One
of the more frustrating parts of writing and
communication generally isselecting
an appropriate timescale. We
often enter in the middle. We rely on sign posts
— meetings, reports, decisions, and deadlines —
to help explain otherwise noisy worlds. This is
not a bad thing. To the contrary, structure
helps direct and organize traffic. We’d be lost
otherwise, awash in too much information.
It
also necessarily constrains our view. In the
context of drought and water shortages (and the
compounding nature of both), we tend to gravitate
to frames that have clear beginnings and ends.
Drought or not. Shortage or not. In the “not”
times, we believe all is well. But these events
— and policy solutions to address them — often
unravel gradually, spreading out in many ways, at
different speeds and directions. Many indicators,
many of them invisible.
Water
shortages similarly unfold on timescales with
long tails — something I kept in mind this week
while thinking about cuts on the Colorado River,
often described as a “slow-moving train wreck,”
one in which users keep agreeing on stopgap
policies to slow down the train and lay slightly
more track, but do neither to the degree
required to avert a crisis. It’s been
more than two decades since 2002, when the U.S.
Secretary of Interior declared an “era of
limits,” speaking before Colorado River users.
It’s
true elsewhere too, and it’s particularly true
of groundwater, where the invisibility of
aquifers makes it all too easy to miss the less
visible impacts of drought or the signs of water
shortages — until there is a crisis and we enter
in the middle.
With
that, some indicators I’m thinking about this
month, as I clear out my tabs.
What
happens to priority and water access when a
changing climate affects the way streamflow
is distributed over time?
This is the question researchers from the
Colorado School of Mines ask in a new Nature
Waterpaper.
Interestingly, they find that changes in the
distribution of streamflow can affect water
access under the West’s “first in time,
first in right” priority system.
The
cost of cutting back: Who pays for
conservation in a crisis? States
in the Colorado River Basin might be nowhere
near a long-term deal on how to share a
shrinking river, but many users agree on the
need for federal funding. Last week, water
users, Tribes, conservation groups, and
governments from across the basin wrote to
Congress calling for a $2
billion infusion of funding
and a long-term funding mechanism to address
“structural and ongoing” issues in the
basin.¹
Back
in the Biden administration, the federal
government allocated $4 billion to fund
Colorado River conservation, but much
of that was frozen in 2025.
Nevada
is punting on draft curtailment order, for
now: Across the West, states
are figuring out how to manage the impact of
groundwater overuse on streamflow in the
context of a water law that often treated
the two as separate, disconnected sources.
In 2024, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that
regulators had the ability to regulate the
two sources conjunctively. Last year, the
state tried to implement a draft order on
the Humboldt River that would have required
pumping reductions.
There
was significant backlash, concerns over
potential litigation, and concerns about the
modeling used to quantify reductions. Now a
new top water official is putting the effort
on hold, The
Nevada Independent
reports. It’s a story, like many
water stories, about the collision of law,
science, and politics — as well as the
compounding nature of groundwater impacts
over time.
For
my Nevada readers who want to dig
deeper, the U.S. Geological Survey released
a long-awaited professional paper this
week modeling streamflow capture from
groundwater pumping in the Middle
Humboldt River Basin.
Humboldt
River downstream of Battle Mountain, Nev.
(Credit: Google Earth)
Proposed
cuts to a critical safe and affordable
drinking water program: About
600,000 Californians lack access to safe and
reliable drinking water, and the Safe and
Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience
program (SAFER) provides key funding to help
communities close the gap. Now a change in a
funding source for the program — the state’s
carbon market — could mean cuts. CalMatters
reports.
Watching
data centers and water (more specifically,
water-energy tradeoffs):
Fish
recovery and ecosystems in a year of record
low streamflows: The effects
of dry conditions are already reshaping
flows in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Aspen
Journalism, earlier
this month, reported on challenges
maintaining habitat in the 15-mile
reach, critical fish habitat for
endangered species near the confluence
with the Gunnison River. At the same
time, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is
releasing more water to boost levels at
Lake Powell, the timing of which could
help to benefit
endangered fish.
More
than 100 dams removed in 2025: “Last
year, more sections of the country’s rivers
were reconnected thanks to dam removals than
at any other time in history, according to
the nonprofit group American Rivers,” the
New
York Times
reported. “In 2025, more than 100
dams were dismantled in 30 states,
reconnecting around 4,900 miles of
waterways, including 156 miles of a branch
of the Juniata River that are now
reconnected thanks to the removal of
Bedford’s two dams.”
If
you want to support making the invisible
more visible, you can support this work by
becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Does
anyone know if there exists a full accounting
of the money spent? I was trying (not too
hard) earlier today to find this and came
against dead ends. I will try more later.
