schank: i don't think that's a true story. uh... i, uh... i have to--i have to couch what i say now. heh heh heh! christensen: the farmers left the negotiations for two reasons. one was that they believed, and they still believe, that the water is theirs. the second is that they thought that they could win by fighting. what they didn't realize was that the politics of power had shifted all around them, and it wasn't going back. schank: all of a sudden, rural nevada, which once had a metrolitan areas, now we at a severe disadvantage. chisho: and you see that all across rural america these days, where rural counities are feeling under threat. the challenge is that in many cases, these rural communities were we need to think about how to right wrongs, but we also need to consider how we help these communities make adjustments. of many that are going oly one it's all of the western states and even in the midwest now. and little towns that once thrived are just ghost towns because the people have gone to the city. christensen: there's a strain of

ernie schank: i am a native nevadan. i was born in fallon. i live on the same ranch--in fact, i live in a house that my grandfather built in about 1930. i am the youngest who ever ran for the board of directors for the truckee-carson irrigation district. my main occupation, however, is a farmer. this is what i love. our farm is now in the fifth generation. our family came to the fallon area in 1929, and when i asked my grandfather why, he said he wanted to go to a place where reclamation was in its infancy. the mormon pioneers pioneered reclamation as we know it today. they came to what was considered a wasted area because nobody thought that you could grow crops, but when they got here, they determined that if they would dam the streams and build reservoirs, that soil could become very fertile. [water sloshing] baca: however, what they did not take into consideration was the effect of that reallation on pyramid lake andn some of the other lakes that were dependent on ts water system. ater splhing] man: this lake came under a great peril begi

schank: his legacy is not very well looked at by most of the people in rur nevada. in order to appreciate rural nevada, you have to understand that it is part of the complete nevada. and so i think that that's a very, very important component that many, many politicians do not really look at. christensen: harry reid was also a complicated character. environmentasts somemes found themlves at odds with him because he suprtedining and he supported las vegas getting thwater it needed to grow. and this complexity enabled him to see the kind of pragmatic solutions that eluded purists and ideologues. baca: the competing interests, the stakeholders with different needs and perspectives will always remain. and we're always going to need somebody like a senator reid to come in and help negotiate through those competing interests. chisholm: this was about the politics of the possible. harry reid has pointed to a model of how work can get done, not just in nevada, but i also think nationally. you need to think pragmatically, but you also need to be willing to make deals. lopez: