Future of Western Water Notes

Some life news.

I’ve been putting off writing this for a few weeks but I won’t bury the lede any longer: I’m going back to school. At the end of September, I’m starting a master’s program in environmental policy at UC Davis and moving west on I-80.

I’m excited for this new chapter, and I’m looking forward to researching and digging into water and land use in an even deeper way. It’s also bittersweet. For more than six years, Reno has been my home, and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to work. I’m endlessly grateful for the colleagues, activists, hydrologists, lawyers, irrigators, regulators and experts who’ve helped illuminate the Great Basin water story for me.

The Great Basin is a sensitive place but remarkably resilient. It is home to unique ecosystems and an incredible amount of biodiversity, all marked by water past and present — if you know where to look and what to watch for.

And there are many people who are watching. Interviews make for rewarding work. In a world ruled by quantitative data, reporters get to go out and collect qualitative data. We get to ground truth. These conversations are especially illuminating when writing and thinking about water. So much knowledge about water is gained through practice, an earned understanding of a place over time. It’s why reporting sometimes can feel a lot like taking testimony. In interviews, I often hear the echo of similar themes, but with everyone offering a slightly unique perspective. These differences matter.

Managing water in 2024 can feel like a wicked problem with an impossible number of interests, values and context to untangle. When communities have been built around overuse, we’re often left with bad or worse decisions. Sometimes, in the moment, it is hard to know which is which. But there are also solutions out there. And in a political process that feels so calcified by polarization, surprising coalitions can form around water. Because water is so essential, things can change.

The West is a place of water scarcity. Nevada is the nation’s driest state. We all know this. Yet for something so essential, how water moves around is often invisible to the public and not always a priority for lawmakers. In fact, politicians often seem eager to avoid it until they can’t — on both sides of the aisle. As one lobbyist told me, “water is a political loser.” That is, in part, a worrisome thought because influence runs through water and the choices of those who have it shape lives and landscapes. And the water, after all, is a resource that belongs to the public, held in trust by the government.

Stories and public discussion can help to bridge the gap. They can make the invisible more visible, and it’s a goal of this newsletter. We so often don’t know what we don’t know until we start asking questions and looking closer at what is right in front of us.

One of the best tips I ever got was to drive off the highway and into the mountains that rise in the Basin and Range (another great tip was reading Basin and Range by John McPhee). This stretch of I-80 many drivers accelerate past in a hurry from Salt Lake City to Reno is a dynamic world unfolding over what feels like an infinite space.

Spend enough time there looking around, and it will change your sense of time and scope. As valleys rise to mountains, you can move across different ecosystems, from sagebrush shrublands to pinyon-juniper woodlands full of trees that are dots from the road. That is, if there is a good road. Because many places are still remote.

But the remoteness should not trick you. The Great Basin is very much alive and filled with characters. As one geologist says in Basin and Range, “the world is splitting open and coming apart… It is live country. This is the tectonic, active, spreading, mountain-building world.” Sometimes all it takes is looking to make the invisible more visible.

So moving to the other side of the Sierra is bittersweet, but…

…the good news is I’m not going far. I have a few articles in the pipeline, and I’ll be around every so often as I’m finishing my book project. Plus, I still plan to be in your inbox with this newsletter. And I hope to be back.

---

The newsletter moving forward:

This newsletter has been an experiment in writing over the past year. In that time, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I’m still learning as I go.

My goal has always been the same: To share information, research and ideas about our relationship to water in the West. How the movement of water shapes, sustains and alters communities and ecosystems. And how this often plays out in invisible ways.

I’m still committed to exploring these topics. I plan to continue writing and sharing news, research, ideas and archival finds here. As you probably know by now, I love digging around archives and trying to connect the past with the present.

That said, there may be some gaps here and there as I make the transition. I may have weeks where I post more frequently and weeks where I’m more crunched. If I do end up having to step away for extended periods, I will turn off subscriptions for that time.

While I am committed to keeping most of my posts free, I am looking at subscriber perks, including bonus content, insights, and access to the archives. I’m continuing to explore the Substack platform and ways to keep improving the experience.

The last year has been fulfilling and challenging professionally. But since starting this, I have been overwhelmed with gratitude by the support of readers who’ve subscribed and backed it. A huge thank you. I’ll be back to regular programming later this week.

Stay tuned. And until next time,

Daniel

---