Bob Crifasi has over 25 years of water resources management experience in Colorado. Crifasi’s interest in Colorado history, landscape, and water led him to complete a book about water and landscape change on the Front Range, “A Land Made from Water,” published in 2015. Additionally, Crifasi is an award-winning photographer with deep ties to the Boulder community, including serving as the board president of Studio Arts Boulder, a nonprofit art educational organization.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?
Crifasi: Throughout my career in water, I have always heard people talk about how complex and impenetrable western water issues are. I think that arises because much of the information comes from dry (pun intended) bureaucratic, engineering, and legal sources. I aspired to write something more accessible to the general public.
Although we face some very complex problems, if we break things down to uncover the underlying themes and components, complex water issues start making sense. Moreover, when we take the time to learn how various ideas came about and the history of it all, we see that people at every step made pretty rational decisions given the information and technology at hand. Seeing this, I came to believe there was a real need for accessible, accurate, and readable information about all aspects of water in the West. For those reasons, I set out to write a book about western water in a conversational style with academic rigor that anyone interested might pick up and enjoy.
SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
Crifasi: As you see, I provided two shorter excerpts from “Western Water A to Z.” The Preface shows how a water project I had never heard of ultimately impacted the Dolores Canyon, one of the places I most dearly love in the West. Here, I introduce some of the many aspects of western water, such as history, infrastructure, and recreation, and how they affect each other.
In the middle of the book, I include many one-page-long vignettes of essential people, issues, or events that helped shape western water as we know it. This is the A to Z part of the book. Although each vignette stands alone, you’ll quickly notice how many of these topics inform each other. I chose the vignette about the Teton Dam disaster to give the Sun’s readers a sense of what they might find if they randomly open the book and start reading.
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
Crifasi: As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved photography. In many ways, I experience and make sense of the world through photography. Moreover, some of my heroes were photographers who made indelible images of western waterways, people, and landscapes. Dorothea Lang, Carlton Watkins, and Berenice Abbott, to name just three, are all amazing photographers I’ve long admired, so you can imagine my delight that when I began delving into the archives, I started unearthing images relating to water from these and other remarkable photographers. I just had to include gems from them and many other photographers, and the A to Z format provided the perfect platform.
Then, when I began my research for the book, I found a yawning and inexplicable void in many of the most prominent books about western water. Namely, most books about western water development begin in the years after the European conquest and colonization. Pick up almost any major book about western water development, and both Indigenous and Hispanic communities remain an afterthought, if they are even mentioned. To me, that is a crime of omission. To rectify this oversight, I attempted to situate information about the seminal Indigenous and Hispanic contributions in their rightful place alongside that of the Euroamericans.
SunLit: Are there lessons you take away from each experience of writing a book? And if so, what did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Crifasi: One of my biggest lessons was to learn how to fearlessly edit and whittle away all extraneous material that was not essential to the project. As to craft, I kept imagining how the reader might understand a passage. Also, I tried to chop the jargon and jettison the acronyms ruthlessly. In other words, to write for an intelligent reader and not for a water engineer or lawyer.
“Western Water A to Z”
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SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Crifasi: Resisting the temptation to go for a hike or bike ride instead of sitting at the computer.
Another big challenge was curating the images that went into the final version of the book. For example, I had difficulty getting the right image to include for my section on the Parker Dam war. The so-called Parker Dam War occurred in 1934 when Arizona Governor Benjamin Moeur sent the National Guard down to the Arizona/California border to stop the construction of Parker Dam.
In online descriptions of the Parker Dam War, I had seen this gripping photo of what looked like a national guardsman in a machine gun nest aiming his gun at some distant foe. I really wanted to include it. But the more I looked for the original source, the more I realized that I could not confirm that the image related to the events in Arizona. I checked multiple newspapers and magazines from the time, including other historical sources about the events, and came up with nothing. I eventually settled for a good photo of the actual events, but not one nearly as dramatic as the machine gun image.
SunLit: If you could pick just one thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers would take from this book, what would that be?
Crifasi: If we truly love the West and value its landscapes and water, we will find the will to manage all the challenges that we face.
SunLit: In a highly politicized atmosphere where books, and people’s access to them, has become increasingly contentious, what would you add to the conversation about books, libraries and generally the availability of literature in the public sphere?
Crifasi: Aside from pointing out that we underfund our libraries and overwork and underpay our librarians and archivists? If we are unwilling to invest in our communities, and that means cultural institutions like libraries and art centers, then we really don’t have much of a community. And if we really care about our democracy, it starts with having informed citizens who can access accurate information. For that reason, I think our libraries and media outlets like the Sun are so important.
SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?
Crifasi: For the writing itself, I do slow writing the way some people do slow food. It takes me a lot of time. I go through multiple steps. I might start with a word or a sentence as a placeholder for an idea. Then, I try to develop each idea into something that makes sense. I continuously organize, reorganize, and start again.
Next, I try to make passages engaging and enjoyable to read. Along the way, I read every last word out loud. I can’t emphasize enough how important this step is for me. If a section doesn’t sound good out loud, then I rewrite it until it does.
SunLit: Tell us a little bit more about your approach to photography in “Western Water A to Z.”
Crifasi: I see photography as a co-partner with the text. The development of photography paralleled western water development in the 19th and 20th centuries. Consequently, the photographic record forms an ideal visual companion to the text.
Moreover, photography can influence people in a manner different from words. When choosing the images for the book, I selected several examples that the original photographers used to sway public opinion. I talk about these examples in “Western Water A to Z” because I don’t know anyone who has done this before with western water. For me, the text and photographs were equally critical.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Crifasi: You probably want me to talk about a writing project, but instead, I want to describe a new art center that’s going up in Boulder. I’m the board president of Studio Arts Boulder, and we are nearing completion of an approximately $13 million building that will house teaching studios for ceramics, woodworking, metal, glass, and printmaking. If you haven’t heard of Studio Arts Boulder, the nonprofit operates the iconic Boulder Pottery Lab.
I’ve been working with a truly amazing community of people for the last 10 years to make this happen. It’s a teaching facility that will be open to people of all ages and means. Our capital campaign is in full swing, and we are still seeking donors and grants, so everyone involved is very busy. After we open the new building, I can start thinking about my next writing project.
Just a few more quick questions:
SunLit: Do you look forward to the actual work of writing or is it a chore that you dread but must do to achieve good things?
Crifasi: I really enjoy the writing. I lose myself in it when I get going.
SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?
Crifasi: The first piece of writing that really satisfied me was a journal article I wrote long after grad school about human-made ecosystems.
SunLit: When you look back at your early professional writing, how do you feel about it? Impressed? Embarrassed? Satisfied? Wish you could have a do-over?
Crifasi: The early stuff was pretty stiff. Sleepers really! I like to keep pressing forward, so I am not too concerned about do-overs.
SunLit: What three writers, from any era, can you imagine having over for a great discussion about literature and writing? And why?
Crifasi: This is not a fair question. It’s like telling a little kid that they can have only one kitten from the litter. I couldn’t stop with just three. I want the whole litter. My party would look like the oddball collection of luminaries on the Sergeant Pepper’s album cover.
SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?
Crifasi: Edward Abbey once said something to the effect, “How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you’ve lived.”
SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?
Crifasi: My bookshelf tells folks that I want to dive deep when I find an author I like or a subject that interests me.
SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?
Crifasi: Silence.
SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?
Crifasi: In grammar school, I had a mentor, Mr. Rudolph Lindenfield. Mr. Lindenfield was the naturalist in residence at a nature preserve near my home. His classroom at the nature center had rocks, minerals, fossils, forest specimens, stuffed animals, antlers and skulls, and much more. How could a nine-year-old boy not love the place? I still have a jar with some sand in it that he gave me.
Mr. Lindenfield was a Holocaust survivor who became a type editor for the New York Times when he emigrated to America. On retiring, he became an educator at the nature center. He generously took me under his wing. He was unfailingly supportive of my curiosity and launched my lifelong interest in geology and the natural sciences. He spoke multiple languages and published poetry books in several of them. His example showed me that I could someday become a scientist and writer.
SunLit: Greatest fear as a writer?
Crifasi: I’m not sure about fear. But I do think the idea of an unread book is very sad.
SunLit: Greatest satisfaction?
Crifasi: That’s easy. Sending the completed manuscript with its final edits back to my publisher!