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Arizona and Nevada Agree to Trade for Desalinated Pacific Ocean Water
June 4th, 2026
Courtesy of the New York Times, a report on how a decade-old treatment plant in San Diego County, Calif., could leave more water in the Colorado River for states facing severe shortages: San Diego could sell some of its rights to Colorado River water to Arizona and Nevada under a deal struck Wednesday that could […]
Read more »California’s Water Empire: Over 100 Years of Engineering, Extraction and Avoidance
May 28th, 2026
Via SoCal Water Wars, a look at how over a century of aqueducts, reservoirs, and political gambits has left California dependent on costly water systems built to serve growth—not the climate emergency now unfolding: California has more than 2,700 state, federal and local dams and reservoirs, including roughly 300 in Southern California. I include Hoover Dam […]
Read more »Could Ocean Desalination Help Solve Las Vegas’ Water Woes?
May 23rd, 2026
Via the Las Vegas Review Journal, a report that Las Vegas is exploring a water transfer deal with San Diego: Southern Nevada is now looking to the Pacific Ocean to ease its water woes. In a vote Thursday, the Southern Nevada Water Authority board approved a memorandum of understanding that allows General Manager John Entsminger […]
Read more »AI Data Centers in Parched American West Need 7B Gallons of Water Annually
May 20th, 2026
Via Quartz, a look at how new data center facilities across Arizona, Nevada, and Utah are demanding millions of gallons daily in a region where snowpack hit record lows and reservoirs are also low: Water use from data center cooling in the Phoenix area alone is on track to increase by 870%, from 385 million […]
Read more »As the West Dries Out, a New Generation of Dams Rise
May 16th, 2026
Via Bloomberg, a look at how the cities of Colorado’s Front Range are counting on new dams to support their booming population in a deepening megadrought: The Chimney Hollow Dam looks ancient in its simplicity, like a Neolithic mound. The largest dam built in the US in a quarter century, it is not a monumental […]
Read more »Why the Colorado River is Once Again Facing a Water Crisis
May 10th, 2026
Via Washington Post, a report on a stopgap proposal from Arizona, California and Nevada which is unlikely to break the stalemate in negotiations over the future of the river: The situation on the Colorado River has rarely been more dire than in this moment. The snowpacks that feed the river are the smallest on record. […]
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