs, Living the Four Corners: Colorado, Centennial State at the Headwaters

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1560&context=wlr

Justice Greg Hobbs, Living the Four Corners: Colorado, Centennial State at the Headwaters

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Denver