While many areas of the United States are recovering from drought conditions, there is one area which is headed deeper into extreme drought: the Northern Plains. While a series of storms in May and June caused widespread flooding and damage in Oklahoma, these storms largely missed the Dakotas and Montana. According to the most recent US Drought Monitor as of August, Montana and North Dakota were the only states in the US that had any exceptional drought. Currently, 99.59% of the Roughrider State is in some form of drought, and 43.84% of the state faces either extreme or exceptional drought. At the beginning of the calendar year, only 6.13% of the state had some form of drought, and there was no drought more severe than “abnormally dry,” the least severe drought designation.
Groundwater Management under SGMA—A Role for Markets Part 1
The June 30, 2017 deadline for medium and high-priority groundwater basins to create Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (“GSAs”) under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (“SGMA”) is behind us, and the newly-formed regulatory agencies must now figure out how they will meet their purpose of stopping overdraft and bringing groundwater to sustainable levels. SGMA implementation can easily build on the experiences of the west.
Colorado River Drought Agreements Part II: Minute 32x and US-Mexico Relations on the Colorado River
Relations between the United States and Mexico were of particular focus on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Whether discussing the border wall, revisions to NAFTA or drug enforcement policies, Mexico was a repeated and at times controversial topic of discussion. Strains over US-Mexico relations reached a focal point shortly after President Trump was inaugurated when Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled a White House Visit scheduled for January 27th after President Trump demanded Mexico pay for the estimated $12-15 billion completion of the proposed border wall. Continue reading
What Could Be the Next Big Thing in Infrastructure?
Photo by Marta L. Weismann
Infrastructure is a key component of how our water is supplied. Just think of the water treatment and distribution systems that deliver clean water to your tap and usher away dirty wastewater. To get the water into those distributions systems, we use canals and pipelines that move water from one place to another on a larger scale—e.g. the Colorado River Aqueduct, which moves water from the Colorado River to the Metropolitan Water District service area in Southern California. Also, desalination and reclamation plants are used to address water supply and water quality needs. Continue reading