Watersheds West
The infrastructure of water control looms large across the history of the American West. Western rivers and watersheds have long been and remain fundamental sites of contest and power, hope and disappointment. Launching in January 2026, the fifth season of Western Edition — the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) — digs into the complex history of how humans dammed, diverted, and exploited water resources in the region across several hundred years.
While control over water has gone hand in hand with European and American colonization, Western Edition: Watersheds West takes care to engage with Indigenous scholars about Native views of and relationships to western water. The series returns to the critical question: What does the future look like in an era of climate catastrophe? Across its six episodes, the new season invites us all to consider if we are due for a paradigm shift in how we think about our most precious resource.
Season 5 of Western Edition is produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan.
Prologue
This Prologue introduces the core themes of Western Edition Season 5: Watersheds West. Over six episodes, we will engage with central themes of control over water, European and American colonization and impact on watersheds, and Native views of and relationships to western water. The series considers the critical question: What does the future look like in an era of climate catastrophe? The season invites us all to consider if we are due for a paradigm shift in how we think about our most precious resource.
Long-ago moments when western rivers flowed alongside visions of American empire have not gone away. The circumstances have changed, more than two hundred years have passed. But western rivers and watersheds remain fundamental sites of contest and power, hope and disappointment.
Learn More
ICW asked leading experts what’s on their minds and what they see as the most urgent issues facing Western watersheds. Here’s what they shared.
The Endangered Species Act Meets the Klamath River Basin
Jacques Leslie is the author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for its “elegant, beautiful prose.” He is a Los Angeles Times contributing opinion writer.