Witwer, Jim

English

University of Denver

Water Law Review Volume 11 Issue 1 Article 3 9-1-2007 Dedication William Daven Farr: Student of Water and Life Jim Witwer Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/wlr Custom Citation Jim Witwer, Dedication William Daven Farr: Student of Water and Life, 11 U. Denv. Water L. Rev. [x] (2007). This Front Matter 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. WILLIAM DAVEN FARR:STUDENT OF WATER AND LIFEDEDICATION BYJIM WITWERflyfisherman, water visionary, banker, lamb and cattle feeder, farmer, rancher, dad,grandfather, great grandfather, friend and mentor to many, WD Farr, 97, diedAug. 14 in his native Greeley.After failing to deflect this request to remember W.D. Farr by no-minating more qualified candidates, I opened the file in my officebearing his name. It is embarrassingly thin. Nearly two generationsseparated us during his life.Perhaps, then, the best perspective I can provide begins as a com-mon, ignorant one. How easy it is to take for granted all but his reputa-tion as a leader in water, banking, and agriculture. I played in Greeley'sFarr Park as a boy, but did not then know that the park had been part ofhis farm near the end of the Greeley and Loveland Irrigation Companyditch (or even that there was such a ditch). I worked briefly one sum-mer at Farr Feedlots, but did not learn of the work he did nationally toimprove the quality of U.S. beef until much later.Only during a working relationship with him late in his life did Ibegin to see the contours of what he was still busy building: A life filledwith optimism and effort to improve the communities in which helived.My first letter from Mr. Farr contained the following passages:I believe that Greeley is in a unique position to plan a perfect city that willcontinue to be very attractive to new people and new industry.... I haveseen Greeley grow from a population of 5,000 to the present 75,000. Ifwe had ever dreamed that we would grow this much and this fast wecould have prevented many costly problems.Who else writes, or thinks, like this? Few in modern times. An ex-hortation to strive for the perfect city, a blunt acknowledgment of cur-rent imperfection, and a second implied demand-to dream bigdreams and then put on your overalls, as the saying goes.In an 1887 speech to Fort Collins farmers that Mr. Farr's son, Bill,sent me later, Professor Elwood Mead noted:On your shoulders rests a greater responsibility than devolves on yourbrothers in regions of more abundant rainfall. You must not only attend* The following tribute to W.D. Farr is reprinted with permission from the Colo-rado Foundation for Water Education's Fall 2007 edition of Headwaters Magazine.Information on the Foundation can be found at www.cfwe.org.to your individual affairs but assist in the control and management oftheir common interest, on the wise management of which the prosperityof the State so largely depends.This may as well have been Mr. Farr's credo. He acted so oftenout of a sense of duty to improve the community-and so often fo-cused on projects to benefit future generations of that community.We still play in the parks that Mr. Farr worked to build. The Colo-rado-Big Thompson and Windy Gap projects and Greeley's water sys-tem may be best known to Coloradans. Service in the nascent Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, and long involvement with the NationalCattlemen's Beef Association, count among his accomplishments. Healso played a pivotal role in negotiations that led to federal designationof parts of the Cache la Poudre River as wild and scenic. In a 2000newspaper clipping, he wondered aloud if he was an environmentalist,but then added, "You have to take care of the environment. We hopethe world will be here in hundreds of years."What Mr. Farr accomplished, and why he did it, make up only partof his story. How he worked-his thirst to find information and trendsin that information, his uncanny ability to adapt and surmount failure,and his compassion for others engaged in the same effort-distinguishes him as much or more.His interest in one topic-the weather-illustrates the first of thesetraits. Most of us are used to discussing the weather for five or tenseconds. With Mr. Farr, those conversations easily could exceed fiveminutes. He ravenously reviewed the work of local, regional, and inter-national climatologists, and constantly checked predictions against out-comes.A copy of the program from the 1999 National Western StockShow dinner, which named Mr. Farr a "Citizen of the West," re-minds me that, while he was a compendium of historical informa-tion, he preferred to recount the past with an eye to the future. Hedid not view the past as the good old days."The next 50 years," he told those assembled at the dinner, "will bethe best we have ever experienced. I'm only sorry that I won't be therewith you to enjoy them."He knew, as Twain noted, that history does not repeat itself-atbest it sometimes rhymes. What he tried to teach us was less specificknowledge than how to think, to plan and execute based upon the bestinformation we have, and to learn from the experience and move fur-ther ahead. He did not hold grudges or nurse old injuries. There wasno use, or time, for that. His view of water policy, and life, combinedenthusiasm and the scientific method. He was a great teacher preciselybecause he was a great student.His approach required enough humility to acknowledge and learnfrom failure. In the 1980s, when his proposal to sell some of Greeley'sreservoirs and use the proceeds to acquire other water supplies metopposition from the Greeley City Council, he instead ensured that thecity spent adequate funds to rehabilitate those reservoirs. When theWindy Gap Project water rights were thrown out of court for failure toprovide Western Slope water interests with additional compensatorystorage beyond that of the original C-BT Project, he was instrumentalin directing additional payments (part of the money for WolfordMountain Reservoir).The final ingredient to Mr. Farr's work style was his care for thoseworking with him. Even as his voice grew faint late in life, he neversought to end your conversation without asking after you and yourfamily. Though a man of boundless passion and drive, he always re-membered that people matter.It is tempting to conclude this remembrance with a lament that wemay have seen the last of people with such a remarkable communita-rian spirit. Then we in the water community could more comfortablycomplain that the world is so much more complex now, and the watersupply challenges we face nearly insurmountable-the low-hangingfruit are gone.Such responses would, of course, miss the point of Mr. Farr's life."If you get busy planning and working hard," he would tell us, "thingswill work out well."Can't you hear him still?

Dedication William Daven Farr: Student of Water and Life

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