We are pleased to announce a new sponsor for Arizona Water Resource -- the Metropolitan Domestic Water Improvement District. Also known as Metro Water District, it provides water service to some 40,000 persons on Tucson's northwest side. Contributions from all 11 our sponsors (see box, p. 9) make possible the continued subscription-free publishing of AWR. We deeply appreciate them.

Love your Web Site!

Last issue's article on our Home Page on the World-Wide Web generated plenty of feedback. Rick Volante of the Arizona Daily Star writes, "I'm happily throwing away my back issues of AWR. Thanks for putting them on the Web and congrats on your new home page. It looks good. I plan to link my readers to it through articles in Starnet."

Rick, check out our new feature that allows searching of AWR back issues by key word or phrase.

A friend from Texas writes, "Howdy! I was looking for reasons to put off studying for my final exam when I remembered something about a new Water Resources center site. So I've spent the last half hour putting about a million hits on your server. My impression: Very nice! Things I found spiffy are: the intuitive hierarchical structure (very easy to navigate); the water issues summary (it's a great idea); the Netscape enhancements (someone spent a lot of time on that); the glossary (did that take several man-years to get on-line, or am I missing something?). Great job, guys! Check out my inferior version of your home page and let me know what you think."

What we think is that everything is bigger in Texas, and it takes a big man to concede his home page is "inferior." (If it's any consolation, your newsletter is the standard by which we judge ours.)

Pete Hawkins, UA professor of Renewal Natural Resources, writes, "I just took my first short tour through your new WWW product. Nice job. Several impressions and suggestions: The glossary left out a lot of things; the "Issues" paragraphs on CAP is squeaky clean. From reading it you'd think there is no current contention or troubles. And we all know otherwise. There are a lot of opportunities for posting other Arizona data. How about weather records, small watershed data, lists of studies..."

Pete -- the glossary has been greatly expanded. We're trying to prioritize the data to post. Input from users is key to doing that. Thanks.

The best feedback we've received is statistics on home page use -- nearly 1,000 "hits" on our main directory per week. Speaking of statistics...

Poland, California Underwater

Many are unmoved by the beauty of pure statistics. Small wonder then that writers seek to creatively convey statistics, without putting off readers with a lot of numbers. For example, Theodore Steinberg in his recent book, Slide Mountain, wants to relate that dams on the Missouri River hold back great quantities of water. He writes that the amount of water impounded by dams on the Missouri would suffice to flood the entire nation of Poland to a depth of one foot.

At first glance one is struck with the impression that Steinberg is talking about a whole lot of water. Upon further reflection one begins to wonder, why Poland? And just how big is Poland, compared to, say, Pennsylvania, Paraguay, or the Palouse? One might even empathize with the Polish people -- haven't they suffered enough? Somewhere along the way the significance of the water is lost.

International Water Report works the same strategy with greater effectiveness. It reports that if all the water stored behind the world's 39,000 largest dams were gathered together, it would be enough to put California under water. The significance of all that water becomes immediately apparent. An image of the enormity of California is fixed in most people's minds, at least people from the United States. And further, to other westerners, California under water has a certain poetic attraction like King Midas overwhelmed by his lust for gold. What if California in its greed for water got all it wanted and then some?

The point is that by interpreting quantitative data with an appropriate image, the significance of the data is better understood, and also some political points can be scored.

Row, row, row your boat...

Dorothy Riddle of Yee-Haw! Inc. wants river songs for a collection she hopes to publish. She seeks titles, artists and songwriters, and especially persons with their own river or paddling songs. Contact her at Yee-Hah! Inc., 2407 N. Palomino Court, Chandler, Arizona 85224; 602-963-2030.