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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 »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 […]
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