News roundup #11: Why regulate
"We're making sure we don't run out of groundwater."
Hello everyone, and welcome to Western Water Notes.
💧 Groundwater rules
Homebuilders in Arizona are upset with the state—and they are taking its leaders to court. Last month, the conservative Goldwater Institute and the homebuilders filed a lawsuit challenging a groundwater regulation that halted development in suburbs of Phoenix, as the Arizona Mirror reported. The action was based on hydrologic modeling that showed the Phoenix area could see a shortfall of groundwater, and the state could not assure a 100-year water supply, as required by a 1980 law. Link to the lawsuit here.
This week, Arizona’s top water leader Tom Buschatzke made a forceful case for why the state is enforcing the groundwater rules, even if it means not approving all future housing development. One quote, in a TV interview, stood out to me, and it provides a clear distillation of what groundwater rules are meant to do. Buschatzke said, “we’re not running out of groundwater. We’re making sure we don’t run out of groundwater.”
In other words, he is saying the state has a responsibility to protect existing water users whose homes are dependent on groundwater and who are most at risk from overuse.
It is premised on a lowercase “c” conservative approach, and it’s this principle that is a cornerstone of many state groundwater laws in the West. The law, when it works, is meant to protect prior commitments before issuing new ones. But it’s very hard to do.
Groundwater is an invisible resource, and it is hard to monitor, especially in settings that are geologically-complex—something that leads to uncertainties which can be exploited. State regulators also don’t have the best track record. In some places, they issued more rights to water than there is water to go around, often under tremendous pressure from political and business interests who may have to bear the costs of short-term sacrifices for long-term sustainability. Such pressures are likely to only grow as the West continues to face chronic housing shortages and steady population growth.
🗄 A data center moratorium in Reno?
Concerned in part about energy and water use, the Reno Planning Commission voted earlier this month to recommend a temporary moratorium on new construction of data centers, the local news outlet This is Reno reported. The saga has been politically fraught with a former city manager representing data centers and reportedly engaging in sidebar conversations with the city attorney. But some of the underlying issues are important here—namely the concern over energy and water use to existing residents.
Driven by the exponential growth of AI tools like ChatGPT, cities across the West are seeing more demand for data centers, which require huge amounts of energy to run and water for cooling. Hence, the planning commission’s recommendation, which the Barber Brief Substack newsletter also covered. The idea behind the temporary pause is to provide the city with an opportunity to consider a holistic permitting approach.
The water component here cuts in multiple ways. Not only do data centers require a lot of water—sparking concerns in far wetter states like Minnesota—but the energy infrastructure needed could strain existing rates and require more water to operate.
Here’s what the head of Nevada Energy CEO Doug Cannon had to say:
"The other side of this is that we want to be very careful about protecting our existing customers," Cannon said. "We cannot go out and make all of this big investment and then have that data-center load not show up."
If the data-center plans don't materialize, "then all of a sudden those costs are shifted to our existing customers," Cannon said. "So as we're talking to these data centers, we're talking to them and trying to provide them realistic timelines.
"But at the same time we're having the conversation, they're going to have to come to the table and deliver the financial support to be able to build this infrastructure so that those costs don't get placed on our existing customers.”
More to come on this…
In the meantime, does anyone know if any other city has done a similar pause?
🏞️ Federal cuts locally
If you have had trouble keeping up with the news over the past week, you are not alone. The flurry of executive orders, unilateral budget changes, impoundments of appropriated federal funds, and administrative firings have had real-world impacts.
The federal government is like a central node in a large and expansive network that connects to services at every level of our federalist system—and with material policy changes coupled with indiscriminate (and some discriminate) personnel changes, we are seeing the consequences of what happens when the links are broken.
Here is a not at all complete rundown:
In just the last few days, the firings of the federal workforce has undermined the capacity of critical hydroelectric facilities on the Columbia River (operated by the Bonneville Power Administration) and the Colorado River (with the Western Area Power Administration); Some employees have been recalled, but not all of them.
Frozen Colorado River conservation funds (Arizona Daily Star)
On the local impacts of public land firings (American Avocet)
One-fifth of the Great Basin National Park’s staff cut (KNPR)
2000+ Forest Service employees fired, raising concern about wildfires (OPB)
Clean energy funding on freeze in Nevada (The Nevada Independent)
To all of this, there remains huge uncertainty about grant-funded research at many institutions across the West, looking at critical applied issues like climate change. And on Monday, the National Science Foundation fired roughly 10% of its workforce.
With the firings, in many cases, we may be about to find out what happens when there are not people there to take care of some basic functions that undergird our modern systems, many of which are performed on a scale that cannot be replaced by states.
Experts make mistakes and are far from perfect, but as the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols wrote: “Modern societies, as Americans are soon to learn, cannot function without experts in every field, especially the many thousands who work in public service.”
🗞️ Remainders from my notebook:
From San Francisco’s public radio station, KQED: Land is sinking fast around the Bay Area, worsening the effects of sea level rise
California is considering PFAS drinking water legislation, via E&E News
Colorado River states are looking at the “looming specter” of litigation but trying to avoid it, Colorado radio station KUNC reports. Water managers in the headwaters states are preparing for the possibility of bad runoff this year, according to Aspen Journalism. States are still looking for consensus, the Arizona Republic reports.
Utah may pay farmers to fallow, Utah public radio station KUER reports.
The controversial Delta Conveyance Project, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, received a “take” permit to comply with endangered species laws, the Daily Republic reports.
More than 100 conservation groups sent a letter to California state officials, asking them to affirm their support for environmental laws. (Restore the Delta)
Nevada lawmakers consider plans to address extreme heat (Nevada Current)
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Cheers and until next time,
Daniel