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Abysmal Math on the Colorado River
April 14th, 2026
Via The Land Desk, commentary on how the U.S. government is looking to avoid de facto deadpool at Glen Canyon Dam: The Central Arizona Project canal, which carries Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson, as it runs past fields in the desert (that are irrigated with groundwater, not CAP water). The CAP is not […]
Read more »The Rural World Won’t Go Dry Without a Fight
April 14th, 2026
Via Foreign Policy, a look at how – from Jordan to Nepal – solutions to urban water woes are leaving the countryside angry and parched: That the fields around al-Jafr in southern Jordan are often desiccated is a source of frustration and deprivation for locals. That they can sometimes hear the gurgle of water in […]
Read more »When the Water Utility Stops Being the Risk-Taker of Last Resort
April 13th, 2026
Via Todd Court’s substack, commentary on the insurance withdrawal analogy, applied to water: The FAIR Plan Moment for Water Since 2019, more than 30 major insurance providers have either left the California property market, reduced their product offerings or paused the issuance of new insurance policies in the State. The rationale behind these movements is […]
Read more »India’s Worrying Plans for Dams on Transboundary Rivers Shared with Bangladesh
April 10th, 2026
Courtesy of The Diplomat, a look at the rising water tension between India and Bangladesh, where the former has at least seven hydroelectric projects on two transboundary river systems in the pipeline in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya: On Google maps, a deep green stretch about 100 kilometers long along the India-Bangladesh border, right […]
Read more »Desalination: By The Numbers
April 10th, 2026
Via Technology Review, a detailed look at desalination technology, an increasingly important water source: When I started digging into desalination technology for a new story, I couldn’t help but obsess over the numbers. I’d known on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed […]
Read more »The Colorado River Is Effectively Insolvent — And Corporate Water Users May Not Have Priced It
April 9th, 2026
Via Todd Cort’s informative Substack, commentary on the Colorado River, a climate-induced bankruptcy sitting on the balance sheet: Imagine that a company had a pension fund that promised $16.5 billion in future payouts but the value of that fund today sits at only $12.4 billion. Moreover, that pension fund has been drawing down the balance […]
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