Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 951: Will The Colorado River Run Dry?

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Ep. 951: Will The Colorado River Run Dry? · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the meat-eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten,
• 0:14
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• 0:35
  Speaker 1: That's F-I-R-S-T.com. L I T E.com. All right, everybody. We're
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: joined today by our first ever hydrologist. I'm pretty sure
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that's true. You're definitely the first hydrologist to ever sit
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  Speaker 1: on that couch, but I think you're the first hydrologist
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  Speaker 1: to ever come near this show. Dr. Melanie Thornton. And
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  Speaker 1: she is the senior director of Western water at TRCP.
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  Speaker 1: But what we're going to talk about is, um, If
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  Speaker 1: you're anything like, not you, I'm saying to the listeners,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: if the listeners are anything like me, they have spent
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  Speaker 1: their entire life reading headlines, if not the whole articles,
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  Speaker 1: about the plight of the Colorado River. That the Colorado
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  Speaker 1: River is going dry. That the calamity is coming. Or
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  Speaker 1: that the Rio Grande, are you a Rio Grande or
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  Speaker 1: Rio Grande?
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  Speaker 2: Rio Grande. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: That the Rio Grande doesn't even flow in some places. Like,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes the Rio Grande is dirt. It's mud. It doesn't
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  Speaker 1: even flow out to the ocean, right? I've been hearing
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  Speaker 1: this for so long, and I feel like now I'm
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  Speaker 1: hearing it more. And I want to talk to you
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  Speaker 1: to understand what is up with these rivers. What is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: causing this? What is using all the water? What happens
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  Speaker 1: when the water runs out? Before we started the interview,
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  Speaker 1: you and I were discussing, we did some rough math. 10%
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  Speaker 1: of Americans draw their drinking water from a river, from
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  Speaker 1: a watershed that some people prophesize will go away or
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  Speaker 1: is going away. Okay?
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: This is all just set up. I'd have to understand
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  Speaker 1: this better. So that's why you're here. You're here to
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  Speaker 1: explain this to us all. Like, why have we been
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  Speaker 1: hearing about this for so many decades? But I think
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  Speaker 1: my first actual question to you is, can you lay
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  Speaker 1: out sort of the scope of what we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: when you see things about the Colorado River watershed? Like,
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  Speaker 1: what is this? What states? How big is this? How
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  Speaker 1: is this 10% of Americans' water?
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  Speaker 2: Sure. I think the Colorado River Basin is, it's a
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  Speaker 2: big river. And when I think, when most people, or
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  Speaker 2: if you're picturing the Colorado River for the first time,
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  Speaker 2: you think of it as just one river. But really,
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  Speaker 2: it's an interconnected system. It's big. There's lots of rivers, creeks, streams, tributaries,
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  Speaker 2: lakes that eventually feed into the Colorado River. So the
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  Speaker 2: Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It
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  Speaker 2: flows roughly 1,400 miles all the way through the desert
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  Speaker 2: southwest to historically the Gulf of California. And when we're
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  Speaker 2: thinking about how big it is, you know, I'm a scientist.
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  Speaker 2: I'll talk a little bit about the numbers. It's roughly
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  Speaker 2: 246,000 square miles. What does that mean? I did some
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  Speaker 2: quick math before we got here, too. That's roughly, you
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  Speaker 2: take the size of Rhode Island, it's roughly 150 of them.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: It's a big basin.
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  Speaker 1: Rhode Island always gets like... Rhode Island's the handiest state.
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  Speaker 2: It's the smallest one.
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  Speaker 1: When it comes to making something seem big, you can
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: always turn to Rhode Island.
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  Speaker 2: And so it's a river that flows through seven states.
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  Speaker 2: It starts in Colorado. You've got Wyoming. You've got Utah,
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  Speaker 2: New Mexico. And then it goes down through the desert
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  Speaker 2: southwest through Arizona, Nevada, and California. Yeah. It links 30
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  Speaker 2: federally recognized tribes. And it doesn't just support drinking water
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  Speaker 2: for 40 million people throughout the basin. It provides water
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  Speaker 2: for our farms and our ranches. It provides water for
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  Speaker 2: our tribal communities. And of course, it provides water for
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  Speaker 2: fish and wildlife habitat.
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  Speaker 1: So what is happening? Let me ask this. If you
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  Speaker 1: go back in time, because like I said, I feel
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  Speaker 1: like I've read this story for I'm a half century
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  Speaker 1: years old. I feel like I've read this story since
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  Speaker 1: I learned how to read or some dire prediction on this.
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  Speaker 1: Can you go back in time to when was the
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  Speaker 1: first time that someone or some entity, some thing put
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  Speaker 1: together like if human populations do this, the river will
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  Speaker 1: do this. Right. And we will someday feel the effect
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  Speaker 1: of it. When was this when did this become apparent
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  Speaker 1: to somebody?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think if we're traveling back in time
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  Speaker 2: and I think it's helpful to sort of understand that
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  Speaker 2: the rules and the frameworks and the laws that govern
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  Speaker 2: the system were built around a time when people just
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  Speaker 2: thought the river was going to produce a lot more
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  Speaker 2: water than it does today.
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  Speaker 1: OK.
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  Speaker 2: And so the Colorado River and let's travel back 100 years.
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  Speaker 2: Let's look. We're talking about the 1920s. The American West
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  Speaker 2: was expanding, right? You were starting to have cities get developed.
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  Speaker 2: Agriculture was expanding. And the states, the seven states in
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  Speaker 2: the Colorado River were like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
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  Speaker 2: How are we going to figure out how to share
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  Speaker 2: this river? We need to figure out a game plan.
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  Speaker 2: And so in 1922 is a key year in the
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  Speaker 2: Colorado River because that's when representatives from the seven states,
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  Speaker 2: they all gathered at Bishop's Lodge outside of Santa Fe.
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  Speaker 2: And they negotiated to try to figure out how are
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  Speaker 2: we going to share this? this river among our seven states.
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  Speaker 2: And eventually what came out of that was the Colorado
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  Speaker 2: River Compact. And then you, let's speed back up into
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  Speaker 2: time now, you know, Congress has weighed in, Congress has
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  Speaker 2: passed laws related to the Colorado River. Dams and reservoirs
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  Speaker 2: have been built. The courts weighed in. Tribal communities are
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  Speaker 2: negotiating their water rights with the federal government. And so
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  Speaker 2: all of that layered on together is what folks call
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  Speaker 2: the law of the river. I don't know if you've
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  Speaker 2: heard about that term or seen that term no i'm
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  Speaker 2: not familiar and so that's sort of what governs the
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  Speaker 2: river but then you fast forward to i mean even
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  Speaker 2: let's let's take a look in in the late 2000s
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  Speaker 2: um hydrology and and the and snowpack and flows in
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  Speaker 2: the river was starting to change it was starting to
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  Speaker 2: get you know we were starting to see you know
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  Speaker 2: early onset of drought You know, our big lakes, our
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  Speaker 2: Lake Mead and Lake Powell are the two major lakes
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  Speaker 2: on the river that store water that states and folks
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  Speaker 2: can use during dry years. Those lake levels were starting
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  Speaker 2: to decline. And the states were like, wait a minute.
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  Speaker 2: We are, there's less water in the river. And we're
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  Speaker 2: using more. And there's, fundamentally, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: there's a mismatch between how much water people use and
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  Speaker 2: how much water the river provides.
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  Speaker 1: So the water is, like, besides there's more and more
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  Speaker 1: use on On the water, the amount of water has
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  Speaker 1: like objectively declined.
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  Speaker 2: Correct.
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  Speaker 1: There's less going into the system.
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  Speaker 2: Correct. I mean, I'll ask you, what do you see
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  Speaker 2: out in the field? Thinner snow packs? What happens when
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  Speaker 2: there's warmer temperatures that changes water on the landscape?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, here outside of the Colorado River watershed,
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  Speaker 1: last year I went and got my snowmobiles all ready
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  Speaker 1: to go. And, um, never started them last winter. I'm
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  Speaker 1: particular about where I go. Like there's a certain type
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  Speaker 1: of thing I'm trying to do. And it's like more
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  Speaker 1: low elevation, never ran my snowmobiles.
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 1: Well, there's no snow. It was, it was, it was
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  Speaker 1: a non snow year.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: A dirt trap for coyotes till through February, open ground,
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  Speaker 1: bare ground. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, People, I mean, if you spend
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  Speaker 2: any time outdoors, whether you hunt or fish or you recreate,
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  Speaker 2: you probably notice these things. No snow, thinner snow. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Rivers are peaking at different times. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So when these folks got together in the 20s and
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  Speaker 1: they came up with this water pact, tell me about
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  Speaker 1: a couple of the foundational principles that they're drawing on. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: and within that answer, the thing I'm curious about is
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  Speaker 1: you'd look and it'd be like, you mentioned Wyoming, right?
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  Speaker 1: So the people at the headwaters, I know just in
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  Speaker 1: general water law and water rules, it can't be that the,
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  Speaker 1: the farthest up person says, I'm just going to take
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  Speaker 1: it all. And I'm going to build a giant dam
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  Speaker 1: at my state line. And I'm going to take all
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  Speaker 1: the water and all the waters for me because I'm
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  Speaker 1: here and it's mine. Um, even in the twenties, they
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  Speaker 1: must've had things sorted out where that, that, wasn't permissible somehow, right?
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  Speaker 1: You couldn't, like, you couldn't hoard water. Correct.
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  Speaker 2: So I think, and I'm not a water lawyer, I'm
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  Speaker 2: a scientist, but I've spent the last decade in D.C.
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  Speaker 2: around water policy, so I know enough to be dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: In the West, water law is prior appropriation. If you
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  Speaker 2: were there first, you were senior on the system. And
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  Speaker 2: so at a really, you know, indigenous communities were there first.
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  Speaker 2: But if you're looking at the states from a state perspective,
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  Speaker 2: California has some of the... California and Southern Arizona have
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  Speaker 2: some of the most senior claims on the river. And
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  Speaker 2: I think what the Compact did and what they tried
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  Speaker 2: to do at the time was try to figure out
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  Speaker 2: how can we equitably share the river. And so they
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  Speaker 2: split up that basically in the negotiations, they split up
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  Speaker 2: the river. You have the upper basins, you've got the
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  Speaker 2: headwater states, the Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Colorado. And
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  Speaker 2: then you've got the lower basin states, Arizona, Nevada, and California.
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  Speaker 2: And they split it up based on acre feet.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so not percentage.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's a nuance there. But just at a really
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  Speaker 2: high level, there's 7.5 million acre feet that the upper
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  Speaker 2: basin got and 7.5 million acre feet the lower basin got. And,
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  Speaker 2: of course, there's Mexico. In the framework, we negotiated a
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  Speaker 2: treaty with Mexico, and there's 1.5 million acre feet for Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: And acre feet is?
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  Speaker 2: You know, you think about this as two to three
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  Speaker 2: households of water use a year or take a football field,
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  Speaker 2: pile it high with water about a foot deep. That's
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  Speaker 2: an acre foot.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So a football field covered in 12 inches
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  Speaker 1: of water is about what two households will use in
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  Speaker 1: a year?
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  Speaker 2: Roughly.
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  Speaker 1: God, seems like a lot, man. It's a lot of water. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And at the time, and, you know, I think it's important,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know, at least me as a scientist, there's a
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  Speaker 2: book called Science Be Damned. It's written by Eric Kuhn
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  Speaker 2: and John Fleck. And what they did was they lifted
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  Speaker 2: the hood in terms of what data and what numbers
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  Speaker 2: were these negotiators using back in the 20s. And there
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: are some discrepancies between do you use a longer period
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  Speaker 2: of data that shows over a longer period of time
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  Speaker 2: the averages or should we use a shorter period of
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  Speaker 2: wet data where it looks like the river provides more
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  Speaker 2: water than it does. And I think anyone who's having
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: to make a tough decision, especially around water, it's so
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  Speaker 2: much easier to split a bigger pie than it is
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  Speaker 2: a smaller one. And so at the time, there was
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  Speaker 2: politics involved, and ultimately the folks that were negotiating that
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  Speaker 2: decided to use a period of wetter data. And so
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  Speaker 2: they split the river. I mean, we're talking averages here.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it was intentional? I mean, it's easier.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it was intentional, but that was the
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  Speaker 2: number all the seven states agreed to. Let's take 15.
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  Speaker 2: We're doing 15. We'll split it in half. But now
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  Speaker 2: if you look at how much water is on the
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  Speaker 2: Colorado River now, it's closer to that 12, 13 million
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  Speaker 2: acre foot number. And so it's less.
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  Speaker 1: Got it. Got it. You know what's kind of funny about–
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  Speaker 1: this is the thing I think about often when I
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: think about water availability is human memories are so short
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  Speaker 1: that when I was kind of in high school– early
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  Speaker 1: college age even before that we would hunt we would
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: trap muskrats a lot and hunt a lot of ducks
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  Speaker 1: in standing dead timber which was all over the place
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  Speaker 1: i mean treat you know 10 inch 12 inch trees
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  Speaker 1: stone dead in marshes and it never like it just
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  Speaker 1: did not occur to me all that time To think,
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  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this must have been dry for all
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the years it took for these trees to grow. And
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  Speaker 1: I just assumed that I was living, as everyone does,
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  Speaker 1: that I was living during normal times. Right. Right. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we were shooting wood ducks and mallards out and just
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: dead timber all over the place, all over. And now
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  Speaker 1: that stuff is the woods or grass. And that water
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  Speaker 1: is not there. You know what I mean? But in
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  Speaker 1: my head, it was just like, that's what life is like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, even when you're leaning against the evidence that
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  Speaker 1: that's not normal. This tree grew here.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's a big question is what's normal. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I could see at that time, trying to like,
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  Speaker 1: at that time, trying to figure out how much water
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  Speaker 1: you got. Unless it, unless it was just settled as
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a percentage, but they're talking about real numbers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's some nuance with the upper basin in percentages,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: but for the most part, at a really high level,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: it splits up the basins into two. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So explain how you, since the 20s or whatever, explain, like,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: how has use increased so much? Is it just a
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  Speaker 1: function of there's more people? Or, like, who's using up
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the water?
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  Speaker 2: So I think, you know, when.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: We have to talk a little bit about the lakes, right?
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  Speaker 2: The Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Those are the two big storage reservoirs on the Colorado
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  Speaker 2: River system. And they were designed to store water and
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  Speaker 2: basically to store water during wet years to be used
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: during dry years.
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  Speaker 1: To store for how long potentially?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're there to store the water until we
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: need it. And so those reservoirs, we could go back
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: to the Acrefoot example, if they're full- they can store
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: 50 million acre feet of water combined. Today, those reservoirs,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and I'm sure you've probably seen the pictures of the
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: bathtub rings at Hoover Dam.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like dead dudes coming out of there.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been some of those stories too.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: You don't believe those stories?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, people are discovering things at much lower levels
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: in the lake. And so I think today they're roughly 20, 25%
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: at capacity. They're really low.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: They're at what capacity?
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: 20 to 25% capacity.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Depending on the lake. And so I think over time, again,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: back to we have a mismatch between supply and demand,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: how much people are using versus how much water is available.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Is that shrinkage? So tell me again how many acre
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: feet they hold?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: 50 million.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Okay. And they're at 20% capacity now, so they're shrinking. Roughly, yeah.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But that's not them shrinking because people are sucking it out.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: They're shrinking because it's not falling as snow and rain.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Correct. It's both. It's both.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: It is both.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It's the use plus coupled with the changes in our
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: snow and our river flows.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And so I think if you just take the pie
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and we'll talk really high level, right? And you think
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: about who's using the water, you know, ag uses about 70, 80%
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: that's used to grow food production in our country. If
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you look at your dinner plate in the middle of
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: the winter, whether it's broccoli, cauliflower, your leafy greens, your lettuces,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: your spinach, there's a good chance that was grown using
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Colorado River water in places like Yuma, Arizona, or California's
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Imperial Valley. Cities also use the water roughly 10-ish percent.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: We talked about this earlier, 40 million people Drinking water
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: is from the Colorado River, and that supports cities in Albuquerque,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: in Denver, in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. And there's,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: you know, some cities are doing a really good job
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: about trying to how we could stretch our very limited
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: water supplies. Las Vegas is a great example. And if
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: you just take their indoor water use, the water that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: people use in their homes, Las Vegas recycles about 99%
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of it. They've made those investments in water recycling and
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: reuse technologies because... It's a, it's a city in the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: middle of the desert and they are grappling with how
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: can we make our water go further, but it's not
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: just ag and cities. You've got industries that are, that
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: rely on the water, uh, businesses, towns, you know, scattered
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: throughout the west as well as fish and wildlife habitat.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, and for your listeners, Steve, when
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: I think about water and how does that, what does
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: that mean to the, to hunters and anglers? Water is
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: habitat at gigantic scale.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, that's also a very important component
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: of who relies and depends on this river. Whether it's,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: you know, are we talking about migration corridors for elk
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: and mule deer? You know, trout, we've got cutthroat trout
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: in the headwaters. Water is the thread that connects.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: All of it. With agricultural increase or agricultural production, are
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: there people that draw... from the Colorado River Basin, are
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: there cities that aren't in that basin where that water
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: is piped over to somebody else?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: How did it ever be that they get, how do
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: they have a chance at that water?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Sure. I mean, I'll take, we'll talk about Colorado and
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: New Mexico, and New Mexico, because of my experience, in
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: New Mexico, their Colorado River use is actually There's a
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: 26-mile pipe that moves water from the Colorado River Basin
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: to the Rio Grande Basin, and that supports drinking water
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: for Santa Fe and New Mexico. In Colorado, there's a trans-mountain.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: The Big Thompson Project is a trans-mountain water pipeline that
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: goes underneath the mountains that moves water from the Colorado
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: River to support cities on the Front Range, Denver.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But what is their argument to have it?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: The state has that water right.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. Because some portion of the state touches
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the watershed. Correct. They have the right and they can opt,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the state can opt to pipe it out of the watershed.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: That's correct. Yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Did you ever see that, are you familiar with, you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: John Wesley Powell?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like lost his arm in the Civil War
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and kind of did the, you know, map the Grand Canyon.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Had all kinds of crazy adventures doing that. Have you
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: ever seen those maps he made where he had this
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: proposal and I don't know if he conceptualized it or
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: if he just popularized the concept he thought we drew
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the state lines all wrong Powell said the western states
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and I've seen maps that apply this concept all throughout
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the country Powell said the western states should follow watershed lines.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So if you imagine, if you're looking at a map,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of these states are square. You look at Wyoming, Colorado,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: portions of Montana's border. You get these geometric shapes. But
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: then if you imagine Montana's western border, which is a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: jaggedy-ass line running all crooked across the map. The river? Yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It's a drainage. It's a drainage divide. And Powell came
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: up with this idea that all the borders would look
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: like very jaggedy, crooked, meandering lines because they should all
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: follow watersheds. And that way a state would sort of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: be more, you know, beholden to its environment. Right? Rather
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: than doing like what you're talking about and moving water
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: over mountains.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, as a hydrologist, I sure think it would
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: be a lot easier to manage water at a watershed level.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, even think about fish and wildlife and our,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: our state wildlife management agencies, the amount of coordination that's
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: required among States. I mean, fish and wildlife don't know
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: a state line.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: And, but we still have to figure out ways that
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: we can make investments in their habitat to ensure that
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: they're there.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: When, when, So with these states having the right to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: move that stuff over mountains, that's because they're, like, their chunk.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And then when it comes to the disputes between states,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: who is the currently... Who is the governing... What is
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the governing body for disputes? Not so much within... I'm
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: sure there's fighting within Colorado about who's getting what water.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But who currently... Makes the rule for who draws what
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: water out of the river. Sure.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I think just backing up really quickly, I think historically
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: there are every state governor appoints a water commissioner to
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: represent their states to negotiate on behalf of their state.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And historically, the seven basin states have always come to
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: an agreement about how we're going to manage how we're
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: going to manage the system. And that happened in 2007.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: The states negotiated what was called interim guidelines, basically because
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: they were seeing the conditions on the ground change.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: In 2007?
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when the guidelines were finalized. And so basically
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: what happened is they were like, okay, there's less water.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: We need some rules and we need to have some
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: certainty around if the lake level is at X elevation,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: this is how much water we're going to see in
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: a cut for our state. So those guidelines were temporary.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: It was a 20-year framework, and it was supposed to
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: just buy time for the states to figure out sort
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of like what's going to be our long-term game plan.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Like how are we going to be able to use
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: within the means of this river? And so we're here
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: in 2026. Those guidelines have since expired. But the federal government,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Reclamation,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: they own and have a responsibility of operating– the dams
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. So Lake Powell, that's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the lake behind Glen Canyon Dam. And Lake Mead is
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the lake behind Hoover Dam. And so today, the seven
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: states don't have a deal about what's going to happen
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: in the future. They're still at the table negotiating about
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: how we're going to use less water fundamentally. And so
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the federal government earlier this year, because they still have
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to operate these dams, they'd sort of develop a framework
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: to say, hey, let's buy some time We still have
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to operate these systems and we want to be able
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: to give states some more time to figure out, to
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: make the really tough decisions. Because it's hard. I think
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, everybody, all seven states
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: are going to have to have shared sacrifice and they're
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: going to have to compromise. It's not going to be
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: everybody's going to be happy. I think ultimately to get
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to that deal, people are going to be unhappy because
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: it's hard to cut, you know, to reduce your water
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: use for when you've been relying on that. at a
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: higher volume over decades.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: If you go back to the 20s, were they, was
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: there excess water? Like, what was the point when there
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: sort of was no longer excess water?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know the answer to that question.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd have to go back and look at
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: what were the flows and the lake levels doing versus
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: how much water was being used. But I mean, just
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: from 1920s to now, our water use looks different. Mm-hmm.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Our cities are bigger. They're certainly using more water. Ag
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: at the time, I'm going to guess they were using
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: less water in the 1920s than they're using today. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: so there's a lot that has changed. And so even
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: though you have what we call paper water rights, like
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: you're entitled to that 7.5 million acre foot figure, ultimately,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: we have to do the hard thing and look at
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: the data and look at what the river is providing today.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: And make some tough decisions. And it's not painless.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Who is the... Within the seven states, we can talk
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: about the seven states. And there's like tribal influence. Who
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: is the voice of wildlife? Like who's the voice of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: fish and wildlife at a meeting about who gets water
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and what we do with the water? Sure.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I think... you said it well, fish and wildlife don't
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: have a seat at the table unless somebody brings them there.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And so that's why organizations like TRCP, where the Theodore
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, bring the impacts to fish and wildlife
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: to the table. And I think if we're thinking about,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: you know, because, and I think, and I do think
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: about this, right? We're humans, we're people, everyone seems to
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: be centered and centric around what's going to happen to
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: our farms and ranches, water use, what's going to happen
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to our cities, what's going to happen to our tribal communities. But,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you know, TRCP does a really good job about ensuring
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that hunters and anglers have a seat at the table
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: and decisions that impact fish and wildlife, fish and wildlife habitat,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: our access to be able to hunt and fish are
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: part of that conversation. And, and yeah, that's what, that's
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: what I'll say there.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But, but, Why does anyone have to listen to that consideration?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Because I'm guessing if you go back to the 1920s,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: there was no wildlife person in the room.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And at some point, someone had to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: inject that into the question. Like, what about ducks? What
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: about fish? Yeah. Why would anybody need to listen to them?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Sure. I mean, I think the federal governments in the
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: states are managing lots of different competing uses on the river.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And so there's some of that there. But that's why,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I think conservation and sporting organizations are, you know,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: make a difference because they do bring those issues to
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: the decision makers.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But they have to bring them in at a state level.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: State and federal level.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: You know, and I think, you know, because I think,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and oftentimes there's such a big focus on all the
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: built infrastructure, right? But having a functioning river, you can't,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you know, if we don't make investments in our forest
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: health in the headwaters, we do those restoration projects as
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: habitat improvement projects. And there's, you know, a lot of
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: our partners, whether it's Trout Unlimited up in the Price
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: River in Utah or the Nature Conservancy in the headwaters
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: of Colorado, we're making those wetland restoration investments to ensure
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: that water will hang out on the landscape longer, slow
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the flow of the river. So when we do have
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: big snow years, it's not just melting off quick and
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: moving it all the way down, right? Like functioning rivers
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: that we've got to have functioning rivers that's got to
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: be coupled with all of our built infrastructure.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: When a state sits in when the different states come
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: together and they start doing what you were saying about
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: making like they're going to make sacrifices or make compromises
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: what are the levers that a state what levers do
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: they pull when they decide they're going to reduce water
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: usage Sure.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So I think every state's different because every state has
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: different water rights and how their state engineer manages that.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And so some of it is voluntary water conservation. Some
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: of it's compensated. There is an infusion of federal funding
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: from the Inflation Reduction Act. The Bureau of Reclamation sort
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: of infused funds to figure out how can we temporarily
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: pay people to use less water. Most of that happened
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: on farms.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Explain that to me. How do you pay someone to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: use less water? What do you mean?
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: So the Bureau of Reclamation would negotiate with irrigation districts
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: or with farmers to say, hey, we're going to compensate
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: you to whether they– and they would– it wasn't being forced.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I think that's the key piece here. It's voluntary. And they're–
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: California made a lot of– California was a key player here, right?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: They used a lot of water in the Imperial Valley
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: and they entered into agreements with Bureau of Reclamation to–
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: use less water. They said, you know we're not going
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: to take our full allocation our full delivery on the
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: river we want that to stay in lake mead the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: reservoir there to store their water so that those are
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: temporary measures those are sort of in my mind band-aid
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: fixes you know sort of figure out because it's an
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: adjustment you know i think communities are facing that real
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: reality of like how am i going to be continuing
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: to farm and ranch like I have historically done.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: But, but maybe I'll not put my question right. Let's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: say you're, let's say you're a agricultural producer in the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Imperial Valley in California. Sure. And you're, you're managing about
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: whatever thousands of acres of, of like food crops. And
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: you historically had access to enough water to do whatever,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: whatever acreage, whatever crop cycles you wanted to do. And
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden now it's like, there's not as
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: much snow. Rain is falling in different patterns. There's not
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: as much water. I can see that someone, on one hand,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I can see that someone from the government goes to
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: them and says, like, tough titty. This is not as
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: much water, right? But you're talking about compensating them, like,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: what is the argument? What is the compensation argument? You're
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: saying to them, you can't have as much water, so
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: here's money to make up for the money you would
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: have made selling produce? Like, in what form does it come?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: It's complicated, and I don't necessarily have a good answer
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: for you. So part of it, so we just look
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: at the lower basin, the states between California, Arizona, and Nevada.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Lake Mead is that reservoir there at the Nevada-Arizona border. Okay.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: The Bureau of Reclamation is looking at lake levels. I
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: think all water users are looking at lake levels. And
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: then there's a decision made. And oftentimes the three states
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: will sort of agree like how much water is going
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: to get released and then the Bureau of Reclamation will
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: release it. And so that stuff happens in real time.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And I think that the complicated factor here is that
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: the water rights, what you have on paper, like how
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: do you rectify the difference about like what you're entitled
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: to versus like what's actually the difference versus what's actually
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: in the river. And so I think In the 2022,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: 2023 timeframe, there was a real, you know, sort of
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: crisis on the river where at least, you know, in
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the lower basin, there was hard conversations about we just
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: don't have enough water that we traditionally did. And so let's,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: can we figure out about like how much, you know,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: what is Arizona's water reduction going to look like? What's
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: California's water reduction going to look like? What's Nevada's water
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: reduction going to look like? And those three states came
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to an agreement to share that shortage. And so it's
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: ultimately we come back to this collaboration piece, like where
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the hard decisions are made by working together so that there's.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And so and a lot of that, too, will depend on.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And it's complicated. And I'm not an expert on all
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the nuance here. But so at the state level, they'll
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: sort of make those decisions and then that will have
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: real impacts on the farm. And I think farmers will
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: have to make decisions based on sort of what their
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: allocation is going to look like that year.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Can you remind me what percentage of the water coming
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: out of the river is being used for agriculture?
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: About 70, 80 percent.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And can you remind me the other pieces of the pie?
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, the city's about 10 percent. And then, of course,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: you've got to factor in evaporation and system loss. Just,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: you know, rivers are leaky. Yeah.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: So the fact that there's evaporation and the fact that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: rivers are leaky is no one's going to do anything
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: about that. You know, I could put like saran wrap
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: over Lake Mead or something. You know what I mean?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: So how was the, like, I'm familiar with this conversation
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: when I really, when I set up, like I've, I've
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: always read articles and headlines about this issue. I'm familiar
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: with it being addressed as an urban problem. And I
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: feel like, and I want to talk about Las Vegas,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the recycling program, but I'm more accustomed with it being
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that more and more people want to move to these places.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: These places are exploding in population. There's all these new cities, but.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And hearing from you, I feel like I've been slightly misled.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Because how is it not just more like, why is
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: it not more strictly a conversation about agriculture?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: It's part of it.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: But it's all the part. I mean, it's 70%. Did
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you say 80% or 70%?
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: 70-80%.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Okay. It's an ag thing. And I'm not even blaming eggs.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: We have to eat.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I'm just generally... a big farm ranch supporter, cows, not
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: condos kind of guy. I look at farmland as wildlife
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: habitat at ranch land as wildlife habitat. Love to see it.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Like I want that community to thrive, but not, but, and, um,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it just feels to me like that, that talking about
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: human population is kind of a, almost a distraction. I mean,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: am I wrong?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. But I think one of the
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: major misconceptions of Western water is these dichotomies, right? It's
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: fish versus farm. It's urban versus rural.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: That's how I view the whole world. Everything is versus everything.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: That's my world view.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Ag versus conservation. But I think really when we're looking
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: at trying to figure out how we're going to manage
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: our system and live within our means and try to
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: figure out what those solutions are... We know we have
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: some of those tools and we know that partnerships, partnering
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: with our farmers and ranchers is better than going around them.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: We've got to figure out tools and solutions that work
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: for everybody. We know that voluntary conservation works. We know
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: that modernizing irrigation infrastructure works. And I'm talking about there's
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of, and if you're looking out west from
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: an irrigation perspective, a lot of these canals are earthen canals.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: They're not lined. And so, right, they're leaky. And so
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: where does it make sense to make those investments to
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: line the canals to be more efficient? Where does it
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: make sense to put an automation on a gate so
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: that when you're opening that gate to be more precise
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: about actually delivering the amount of water that needs to be?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, instead of running that sucker all summer.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Right. And I think one of the things that surprised me,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and I recently just over the spring went, on a
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: tour of various locations in the lower Colorado River. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: I think what's surprising to me is I think there's
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: this misconception that everything is modernized and automated. And it's
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: just not. It's expensive. And it takes time and investment,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: whether it's to get a grant from the federal government
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to help modernize and improve irrigation efficiency. It's trying to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: figure out, you know, Can we be creative about conservation
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: organizations working with farmers and ranchers? Like can they make
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: small adjustments on farm that can have a water efficiency
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: benefit but also a fish and wildlife habitat benefit? There's
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: lots of tools in our toolbox. It's just the challenge
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: is doing them over the long term and at scale
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: and in a meaningful way. And some of this stuff
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: comes down to cost. It's expensive.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about that, but I realize I
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: want to back up for a minute on like very
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: basic hydrology. Okay. Cause I was having this argument with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: my kid. I explained to you earlier when we were talking,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I had this argument, my 16 year old the other day,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: maybe I was wrong. I was telling him water, like
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: basically water isn't created or destroyed.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It's like, there's a finite set amount of water on
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: planet earth. It could be in clouds. It could be
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: in the ocean.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: It could be in glaciers.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: It could be in glaciers, aquifers, but there's like a,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: there's an amount of water and it's just there. So
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: when we talk, can you explain when like at a
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: very basic level and you can stick it to the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Colorado river as much as possible. When we, even the
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: fact that we're saying using water, since you're not, you're not,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: since you're not using it up, what do we mean?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: What do like, I kind of know what I mean,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but I've never articulated it. What, like, what do I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: mean when I say you're using the water?
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: So I think for people, that's water coming out of
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: your tap, drinking it, using it to wash dishes, using
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: it to water your lawn. For farmers, that is, you know,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: oftentimes you have diversion off of a river that then
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: will put water into a canal that then they will
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: use to water crops to grow food for our country
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: or to grow hay and alfalfa to feed our livestock.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And And you know this better than I do. I'm
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: fishing wildlife habitat. How do they use water? They need
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: water to survive.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Sure, but what is happening to it? If you imagine
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: within the base, I imagine if I'm where I live,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: there's a creek, Bridger Creek would be my most immediate drainage.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: If I'm running my faucet, my water's not pulled from there,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: but we have a well. So if I'm running my faucet,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: And you'd say, like, I'd yell at my kids, like,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you're wasting the water. How is the water, how is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: it not just that you're just diverting the water?
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you are diverting some of it. And I
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: think a lot, there's a lot of variation in cities, right?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: We talked about Las Vegas, basically all the water that
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: goes into your drain after you shower, you know, goes
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: into pipes that go to treatment facilities that treat, that
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: recycle and treat that water that can then go back
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: into the pipes and back to your home. Yeah. Right.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: They are, they're a system that's very efficient. But there
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: are other towns and communities that don't use that technology.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And so walk me through where the world... used water
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: is going.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: So some of it gets discharged back into rivers.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Okay. So it's raising the river back up. Sure.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And some of it, I mean, there's examples where depending
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: on it, a lot of it, there's complications, there's nuance here.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: be used to recharge groundwaters. They might apply some of
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: that water in targeted ways to recharge groundwater. Everyone's water
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: use is different, right? Not everybody's water that comes out
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: of their tap comes from a river. Some of it
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: comes from the ground. And so there's a lot of
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: variation there. And I think it really depends on where
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: you live.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I want to bring up an extreme form of diversion.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: It would be like, you know, do you have little kids?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: I have two kids, yes.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: A big part of having kids is yelling at them
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: about playing with the garden hose.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. We're just entering that era. My kids are young.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Just standing there for hours on end just running the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: garden hose. We always laugh because we have a shack
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: in Alaska and we just pump water out of our,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: there's a creek that flows out under the corner of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: our shack. It's on pilings, right? We pump water, we
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: draw water out of the creek and basically you just
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: watch it flow back into the creek. Yep. Right? So
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it's the one place where kids can go and just
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: stand there eight hours a day playing with a hose
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and you can't you realize they're they're not way it's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: it's you can literally watch it flow back into the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: creek yeah so it's it's the water is detained for
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: a minute it's diverted but it's not gone so on
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: a very like what i'm trying to get at is
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: that on a very basic hydrology level yep how how
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is how is ag like how is ag using the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: water in a way that we talk about it as
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: though it's gone.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Because from that point on, it's not accessible.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Is that the issue?
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: In some ways too, right? I mean, I think you
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: think about runoff from the water running off of a field, right?
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And so depending on where you are, some of that's
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: captured and then reused, right? It can come all the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: way down a system. Some of it, the water quality
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: might not be good to grow crops in, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: because nutrients and fertilizers are applied on farm depending on
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: the crop that they're growing. And so it depends. Some
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: of that is just, it's water that might, The water
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: quality piece is a component. And so I think as
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: rain falls to snow in our mountains, right, and that
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: snow melts, it filters into the ground and eventually goes
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: into a river until it flows down. There's diversions off
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: the river. There's the lakes that store the water and
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: they release the water that could be used to sort
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: of move that water to cities or to farms. There's
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: pipes that move that water across mountains to cities like Denver.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Like in New Mexico. And so it depends. And I'm
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: not an expert in terms of like where does all
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the water go after it gets applied on a farm. Yeah.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: That's not my area of expertise.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But it somehow winds up back in the system somewhere.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: It can.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you touch on a thing we discussed earlier
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to jump over to a different system? That at times
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the Rio Grande is just not flowing. Correct. When did
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: that begin to happen?
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: So I think it's important to know for the Rio Grande,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the Rio Grande is just has the baseline is getting drier.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: And again, similar to the Colorado River.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Outside of use.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Outside of use.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, use coupled with the baseline getting drier. And
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: so you just have a lot less water to start with.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: And so, I mean, I, you know, I pulled data
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: from the U.S. Geological Stream Gauges at you know, on
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: the Rio and in Albuquerque and New Mexico. And I
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: want to say it was 80 plus days of just
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: no flow this summer.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: This summer.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: This summer.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: 80 days where if you look up the flow, it's zero.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Zero. It's dry. And there's a late September.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Zero CFS.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Zero CFS. There is a monsoon in September.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Does it really just say that? It just says zero
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: or whatever? Yeah. It's like... Huh.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: And so, I mean, that's the reality. I mean, that's
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: what's happening today. And so... You know, that has real impacts.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: On people that rely on that river. And even if
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: no one was farming with that water, even if no
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: one was farming with that water, that water would be,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: it just would be, maybe it's just not. Like, that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: reality would be fixed. What do you mean? Just because, like,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: not even, that's not even entirely, that river's not even
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: entirely a victim of human use. It's a victim of climate.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: It's both.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Both. Yeah.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So even outside of agriculture, that could potentially still
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: be happening.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if I had a crystal ball, I'd
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: love to know the answer to that. But I mean,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: it's water use coupled with drier conditions, just period.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So are there people, on that Rio Grande question, remember
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: we were talking about you have this paper, you have
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: this legal document that says, hey, I'm entitled to blank water, right?
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: You have a water right. And This has traditionally been
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a legally binding document. But then you get a new
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: situation where it's like, buddy, the water's just not there.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. It's not that
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I'm keeping it from you. It's just that it's not there.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: So if you have a water right, let's say you're
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: below where the Rio Grande is zero CFS, and you
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: have a water right, do you have a complaint? I mean,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you have a complaint, but do you... Do you know
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, what comes of you? Or do you...
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: go talk to the person up river and say, hey,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: you need to let more through because I'm not able
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to draw what I'm legally entitled to. Yeah, it's complicated.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not a lawyer, but these decisions are sort of later.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: The compacts, like the Rio Grande also has a compact too.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: It's a compact between New Mexico, Colorado, New Mexico, and
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Texas that sort of governs how much Colorado is on
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: the hook to deliver to New Mexico, how much New
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Mexico is on the hook to deliver to Texas. And
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: there's some flexibility in there about what's going to happen
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: during shortages. But still, ultimately, folks have to figure out
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: how to use less water. And so, and I'll say
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: on litigation, I think litigation is costly and doesn't always
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: necessarily land the solution that works for communities. I think
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: ultimately it's getting all those water users at the table
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: to figure out, you know, there's factoring in water rights
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: because that's a real legal framework. But that legal framework
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: isn't going to produce water.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: You know? And so they have to, these are hard
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: conversations that are happening in the Rio, that are happening
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: in the Colorado River Basin and across other Western rivers.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: And I think, in my mind, the best solutions are
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: actually done locally. How can we look at our rivers
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: and bring people together, our conservation organizations, our tribes, our
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: local and state decision makers, our water users, our farms
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: and ranches, how can we all come up with a
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: plan to figure out how we can use our water?
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: And one example, you know, and I got exposed to
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: this when I was at Washington State University. My PhD
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: advisor was working on a project in the Yakima River Basin.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: This is in the state of Washington. It's the center
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: of the state. And they were having a challenge with
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: water supply. And I think ultimately the water users sort
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: of had a had a reckoning. They were like, okay,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: we need to figure out a game plan. What's our
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: long-term game plan to figure out our water supply? It
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: was tribes. It was local and state decision makers. It
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: was the farmers and ranchers in that region. And it
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: was conservation organizations. And they developed a long-term strategy about
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: what investments needed to be made on upgrading aging infrastructure,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: modernizing irrigation infrastructure, what investments need to be made in
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: the headwaters to ensure there's water for trout. And how
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: can we ensure that tribes can effectively use their water?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I think there's a sort of an... You know, for tribes,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: they were there first and they are truly the most
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: senior on the system. And they might have an entitlement
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: to that water, but can they benefit from it? Do
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: they actually have the funding and infrastructure needed to use
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: that water in their homes or in their communities? And
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: so they came up with what's called the Yakima Basin
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Integrated Plan. And, you know, all those water users together
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: And they're working, you know, project by project. They're working
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: on trying to get funding to support it and to
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: figure out, you know, how are we going to make
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: investments in the forest? How can we line canals to
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: improve irrigation efficiency? And so those are real success stories
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: because it starts local.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: What would it, if you go to the Colorado in
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the Rio Grande, before we get into like, before we
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: get into reality about how this problem was, get remedied
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: or stop being so severe. Before we go to reality,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: let's play like fantasy for a minute. Okay. What would it,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I guess the question, is it out of the question
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that just weather is going to save us? Meaning like
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: rain and snow? Yeah. It's just like rain and snow
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: ain't coming to the rescue. I think that. But it
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: sure doesn't seem like that.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. And it sort of goes back
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: to like my questions. What's our new normal? You know,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, if you spend time outdoors, you're
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: looking at the landscape. Even if you spend time looking
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: at data like I do, you're looking at our snow
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: is not as thick as it used to be. Our
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: drier soils are sucking that water up and they aren't
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: making it to the rivers and lakes like they used
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: to be. And so I don't think that we can
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: pray for rain. but I think we have to have
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: that realistic conversation about living within our means and finding
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: a solution that works for everybody.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I kind of mentioned this to you before we started recording,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: where I was like, the one scenario that I can't
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: picture happening I can't picture a scenario happening where, where
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: a state says, Hey, no more people can move to
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: this town. Right. Phoenix is done. Right. Right. Denver or whatever, whatever,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: like it's done. The population is capped. I can't, I
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: sort of can't picture that there would be farms where
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the farmer is like, I'm out of business. I'm done.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: There is no water. Am I wrong that we could
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: get to a point where you really see sort of
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: like that the demographics of the country have to shift
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: according to water loss and water use?
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, if I had a crystal ball, I'd love
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: to answer that question. I don't know the answer to that,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: but I do, you know, I sort of, I view
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: it in some ways too that... Yeah, I mean, I
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: sort of have the same philosophy as you, but I
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't have a good answer there.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Like you feel that something will happen, but it won't
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: be that.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: It won't be that they can't grow.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, I mean, I don't know. Maybe, maybe.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: But I do think that maybe our cities will, their
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: water infrastructure will look differently. Maybe they'll have more Las
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Vegas peppered, Las Vegas is peppered through the West in
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: terms of the water recycling infrastructure. I mean, I think ultimately,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, water out West is cheap, so to speak.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: And so I think a lot of these, the solutions
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: that we know about and we know that work sometimes
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: are expensive. And so that's a real factor. And, you know,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: we want to make sure that people can afford their
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: drinking water and not make it so costly that we're
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: pricing people out of the cities that they grew up in.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: So it's a real factor. Water managers are grappling with
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: every day.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The cost thing is interesting that you do, there's
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: some things that are inexpensive enough that you just sort of,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you use what you want.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Like at home, you know, I don't know. It takes
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: something like, like, like not many parents yell, would yell
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: at their kids about using too much flour. Right. Right.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: There's just like some things, you know, I don't know.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's flour. Right. Or like too much, you're
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: using up too much white rice. Yep. You know, but
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you might, you might go buster balls about butter or
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: orange juice or something. You know what I'm saying? Like
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: there's like a perception of use and cost where you
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: admonish kids people for wasting things of high value. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: right now with like gas and diesel at these historically
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: high prices, people are honest to God, changing behaviors. When
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: they make these predictions about how much 4th of July
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: traffic there'll be, how much Memorial Day traffic there will
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: be on highways, they factor in the cost of gas
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: because the cost of gas is going to dictate how
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: far people are willing to drive, meaning you're making like
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: day-to-day logistical adjustments because the resource is so expensive. When
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: you consider this puzzle of water use, how do people
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: factor in like, well, maybe water should be, I don't
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: even know how you put a price. You probably know
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: how you price it. Maybe water should be two bucks
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a gallon. What would that do to water use?
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's easier to do with cities, right?
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: So you could sort of tier that, like, and I'm not,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: this is not my area of expertise, but I've certainly
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: looked at the data of like, you have a water
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: utility that provides drinking water to a community and you
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: pay X amount of, you pay X amount at a
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: rate for your gallons per day. But then if you
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: use more, you pay more. So there's, I mean, there's
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: people studying this. I thought, this is not my area
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: of expertise about like, how can the change in water price,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: you know, have an impact on behavior?
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: But it's a factor, right?
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: It's a thing people look at. 100%.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: And I, in Melanie's personal opinion, I do feel like
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: water is too cheap out West. I think at some point,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: maybe that is a factor in trying to figure out, like,
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: do we look at the cost of things?
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Where is water not cheap? If water
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: is cheap in the American West, where is it not cheap?
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: You know, I spent the last decade in Washington, D.C.,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: and I'll say my water bill is pretty high there.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: But I don't know. I don't have a good answer there.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it depends on where the
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: source is coming from.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Is it scarce? Yeah. So what are the adjustments if
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you crystal ball it, right? And that the weather doesn't
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: save us. What are the adjustments in deals that will
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: get made in the Colorado basin? Sure. Right? Let's just
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: say you had some kind of authority where you're like,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: in the end, I'll do it. I'll make the decisions.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Here's what's going to happen. What is going to be
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: different about life?
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: Everybody that's in the field of water management wishes they
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: had that. But fundamentally, I think there is no magical
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: solution or silver bullet that's going to get us out
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: of the situation that we're in now. But we have
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: tools and we have solutions that work. We know that
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Voluntary water conservation on farms and ranches works. We know... Tell.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Me a little more what that means.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: Water conservation, so this could just be modern.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say voluntary water conservation.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: People not being forced to, right? Where I'm not going
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: to come in and say that you're forced to have
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: your water cuts, right? And so it's allowing farmers and
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: ranchers to make decisions that work for them in terms
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: of what they're going to apply on the field.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: But you mean like literally it would be someone goes
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: to a producer... agricultural producer or they're just aware that
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: there's water problems and someone says please out of the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: out of the goodness of your heart can you do
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: x y and z and like we have money to
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: help make these changes like this is a thing that's
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: happening out in the landscape.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah and i'll say it's a little complicated there's agreements
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: that are in place right so like in the upper
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: basin in the colorado basin there's our like water contribution
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: programs where they're trying to work with agricultural producers to say,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: who would like to volunteer to use less water? And
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: there will be variations. So a farmer in Colorado might
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: just decide, you know what? I'm going to use less
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: water to irrigate my crops this year. It's called deficit irrigation.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Or maybe I'm going to take x amount of acres
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: out of production this year and fallow my fields. And
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: then they'll get compensated for that. So there's programs that
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: exist there. And I'm not a total expert on this.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I know enough to be dangerous. So that's voluntary water conservation.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, we talked about water recycling and reuse and
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: desalination technologies where it makes sense. Like, you know, can
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: cities make those investments? It's expensive, just straight up, it's expensive.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: We know that habitat and restoration projects work. You know,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: to move water out onto the landscape, to store it there,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: to get rivers functioning and behaving like rivers historically have
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: been doing, which are an important component to rivers and
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: watershed health and our water supply. And I think it's
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: making sure our communities are prepared and have the tools
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: necessary to be able to manage with the flexibility they
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: need to adapt. And I think, you know, I was
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: in prepping for this podcast, I was, you know, trying
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: to think of, you know, what were some tangible examples
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: or things that we could think about? I think, you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: when we're talking about wildlife managers and if you're managing
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: an elk herd, you don't wait for it to crash
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: and hope things work out, right? You monitor the conditions.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: as a manager you adapt and you plan ahead pay
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: attention to trends exactly and i think you know and
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: understand there's nuance there water water management needs to take
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: some lessons from wildlife managers.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Um with the i don't know if you're familiar with
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: this you see a lot now you talk about like
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: rivers behaving like they like they ought to behave are
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: you familiar with um The argument, you see it more
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: and more now, but the argument about the importance of
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: beavers on the landscape. Sure. So that's one where they
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: hold a lot of water back with dams. But what
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: are other ways in which the rivers aren't, when you
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: say that they're not behaving like they ought to, what
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: are they doing or not doing that they used to do?
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned that a couple times.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. And we can get back to beavers in
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: a sec. So I think just basics, right? You've got
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: snow in the mountains.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: And historically, that snow melted. It would recharge groundwater. Groundwater
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: would flow into rivers or, you know, would flow into
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: the rivers that would make it into our lakes. I
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: think now, as there's warmer temperatures across the West, and
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: that's changing how water moves across the landscape. Mm-hmm. Maybe
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: you have less snowpack. Maybe you have those dry soils
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: are actually sucking it up, and that water isn't making
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: it to the ground, isn't making it to the aquifer,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: or isn't making it to the river.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, where maybe you have a big
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: rain event and maybe that water just moves really quickly
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: through the system instead of slowly moving across the landscape.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But how would you fix that, though?
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: So there are a lot of great restoration and habitat
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: conservation projects that are happening all throughout the West and
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: all throughout the Colorado River Basin. So an example, and
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: we just, TRCP just led a tour with. of our partners,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the National Wildlife Foundation and the National Forest Foundation, National
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: Wildlife Federation, excuse me, and the National Forest Foundation where
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: we did a site tour is on the White Forest
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: in Summit County in Colorado. It's called the Soda Creek Project.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: And they built beaver dams analogs, right? We put, you know,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: the folks that did the restoration project put like logs
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: in the river and sort of basically to mimic habitat
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: for beaver to create these ponds, essentially to like, you know,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: to restore that wetland there, to get more water out
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: onto the landscape. That's important for bird, migratory bird you
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: know waterfowl duck habitat it's also important for connect you
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: know because oftentimes i think in the west too especially
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: with warmer temperatures as rivers are becoming disconnected and so
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: like moving that water on the landscape making sure our
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: streams are are connected creating habitat for trout whether that's
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: like putting in giant boulders or logs across a river
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: to create that that that key habitat for so.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Slowing the move into water down slowing.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: The movement of water down And the goal for that
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Soda Creek project is, you know, the goal is to
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: get beavers to move in and to continue to maintain
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: that work. So I think it's not just doing a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: one-off project. It's going back to make sure that when
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: you do that restoration project, is it still functioning and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: is it still having that benefit on the landscape? I mean,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: it's doing all of these projects together. Every individual project
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: adds up over a longer period of time. You know,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: not just doing a quick fix. Let's not.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: We're not going to just infuse some money to do
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different projects and go away. We have
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: to figure out that sustained pace of individual projects, lining
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: our canals, upgrading our agriculture infrastructure, making those investments in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: drinking water infrastructure as well. All of that adds up.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: What will be, if you go back to that 1922 summit,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: whatever they call it, get together, deal, what will be
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the next... sort of like rule do you mean will
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: it ever be that everyone comes together the states come
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: together and they go like hey it's a new reality
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: man there's 25 less water let's make a big old
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: bargain and everybody's gonna sign it and then we're all
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: gonna agree on that for the next bunch of decades
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: is there a version like is there a version of
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: something like that that'll happen where it just brings like
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: absolute certainty to the to the solution and everyone's gonna
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: you know, get it notarized. And that's just how we're
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: going to live from then on. Sure.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: I don't, I don't view that we're going to change
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: our water right law across the West. I just don't
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: think it's going to happen. If I was water czar,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: that's the first thing I'd change.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: You know, just take it off. Let's look at how
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: much water is in the system.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: We developed a system that isn't.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: And like, you could take into consideration who was there first.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: And like, you know, there's lots of different nuances here.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: So that's just Melanie's personal opinion.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: But give me, give me a hit that like, like,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I realize you probably don't want to get
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: all kinds of mean letters from people with water rights,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: but But lay out for me, just conversationally, lay out
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: for me, like, what is the problem with water law?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: When you say that it could be revised, like, what
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: is the problem with it?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: I think the challenge is if there's a senior water
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: rights holder at the very bottom of the river, under
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: the current water law framework, and I'm talking at a
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: really high level, you know, there's a lot of nuance here.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: You don't need to name names. You don't need to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: say Bob's Farm.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but like, The people upstream have an obligation to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: deliver the water because they are senior on the system.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: And so all the people upstream are junior. And that's challenging.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: And so that's just the reality of the situation. So
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I think in terms of today– But this is not likely.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: You're saying that this is not– This is like people
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: that talk about having a new constitutional convention and like
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: scrap our constitution.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: But this is why I think that at least in
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: the Colorado River Basin, there has been some success because
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: the seven states have gotten together. Understanding the law of
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: the river, all these previous compacts and laws and court
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: cases and everything else to sort of have those hard
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: conversations about like how are we going to manage our system?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: We don't have a deal today. The seven basin states
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: don't have a deal today. But they're working toward that.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: And I remain hopeful that they're going to get there.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Because at the end of the day, the states want
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: to come together to figure out an agreement. They don't
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: want the federal government telling them how much water they
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: can and can't use.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: So when will they make a deal? Or is it
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: unlikely to happen?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: I believe it will happen. If I had an answer
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: to that question, I think a lot of people are
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: wondering when the seven basin states are going to come
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: together with a deal.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: But right now, there's not like a binding thing.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, you sort of had the foundational agreements, the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: law of the river, and the beer of reclamation. The
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: federal government had to step in to sort of like
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: have a temporary game plan about how they're going to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: operate the system. But there's no sort of– those interim guidelines,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: those 2007 interim guidelines expired. So there's not a seven-basin
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: state deal or agreement about how to– what's the best
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: way to manage our river. Not right now. There will be.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I have hope. But is it, remember how when we
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: started out talking, I was saying, I feel like I've
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: been reading the same story for forever. I'll be reading
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: this story for the second half of my life.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: I'm sure. I think so.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be like, hey, we figured it out.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, maybe. I mean, maybe in the
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: sense of that there's a real reckoning with we're going
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: to have to have a different water use and a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: different way to manage our water. We can't be doing
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: it like we did a few decades ago. That's just,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: we can't do, there's just not enough water to go around.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: But really when we're like, we're thinking about success, I
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: think a lot about, you know, what is success? One
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: is making sure there's water in the river, right? And
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't even think about
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: water until it's not there.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: Right. And there's like a lot of folks think, you know,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: and conservation is part of that. It's like, we got
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: to figure out what solutions we can do today to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: prevent that water from going away, right? We want to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: continue to have water in the river.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: And that's that upstream work you're talking about.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: But even in the downstream, I mean, in Arizona, I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: toured a project in Yuma, Arizona, where they restored wetlands
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: along the Colorado River, which used to have a bunch
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: of trash, and it was overgrown with salt cedar, tamarisk,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: And they pulled out all those invasive species. They planted
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: willows and cottonwoods and mesquite trees. And there's a recreation
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: trail there. So there's projects that happen throughout the basins,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: not just in the headwaters. And that was a success
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: project in the lower basin.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If you look around nationally, what would you picture
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: being the... Where will this conversation be happening next? the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: conversation about like where you said, no one thinks about
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: water till you don't have it. Yeah.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: It's, I grew up in Michigan. There was not a
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: daily conversation about water use. You know, you weren't, people
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: would irrigate, they'd suck water out of some local lake
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: and spray their lawn all summer. People didn't look mean
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: at them. Do you know what I mean? It was
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: just like, it was like, it just wasn't a conversation. Sure.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I lived in all kinds of Northern tier States. in, um, Alaska, whatever,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: most of the time you're not having a water argument. Sure.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Like where, if you had to picture what parts of
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: the country would you, would you, if you had to
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: say like, Hey, um, be advised, this could be you
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: down the road. Like where will the next spots be? Yeah. Where, where,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: where there's like a water war. Sure.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to that question, but I'll
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: take us back that in terms of, and we talked
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: about people don't know or think about water until it's gone.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: I'll encourage all of your listeners, learn where your water
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: comes from. Learn about what's happening in your community, about
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: what's impacting where your water comes from. I think one
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: of the things that surprised me most, and when I travel,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: I always look up where is the drinking water coming from.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm just curious. There's a lot of people that
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: just don't know. They have no idea. They turn their
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: tap on and don't even think about where it comes
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: from or where it goes.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did a book about raising outdoor kids. I
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: published it a few years ago called Outdoor Kids in
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: an Inside World. But in there, one of the things
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: I suggest is that your kid learns, wherever you live,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: that your kid learns the water that's by them and
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: its path to the sea. Yep. that they'd be able
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: to walk through like well i'm on this creek which
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: flows into that river which flows into that river which
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: flows into that river and that dumps into the sea
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: as being like a fundamental thing that i think that's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: i'm agreeing with you like a fundamental thing that i
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: think people need to understand and i've often joked that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: there's states where there's states where more people know that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: than than And.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: I think, I mean, I think the West gets a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: lot of attention with drought, right? Like, you know, and
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of the wildfire activity, et cetera. But like,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: and I lived in D.C., but there's still a drought
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: on the Potomac. We get the drinking water in D.C.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: comes from the Potomac River. And there is, you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: there is sort of a real, uh-oh, the intake structures,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: the pipes that pull water out of the Potomac to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: deliver water to people in D.C., We're starting to get
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: to a moment where I think the DC water utility
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: was starting to think about like, okay, we need to
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: think a little bit more about water conservation. So even
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: places that appear water rich, right? Their rivers are huge.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: They're going to have those. I think that's going to
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: be a problem that many communities across the U.S. are
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: going to be grappling with.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, another thing I wanted to ask you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: about is, does in the future, do our, in the future,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: are our coastlines like lined with desalination plants? Do you
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like, what's up with that?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think so desalination basically takes salty water
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: and cleans it so folks can drink it or use
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: it for whatever they need to use it for. There's
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of focus on ocean desalination because you're close
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: to an ocean and there's a lot of water there.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: There's also brackish groundwater, like salty groundwater that communities like
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: in Texas, there's a lot of salty groundwater. They're looking
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: at desalination as a tool. I think part of it
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: is like does the math pencil out and what's our
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: source water? Like what water are we currently using? Does
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: water recycling make more sense? Does water reuse make more sense?
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: I think every community is going to be different. I
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: don't really see a universe. Maybe I could be wrong
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: about just being a bunch of desal plants up and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: down the coast.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think if you were in that situation,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: it would be that you're looking at like you'd be
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: more aware probably, like in places where that's the reality,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Middle East and elsewhere, you're probably looking more at, those
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: people probably learn to think of water more as a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: thing that costs blank.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Like a thing that costs X per gallon and you
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: view it like a product you're buying.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: When I'm messing with my kids, not really messing with them,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: but just trying to get them thinking about things the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: right way, I'll tell them while we're eating dinner and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: they're sick of the conversation, but I'll be like, in
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: your life, people will, there will be people that are
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: having wars over water. I'm trying to scare them good.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Like people will be having wars over water and they'll
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: be eating bugs. You know, I tell them this all
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: the time. They kind of dismiss it, but I'm just
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: trying to get them prepared for the idea that like
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: there will come a time when there's things that you're
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: taking for granted that will not, that will not be available.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: And I always, and I'm trying to pound in their
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: head that like they're going to need to learn that
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe not them, but their kids. Someone's going to need
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: to learn to think of water and food differently. 100%.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: I think success looks like if our kids don't have
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: to take this stuff for granted and don't have to
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: think about it. Yeah.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: I can see that being a big way toward the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: solution is if more and more people viewed it as
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: a commodity. Right. Or more and more people viewed it
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: as a finite thing. that you're in some way or
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: another because everybody's paying utilities right right maybe maybe your
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: rent is baked into your rent but like your rent
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: reflects the like even if you don't pay the utilities
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: directly the part of your rent that comes in reflects
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: the purchase of the utilities is going to the place
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: but we just don't think of it yeah i agree
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: as a thing i.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Agree i need to get my kids that book that
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: you wrote don't, don't be fooled. I'll definitely, my kids
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: will know where their, where their water comes from.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What's not in the book is scaring them about
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: eating bugs and having waters over water. You have to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: just kind of ad lib that in, but it is,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: it is like a, uh, uh, it is like, uh,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: it's a shift in mindset. Yeah.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent. And I think when I, so when I,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: what started my way of work in the water and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: when I was, I got my PhD at Washington state
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: university and, I did this project in the Spokane River Basin.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: And my PhD advisor's philosophy was, let's solve a problem
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: that the community wants to be solved. Let's just not
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: think about something that we're personally interested in. And so
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: my project evolved. And one of the questions was, how
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: can we improve water management in the Spokane River Basin?
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: That's in eastern Washington, northern Idaho. It's a tributary that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: flows into the Columbia River. There's a groundwater source there.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: They're really connected. And so I built a model with
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: water users there. We've RAND scenarios, et cetera. And we
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: facilitated a lot of conversations about how can groundwater pumping
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: in Idaho impact flows in the river, et cetera. But ultimately,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: what came out of that was sort of surprising, is
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: the water managers were actually like, hey, we actually need
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: to do a water education campaign because people don't know
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: where their water comes from. And we need to be
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: coordinated across state lines and across the whole basin so
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: that the message is the same. One, on where does
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: your water come from, but also on just what can
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: you do in your household to conserve water. Yeah. And so,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: you know, it's one of those things where it's imprinted
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: in me in terms of a lot of people just
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: don't know where their water comes from.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: You know, a thing I wanted to come back on,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: so kind of a last point to bring up with
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: you is you brought it up, but we never really
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: dove into it. You're talking about recycling water in Las Vegas,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: where I would view if I go to Las Vegas
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: periodically for work stuff and I'd see all those big fountains,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'd be like, how dare you? How
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: dare you when I have to read all these articles
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: about all this water use and here you got these
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: big damn fountains. But I had no idea that they're
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: recycling 90-some percent of the water in the city.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the indoor water use, 99% is recycled in
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: the Las Vegas area. And Las Vegas has different rules
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: about what type of water gets applied on golf courses.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: They have incentive programs for encouraging people to pull out
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: their grass. And have zero scaping because outdoor water use
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: is still a good chunk of the water use in
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: Las Vegas. And so in my mind, they really are
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: pushing the needle on being innovative.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: And trying to stretch that limited water supply.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: But that's like a regulation thing, like regulating how much
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: water people use.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: It's local and state decision makers.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Putting it in there. Like you can't do this or
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: can't do that. What's it called where you tear your
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: grass out?
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: Zero scaping.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: You just go with gravel. Yeah.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Put native plants in that don't need a lot of water.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So that's like a regulated thing there.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know for sure, but I'm fairly certain that
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: it's a voluntary thing. And I don't know exactly who
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: funds it, but the city and the Southern Nevada Water
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Authority are involved about trying to figure out how we
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: can pay people to pull their grass out.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the recycling water, it's an interesting concept to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: imagine that you'd ever have a closed loop system on water.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Like picture that you'd have a municipality that was so
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: good at water recycling that it was like, there was
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: just like a set amount of water within the system
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and it just gets... Reused.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: I think the harder fact is that.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: It'll be like cooling your truck, you know? It's like
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: getting used and reused. You know, now and then you're like,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: change it out or whatever but it just is living
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: in there flowing through the system sure instead of something
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: totally passed through like fuel you know yep yeah so
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: are you like deep down are do you sit at
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: pessimism or optimism about the colorado river i'm.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: An optimist really i am because i i i really
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: do believe we have the tools in our toolbox and
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: it's and the solutions there. It's not gonna be painless.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: I think everybody is gonna experience discomfort in whatever that
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: seven basin state agreement looks like. Those are hard decisions
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: that people are making today about what the future of
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: our water use looks like. But it's not all doom
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: and gloom. I am hopeful. We talked a lot about
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: this water conservation on farm. We talked about the importance
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: of investing in restoration and habitat projects help rivers function
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: like they used to. And then, and really comes down
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: to our local communities, getting people at the table to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: have those tough conversations to figure out where, where, where
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: do we have common ground and where can we map
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: out a plan to get us to where we need
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: to be based on the water that we have today. Yeah.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Hopefully some fish at the table too.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: We're going to dock and a fish in at the table.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Man, thanks for coming on and explaining
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: all this, Melvin.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Steve.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Again, we've been speaking with Dr. Melanie Thornton, who is
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: with Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership as the Western....
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: Senior Director of Western Water.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Senior Director of Western Water. Thanks so much. Of course.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: And I think if you're interested in wanting to stay
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: engaged or become involved in water resources, follow us on
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: social media at the TRCP or visit our website at trcp.org.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you.