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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. […]
Read more »Arizona’s Growth Machine Keeps Churning Even as Existing Communities Dry Up
April 17th, 2026
Via Land Desk, a look at the dire situation for water in Arizona: Rendering of the Halo Vista development and TSMC’s campus. Source: discoverhalovista.com Sometimes it feels like there are two parallel Southwestern United States out there. One is naturally arid, is getting hotter and hotter by the year and is gripped by the most […]
Read more »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 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 […]
Read more »The American West Is Drying Up. Can the Market Help?
March 18th, 2026
Via New Republic, a look at how – as hedge funds buy up land to obtain water rights – a libertarian state representative from Arizona has proposed a seemingly radical solution to the water crisis. Is he right? When members of the Colorado River Water Users Association, or CRWUA, descended on Caesars Palace for their annual […]
Read more »The Alfalfa Fallacy
March 10th, 2026
Via The Land Desk, commentary on the lack of “obvious” solutions to the Colorado River crisis: Oh dear. You’d best get your skiing in now, because it looks like the spring melt will hit a lot earlier than usual. A big heat wave is on its way to the West, with the most unseasonably warm […]
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