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How Arizona Squeezes Tribes for Water
July 30th, 2023
Courtesy of High Country News, a look at how Arizona goes to unusual lengths in water negotiations to extract restrictive concessions from tribes: The Dilkon Medical Center, a sprawling $128 million facility on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, was completed a year ago. With an emergency room, pharmacy and housing for more than 100 staff members, […]
Read more »The Colorado Provides Drinking Water to 40M People. Do They Know What Utah Does to It Upstream?
July 30th, 2023
Via Mother Jones, a report on the Colorado River and upstream use/energy-related pollution: From the water, the White River canyon was a scene worthy of Ansel Adams. Swallows darted in and out of mud houses packed on the underside of the soaring sandstone cliffs. A lone elk wandered the hillside, while sheep noshed along the water, […]
Read more »How Private Interests Benefit From Tribal Water Settlements
July 30th, 2023
Via High Country News, a look at how – when power players like mining and agriculture are involved – tribal nations, usually the senior-most water-rights holders, often must fight obstruction: First, the Santa Cruz River stopped flowing into the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Then wells began to dry up across the reservation, […]
Read more »Colorado River Has Lost 10 Trillion Gallons of Water Since 2000
July 27th, 2023
Courtesy of The Guardian, a look at how the Colorado River has lost 10tn gallons of water since 2000 due to the climate crisis, a volume of water lost equal to Lake Mead, US’s largest reservoir, or enough water to fill around 15bn Olympic-sized pools: The climate crisis has caused the ailing Colorado River basin, a system […]
Read more »How Big Ag Pollutes America’s Waters and Makes Money Doing It
July 26th, 2023
Courtesy of Circle of Blue, a report on Big Ag’s impact on America’s waters: It’s been 33 years since an Iowa State University agronomist named Fred Blackmer thought he’d struck gold for Midwestern corn farmers. Using a fairly simple three-step method, Blackmer developed an analytical tool that could accurately tell farmers exactly how much fertilizer […]
Read more »Running Dry: Can the Farm Bill Help Fix the Racial Water Gap?
July 21st, 2023
Via Yes! Magazine, commentary on how decades of disinvestment have led to racialized disparities in access to safe drinking water and effective wastewater services: For years, Michael Prado has provided bottled water to his neighbors in Sultana, a town of about 785 people in California’s Central Valley. That’s because most wells in town have been contaminated by […]
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