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Dr. Matt Makley: Teaching the History of Western Water to Inform Future Problem Solvers
The distinctive “bathtub ring” pattern left by dropping water levels in Lake Mead.
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or many people, the history of water in the West centers on early-20th-century events like the construction of Hoover Dam and the California water wars. In fact, that history goes back to the times when Native Americans were the only residents of what is now the western United States. The full scope of that history, in all its social, political, and legal detail, is at the heart of the courses Professor Matt Makley teaches at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. In this conversation, Dr. Makley tells Municipal Water Leader about this fascinating history and its continuing importance. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background.
18 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021
Municipal Water Leader: What is the name of the course you teach? Matt Makley: Colorado Water and the American West. I made the title general, because I wanted the class to be about Colorado water, but I also wanted to frame it within the larger context of the West. There is a unit in the course that deals with Los Angeles water as a case study. We look at the history of the Owens River Valley all the way back to the era when it was primarily inhabited by the Northern municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF CONOR REES.
Matt Makley: I was born and raised in California in the Lake Tahoe region. I moved throughout little farming communities in the Sierra Nevada, such as Minden, Nevada. I went to Northern California for a while, and then my studies took me to Arizona, where I got a PhD at Arizona State University in American Indian history. I studied with a gentleman named Peter Iverson, who unfortunately passed away this past spring. He was a gracious man who worked for most of his professional life with the Navajo, or Diné. He would take students up to Diné country, and we’d spend time with Navajo
families and get to know the people and the landscape. That process triggered an interest in water for me. My specialty is Native American history, but I’m particularly interested in the water aspects of that history. I credit Peter for getting me started on that path. He had us read Daniel McCool’s books on Indian water law. Today, with the drought we’re experiencing in the West, there’s a big need for conversations between First Nations and the representatives of the governing structure of the water management system. The latter have a lot to learn from the people who’ve been here the longest. My professional expertise is in modern Indian history, which has a lot of law ingrained in it, and I’ve been training myself on the water side for the last decade or so.
