WRCA welcomes donations of appropriate historic and contemporary materials related to water issues in California and the West. We actively seek books, reports, manuscripts, directories, journals, photographs, maps, atlases, and videos on all aspects of water resources development and use.

Potential donors include water and irrigation districts, engineers, consulting firms, lawyers specializing in water issues, authors, and environmental organizations. WRCA also seeks unpublished materials such as correspondence, minutes, and legal records that document an organization's history. For example, the Mono Lake Committee donated papers it compiled during its fight to Save Mono Lake.

Recent donations include:

• The Milton N. Nathanson Collection, consisting of professional papers, correspondence, and other materials that document water rights and legislation on the lower Colorado River, Imperial Irrigation District, Arizona v. California, All-American Canal, and the Central Arizona Project. A brief inventory is available from WRCA's Archival Collections page.


• The J. Barry Cooke International Dam Files Collection (1967-2003), consisting of correspondence, bidding contracts, design briefs, technical reports, pre-feasibility studies and other materials related to international concerete face rockfill dam projects. A brief inventory is available from WRCA's Archival Collections page.


• The Dividing the Waters Collection (1993 - ongoing), consisting of legal and otherwise relevant materials related to western water adjudications and other complex water litigation. An electronic finding aid is available online.

Donations to WRCA are tax-deductible. Materials donated to the Archives are acknowledged in our newsletter and on our Web site. Please contact Linda Vida for more information.

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Profile of a Donor: Dr. Martin Griffin

Martin Griffin says he was "indoctrinated early into the importance of water." From his birth in a cabin on the banks of Utah's Ogden River to his more recent campaigns to preserve wild lands and rivers in California's Marin and Sonoma Counties, water has been a significant element in Griffin's life. One of his longest-running and most persistent battles has been the effort to stop gravel mining in the Russian River, and he has chosen to donate reports, legal papers, and maps of that effort to the Water Resources Center Archives

"These materials are too valuable not to share," Griffin says. "The Archives will organize them better than I could and, more importantly, will make them available to others." The collection includes a never-published Russian River enhancement plan with aerial photos, environmental impact statements "with wonderful graphics you wouldn't find anywhere else," and maps showing the historic channels of the river and how it has changed over time.

The Russian River is just one of Griffin's battlegrounds. As a practicing internist, he once organized a group of his patients to end the dumping of garbage in San Rafael Bay. He fought to prevent the planned fill of Richardson Bay; and his efforts to stop damming the Eel River led to the passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

As an elected director of the Marin Municipal Water District in 1973, Griffin participated in the water-hookup moratorium that stopped overdevelopment of Marin County. Many of his campaigns, including the founding of Audubon Canyon Ranch, are captured in his book, Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast: The Battles for Audubon Canyon Ranch, Point Reyes, and California's Russian River (Sweetwater Spring Press, 1998; WRCA call no. G413 N8-4).