Today, as it was in 1902, water remains indispensable to life in the American West. But populating the West, which grew by 32 percent in the last quarter of the 20th century, no longer is Reclamation’s goal. The question, as Lawrence J. MacDonnell writes in From Reclamation to Sustainability, is “not how to attract people to the West but how to maintain the quality of life that is attracting them.”With the West’s rivers and streams extensively developed, the era of large dam construction is over. The last of Reclamation’s major authorizations, the Animas-La Plata Project in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, has been constructed. But that doesn’t mean Reclamation’s work is done. Projects involving dam maintenance and safety, as well as rural water projects remain. In 1999, for instance, the spillway at Tieton Dam, west of Yakima, Washington, was repaired and, in 2008, the spillway tunnel at Yellowtail Dam in Montana. In an age when a variety of interests compete for the limited water resources of the West, Reclamation aims to balance those needs and emphasize conservation, water recycling, and reuse. In the summer of 2010, through its WaterSMART program, for example, grants were issued to water districts, municipalities, and Indian tribes across the West who were seeking to achieve a sustainable water strategy. Projects ranged from a study to identify the potential impact of climate change on fish and wildlife habitats in Nevada’s Truckee River Basin, to efforts by a Port Isabel, Texas, water district to save electricity by making improvements to its non-potable water system.