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Water & Power Collide In Proposed $100 Million Colorado River Deal
April 11th, 2024
Via Tuscon Sentinel, an article on the water/energy trade offs in a proposed $100 million Colorado River deal: Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon is as busy as it is majestic. At the base of its snowy, near-vertical walls, the narrow chasm hums with life. On one side, the Colorado River tumbles through whitewater rapids. On the other, cars […]
Read more »Thirsty TSMC and Parched Arizona An Unlikely But Workable Pair
April 10th, 2024
Via Fortune, an article on how – while water-guzzling chipmaker TSMC and drought-plagued Arizona are an unlikely pair – officials say Phoenix’s water supply can handle booming production: The Commerce Department announced Monday it pledged up to $6.6 billion to Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC, which will add a third chip manufacturing facility in Arizona to the two […]
Read more »Navajo Nation’s Long Fight To Secure Drinking Water
April 8th, 2024
Via the Los Angeles Times, an article on the Navajo’s long fight to secure access to drinking water for all of their people: Gilarya Begaye looks out across the brush-blanketed pastures, red-dirt plains and flat-topped mesas that surround her home in the Navajo Nation. “Everywhere I’ve ever moved, it never felt like home,” says Begaye, […]
Read more »Lithium Companies Fight Over Water in the Arid Great Basin
April 8th, 2024
Via Inside Climate News, an article on the fight between water and clean energy in the US southwest: Over the past few decades, the United States has imported most of its lithium from Chile and Argentina, but there’s one major domestic source of the mineral—Nevada. Clayton Valley, a remote basin in the nation’s driest state, […]
Read more »Why Does US West Grow So Much Alfalfa?
April 4th, 2024
Via Sustainable Waters, commentary on the nexus between water use and food production in the US West: During recent years I’ve had the great fortune to work with some amazing scientists on some really interesting research projects focused on water use and food production in the American West. Due to widespread concerns over water scarcity […]
Read more »Hydro Project Could Test U.S. Tribal Sovereignty Rule
March 30th, 2024
Via Western Water Notes, a look at an important case in Nevada that is testing the boundaries of tribal sovereignty, specifically the sovereignty question here seems straightforward: pumped hydro may be of value broadly, but if the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe doesn’t want it on tribal land, isn’t their right to refuse the project inherent […]
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