A few takeaways from day 2 of the @CUBoulderGWC #cor conference now that I finally started to clean up my notes (and spent a lil' time at Lake Mead, which was helpful in thinking through some of it). 1/17
Daniel Cordalis: national news coverage can cause a disconnect from the human aspect. Brought up reciprocity (love this!) – maybe if we consider the land and resources a little more, we’ll find ourselves in less crisis. 2/17
.@EklundCO: if we had designed the system based on the scarcity we see right now, it’s unlikely we would bifurcate the basin and manage it at an arbitrary, inefficient point (Lee's Ferry). But this is what we've got. 3/17
.@EklundCO: Demand management is a great way forward, a solution we could've/should've been taking advantage of the last 3 years. And yet we haven’t used it once, even though we’ve done pilot projects so we know how. 4/17
.@HHolmGJ: Acknowledges that risks/uncertainties of ag water conservation do exist, but says they shouldn’t be an ‘excuse for paralysis.' The longer we wait to jump into action, the more our options will be constrained. 5/17
Peter Nichols: two things that collide in a leasing/fallowing program - the ag sector wants flexibility, municipalities want certainty. Also: PRICE. Must make it worth it, and right now that's gonna cost a lot, but is doesn't matter, we need to pay out. 6/17
(That makes me remember NM's pilot program for temporary fallowing a couple years back. They offered as low as $400/acre for 12 months of fallowing. That is...probably not enough to make it worthwhile for a lot of folks. 6.5/17)
Doug Kenney: The world has shifted under our feet this week & we’re being asked to innovate on a pace and scale we weren’t imagining. The basin needs to go back to the feds with a unified voice and plan, and ask/demand resources to implement it. 7/17
Peter Nichols: With this action, the feds are providing political cover for IID (and others). Also, there should be a HUGE federal role in the Salton Sea issue to force state agencies finally get things done. 8/17
Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson - before equity must come recognition. Tribes are still trying to get the recognition piece so equity is a long ways off. And he spoke to place-based knowledge (which many of you know I’m an absolute sucker for - querencia!) 9/17
Final panel of the conference, intro'd by Doug Kenney: “This year, rather than get the people up here that drove the truck in the ditch, let’s get the people who will pull the truck out of the ditch.” So it was a panel of "next gen voices" - pretty neat! 10/17
.@berggren_john (who I was particularly excited to hear from) expressed hope, said it’s an opportunity to completely rethink how we manage the river, rather than having to depend on incremental conservation. Earlier he’d called it a “historic generational opportunity.” 11/17
Daniel Cordalis: our laws should reflect our values as a society. He and @berggren_john suggest we can change/update the Colorado River system while still staying within the overarching, existing framework. We've seen over the last 100 years that it can be flexible. 12/17
.@berggren_john: the crisis narrative is a challenge. Historically, decisions made during crisis aren’t the best & often leave behind things like environmental values, tribal equity, etc. For that reason, flexibility is vital in whatever we try to decide right now. 13/17
.@ParadoxofPlace: for so long, we’ve thought about the river in engineering terms. Past solutions and decisions have reflected that. But this is a human problem. How do we think about it that way - as a human-nature relationship issue? 14/17
Amy McCoy @AMP_insights: we must loosen our attachment to the way things are now, legally/institutionally. Allow room for other perspectives. Invite more language in, not just technical conversations but maybe art, poetry – to help us expand. (y'all know I loved this one). 15/17
.@LukeRunyon: thinks there’s some relief to leadership stepping in when we’ve struggled to take forward steps (but emphasizes that doesn't lessen the importance of collaborative governance). Some folks have expressed relief that someone is definitively taking charge. 16/17
Recaps done! Thanks for reading (AKA thanks for helping me organize my notes). Now I'm switching gears to go finalize last edits on a paper I'm submitting for publication this week w/ my grad school advisers - shameless mini-plug for it here!: inkstain.net/fleck/2022/06/…) 17/17
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