In 1984, Ellen Manchester and I started a large-scale collaborative photographic project called Water in the West. It consisted of approximately 14 photographers and advisors from all over the country. We actively worked together for ten years and eventually our work became part of a permanent archive at the University of Arizonas Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. We were inspired by many writers and thinkers such as Donald Worster who wrote about water: Water in our present economy has no intrinsic value, no integrity that must be respectedIt has now become a commodity that is bought and sold and used to make other commoditiesAll mystery disappears from its depth, all gods depart, all contemplation of its flow ceasesAnd in that new language of market calculation lies an assertion of ultimate power over nature  of a domination that absolute, total, and free from all restraint.