full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rob Harmon: How to keep rivers and streams flowing

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This is a rievr. This is a stream. This is a river. This is happening all over the country. There are tens of toduhsans of miles of dewatered streams in the utneid States. On this map, the colored areas represent water conflicts. Similar peblomrs are eregming in the East as well. The reasons vary state to state, but mostly in the dtalies. There are 4,000 miles of dewatered streams in Montana alone. They would ordinarily support fish and other wildlife. They're the veins of the ecosystem, and they're often empty veins.

I want to tell you the story of just one of these streams, because it's an archetype for the larger story. This is Prickly Pear Creek. It runs through a populated area from East Helena to Lake Helena. It supports wild fish including cutthroat, brwon and rainbow trout. Nearly every year for more than a hundred years ... it looked like this in the suemmr. How did we get here? Well, it setratd back in the late 1800s when people started sitletng in places like mnnatoa. In short, there was a lot of water and there weren't very many people. But as more people showed up wanting water, the folks who were there first got a little concerned, and in 1865, Montana passed its first water law. It basically said, everybody near the stream can share in the stream. Oddly, a lot of people showed up wanting to srhae the stream, and the folks who were there first got concerned enough to bring out their lrywaes. There were precedent-setting suits in 1870 and 1872, both ivnnlviog Prickly Pear Creek. And in 1921, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Prickly Pear that the folks who were there first had the first, or "senior water rights." These senior waetr rhigts are key.

Open Cloze


This is a _____. This is a stream. This is a river. This is happening all over the country. There are tens of _________ of miles of dewatered streams in the ______ States. On this map, the colored areas represent water conflicts. Similar ________ are ________ in the East as well. The reasons vary state to state, but mostly in the _______. There are 4,000 miles of dewatered streams in Montana alone. They would ordinarily support fish and other wildlife. They're the veins of the ecosystem, and they're often empty veins.

I want to tell you the story of just one of these streams, because it's an archetype for the larger story. This is Prickly Pear Creek. It runs through a populated area from East Helena to Lake Helena. It supports wild fish including cutthroat, _____ and rainbow trout. Nearly every year for more than a hundred years ... it looked like this in the ______. How did we get here? Well, it _______ back in the late 1800s when people started ________ in places like _______. In short, there was a lot of water and there weren't very many people. But as more people showed up wanting water, the folks who were there first got a little concerned, and in 1865, Montana passed its first water law. It basically said, everybody near the stream can share in the stream. Oddly, a lot of people showed up wanting to _____ the stream, and the folks who were there first got concerned enough to bring out their _______. There were precedent-setting suits in 1870 and 1872, both _________ Prickly Pear Creek. And in 1921, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Prickly Pear that the folks who were there first had the first, or "senior water rights." These senior _____ ______ are key.

Solution


  1. montana
  2. settling
  3. thousands
  4. united
  5. involving
  6. problems
  7. share
  8. emerging
  9. started
  10. river
  11. rights
  12. details
  13. summer
  14. brown
  15. lawyers
  16. water

Original Text


This is a river. This is a stream. This is a river. This is happening all over the country. There are tens of thousands of miles of dewatered streams in the United States. On this map, the colored areas represent water conflicts. Similar problems are emerging in the East as well. The reasons vary state to state, but mostly in the details. There are 4,000 miles of dewatered streams in Montana alone. They would ordinarily support fish and other wildlife. They're the veins of the ecosystem, and they're often empty veins.

I want to tell you the story of just one of these streams, because it's an archetype for the larger story. This is Prickly Pear Creek. It runs through a populated area from East Helena to Lake Helena. It supports wild fish including cutthroat, brown and rainbow trout. Nearly every year for more than a hundred years ... it looked like this in the summer. How did we get here? Well, it started back in the late 1800s when people started settling in places like Montana. In short, there was a lot of water and there weren't very many people. But as more people showed up wanting water, the folks who were there first got a little concerned, and in 1865, Montana passed its first water law. It basically said, everybody near the stream can share in the stream. Oddly, a lot of people showed up wanting to share the stream, and the folks who were there first got concerned enough to bring out their lawyers. There were precedent-setting suits in 1870 and 1872, both involving Prickly Pear Creek. And in 1921, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Prickly Pear that the folks who were there first had the first, or "senior water rights." These senior water rights are key.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
prickly pear 5
senior water 4
water rights 4
water footprints 3
dewatered streams 2
pear creek 2
people showed 2
involving prickly 2
risk losing 2
broken system 2
involves beer 2
water footprint 2
remaining water 2
montana brewers 2
strong correlation 2
remember prickly 2
return water 2
degraded ecosystems 2
economic choice 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
senior water rights 4
prickly pear creek 2
involving prickly pear 2
remember prickly pear 2

Important Words


  1. archetype
  2. area
  3. areas
  4. basically
  5. bring
  6. brown
  7. case
  8. colored
  9. concerned
  10. conflicts
  11. country
  12. court
  13. creek
  14. cutthroat
  15. details
  16. dewatered
  17. east
  18. ecosystem
  19. emerging
  20. empty
  21. fish
  22. folks
  23. happening
  24. helena
  25. including
  26. involving
  27. key
  28. lake
  29. larger
  30. late
  31. law
  32. lawyers
  33. looked
  34. lot
  35. map
  36. miles
  37. montana
  38. oddly
  39. ordinarily
  40. passed
  41. pear
  42. people
  43. places
  44. populated
  45. prickly
  46. problems
  47. rainbow
  48. reasons
  49. represent
  50. rights
  51. river
  52. ruled
  53. runs
  54. senior
  55. settling
  56. share
  57. short
  58. showed
  59. similar
  60. started
  61. state
  62. states
  63. story
  64. stream
  65. streams
  66. suits
  67. summer
  68. support
  69. supports
  70. supreme
  71. tens
  72. thousands
  73. trout
  74. united
  75. vary
  76. veins
  77. wanting
  78. water
  79. wild
  80. wildlife
  81. year
  82. years