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Big Companies Cashed In on Mississippi’s Water. Small Towns Paid the Price.
February 14th, 2024
Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on how big companies vowed to fix Mississippi’s water woes and save cities millions, but an Times investigation found the deals racked up debt and left many worse off than before: In winter 2021, more than 150,000 people living in Jackson, Miss., were left without running water. Faucets […]
Read more »With Climate Change, Colorado River Officials Peer Into Muddy Future
February 12th, 2024
Via the Washington Post, a report on efforts to use innovative, web-based tools to predict the Colorado River’s future flows: To ensure that the Colorado River can remain a lifeline for 40 million people, the federal government is looking for answers in the extremes of the distant past and the warnings of a hotter future. In a low-slung […]
Read more »Will It Pay Off? In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, Paying for the Water They Use
February 11th, 2024
Via JFleck’s Inkstain, a look at an interesting experiement in western U.S. water management: Folks in Colorado’s San Luis Valley are engaged in a bold experiment in western water management – charging farmers for the water they use. Jerd Smith explains: A new rule approved by the area’s largest irrigation district, known as Subdistrict 1, and […]
Read more »Like Utah, California Has Had Pipeline Dreams To Save Its Drying Salton Sea
February 10th, 2024
Via KUER, an article on California’s – and Utah’s – pipeline dreams to save inland water bodies: Most people don’t know that California’s largest lake — the Salton Sea — was a mishap. Birthed in 1905 when the Colorado River experienced massive floods, the accidental lake soon became a community commodity. It once was a recreation destination, […]
Read more »Romancing the River: The Appropriation Doctrine – and Its Appropriation
February 10th, 2024
Via Sibley’s Rivers, commentary on the Colorado River Compact and the appropriation doctrine: ‘The single biggest roadblock to solving the problem of stabilizing the river is the priority system.’ – Tom Buschatzke, Director of Arizona’s ? Department of Water Resource Last post, I laid out some reasons why the water mavens now engaged in mapping […]
Read more »Environmentalists See Nevada Supreme Court Ruling Bringing State’s Water Management ‘Into the 21st Century’
February 4th, 2024
Via Inside Climate News, a look at a recent Nevada Supreme Court ruling that the state can restrict new groundwater pumping if it will impact other users and wildlife, a decision environmentalists are calling a major win in updating the state’s water law: The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that the state can […]
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