During the last two decades, the population of Fort Collins, Colorado, expanded from 100,000 to 170,000. According to the city’s newly adopted comprehensive plan, that total is expected to swell to 240,000 by 2040. As one of the fastest-growing cities in one of the fastest-growing states in the country, Fort Collins has identified priorities for managing its future that range from increasing affordable housing to embracing clean energy with the goal of becoming a carbon-neutral community. Among its action steps: reducing water consumption in new and existing buildings as part of an effort to “ensure that water is used wisely and our community is prepared for a changing climate.”

For Fort Collins and other communities across the West, the dual pressures of rapid development and climate change are making water an increasingly precious commodity—and an increasingly hot topic. As these communities are discovering, planning for the future requires thinking differently about how and where to build, how much water to allocate to new and existing developments, and how to balance water needs with available supply. To help facilitate this shift, the Sonoran Institute and Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy have developed a multiday workshop that helps community leaders communicate, collaborate, and take action.

Growing Water Smart: Integrated Water and Land Use Planning Workshop, which won an award from the Colorado chapter of the American Planning Association in September 2019, helps land planners and water managers explore how land use and climatic trends impact water supply and demand at the state and local level. Building on the momentum created by the adoption of Colorado’s first statewide water plan in 2015, it also introduces communities to strategies and tools that can help them integrate water and land use planning to better adapt to change and uncertainty.

“When we heard about the Growing Water Smart program, we saw it as an opportunity to build better partnerships with the planning community,” said Fort Collins Water Conservation Program Manager Liesel Hans. “We knew we needed to be thinking about water and land use planning more strategically.”

The city put together a team that included a member of the city council, the head of its planning agency, and water resources managers including Hans. “We got people in a room who don’t typically get together,” Hans said.

Nurturing that kind of collaboration is exactly the point, said Jeremy Stapleton, director of Resilient Communities and Watersheds at the Sonoran Institute. “Water is one of our biggest challenges,” said Stapleton, who leads the Growing Water Smart program. “If we don’t get the water problem solved, there will be cascading effects. And solving it is going to take relationships and collaboration at a scale greater than we’ve seen.”

Ultimately, the goal of the program is to promote the idea of being “water smart from the start,” Stapleton said. Noting that water needs are often factored in after development projects receive approval, he said it benefits developers, residents, and community leaders alike to address this critical issue far earlier in the planning process: “It makes sense to make water-smart development the easiest type to build.”

To be selected for the workshop, potential participants must submit an application that describes their water supply and demand policies and practices, community awareness and acceptance of water-related forecasts and figures, issues they hope to address, and the current level of readiness and collaboration among various departments. They assemble a team of five to seven people who work closely with assigned facilitators during the three-day training. Members might include elected officials, water managers, representatives of municipal departments such as economic development or public works, and partners from the nonprofit and consulting sectors. The teams can hail from a single community, a county, or a multijurisdictional region. Their goal: to emerge with a one-year action plan.

“Each session is a progression,” said Faith Sternlieb, who manages Growing Water Smart for the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy and has facilitated community teams at several workshops. “Sometimes team members don’t know each other, even when they work in the same office. They start to share resources, data, and information, and explore how they can work together to achieve the goals identified in their application. They end up with an action plan for the year, and we encourage them to make it as specific as possible: if they’re going to have a meeting, who needs to be there, who will invite them, where and when will it be held, what is the goal, who is going to present, what are they going to present? It can be a hard and painful process, but you see collaboration and decision-making unfold before your eyes.”

Torie Jarvis, a lawyer and former rafting guide who works as a consultant for the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) Water Quality and Quantity Committee, has also been a facilitator at the workshop. “The great thing about the program is that the level of sophistication for jurisdictions varies widely, yet the format still works for everyone,” Jarvis said. She said participants have ranged from large cities with progressive approaches to water management to tiny towns on the Western Slope—a region that sends more than half of the water from some of its river basins across the Rocky Mountains to Front Range communities to the east—that are grappling with how to pay for basic infrastructure. “The model works no matter where you are in the process,” she said.

Fellow NWCCOG member Will Dujardin attended a workshop as a representative of the Crested Butte Town Council, taking his place on a team that included representatives from three municipalities within Gunnison County and from the county government. “We are all facing similar challenges, and the workshop helped us get to the same baseline,” said Dujardin, who was recently appointed mayor pro tem. Now back at their respective desks, the team members continue to connect regularly, and are considering follow-up activities including a local workshop and speaker series. “The fact that we’re still making headway shows how useful the program is,” Dujardin said. “Growing Water Smart acted as a catalyst for us.”

To make follow-up projects possible, Growing Water Smart invites participating communities to apply for up to $10,000 in technical assistance funds. The Fort Collins team took advantage of this opportunity to conduct meetings and planning exercises focused on how to assign water to new types of development such as mixed-use projects and townhouses.

Tangible outcomes in other communities have included formal Intergovernmental Agreements and MOUs, collaborations between agencies, and case studies, Stapleton said; a workbook produced by the Sonoran Institute also guides communities through the nuances of integrated water and land use planning.

During the three years since it began, the Growing Water Smart program—which has flourished with additional support from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Gates Family Foundation—has worked with more than 34 jurisdictions that are home to an estimated 50 percent of Colorado residents, Stapleton said. The program has just expanded to Arizona, tailoring its methods and messaging for a state that is facing similar water-related challenges, but in different political and geographic contexts.

Efforts are also underway to introduce the program in California. The Sacramento-based Local Government Commission (LGC)—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that convenes leaders with the goal of advancing policy and creating more livable communities—is partnering with the Sonoran Institute and Babbitt Center to adapt the curriculum for communities there. LGC’s program areas include a focus on the water-land nexus, and Growing Water Smart “meets all the needs we are identifying in California” in terms of education and capacity-building, said Danielle Dolan of LGC. After attending one of the Colorado workshops, Dolan began working with LGC colleague Atley Keller to draft a California-focused curriculum that reflects the fact that the natural and political landscape of the state is, as Keller puts it, “complicated and constantly changing.”

Dolan is now working with Stapleton to secure funding for a potential California pilot that would begin building the capacity of individuals and agencies to collaborate, which she says is critical in the face of development pressure, limited natural resources, and encroaching climate change. “Everyone is working frenetically in their own little bubbles without coordinating, and they are going to make decisions that are counterproductive,” she said. Dolan believes Growing Water Smart, if widely adopted, “holds tremendous potential for shaping the future growth of the state.”

As far as Stapleton is concerned, the more bridges the program can help build among water managers, elected officials, and planners in the rapidly developing West, the better. “A lot of communities don’t have the water they need for the growth they are having or aspire to have,” he explained. “The communities that are going to thrive are the ones that are having these conversations now.”

Katharine Wroth is the editor of Land Lines.

Photographs in order of appearance

In the three years since its creation, the Growing Water Smart workshop series has guided representatives from more than 30 Colorado jurisdictions through a strategic, collaborative process focused on the intersection of water and land use planning. This month, the program expands to Arizona. Credit: Courtesy of the Sonoran Institute.

“Everything was fine until it wasn’t,” reads the first line of these notes from a recent Growing Water Smart workshop. The program encourages municipalities to plan for a swiftly changing, resource-constrained future. Credit: Courtesy of the Sonoran Institute.

In the past century, the United States has mobilized for war, engineered the recovery from the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and sent a man to the moon. Tackling climate change should be no different, says Billy Fleming, director of The McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and one of the editors of the new Lincoln Institute book Design with Nature Now.

“We can figure out how to do this,” Fleming declares in the latest Episode of Land Matters, the podcast of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “We’ve done it before.”

New technological solutions may pop up in the future to make the job easier, but, on the mitigation side, several basic tasks are plainly evident: decarbonize the power grid, decarbonize transportation, and stop cutting down trees that suck up carbon and store it away. Similarly, on the adaptation side, green and blue infrastructure systems are proven solutions that need only be implemented on a larger scale, Fleming says.

He’s in a good position to know. Together with UPenn colleagues Fritz Steiner, Richard Weller, and Karen M’Closkey, Fleming helped identify the 25 cutting-edge ecological design projects from around the world that are showcased in Design with Nature Now. From a transformed landfill in New York City to a re-engineering of natural systems to absorb rising seas on the coast of Virginia, these interventions promote sustainability and build resilience for a broad range of both urban and rural locations.

What’s needed now is a high-level framework to organize these approaches and establish ways to pay for them, Fleming says. “The cost of doing something is far, far less than the cost of doing nothing,” he says.

You can listen to the interview and subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
 

Learn More

Design with Nature Now Amplifies Ian McHarg’s Manifesto on Ecological Planning and Land Use (Land Lines)
Tired of waiting for national push, a buzzing hive of climate resilience innovators is at work in Boston (The Boston Globe)
Letting a thousand flowers bloom: innovations in building climate resilience (The Boston Globe)

Photograph: Following a 1953 coastal flood in which 1,800 people died, the Netherlands adopted a successful water management strategy that gives its major rivers room to flood safely. Made up of 34 projects, Room for the River excavated floodplains, relocated dikes, and created flood channels to build resilience against more frequent and extreme weather events in the future. Room for the River is one of 25 projects featured in Design with Nature Now. Credit: IJsseldelta. With permission, Province of Overijssel/Rijkswaterstaat. Project Credit: Room for the River is a cooperative effort of nineteen different entities overseen by the Province of Overijssel Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management/Rijkswaterstatt. See www .roomfortheriver.com/.

Si bien los terrenos abandonados suelen pensarse como una responsabilidad urbana, pueden representar una ventaja. El costo de acondicionar estas propiedades desarrolladas en el pasado suele ser alto, pero presentan oportunidades valiosas para revitalizar y redesarrollar. Según la EPA, los terrenos costeros abandonados “pueden tener un papel importante para incrementar la resistencia local a mayores inundaciones, marejadas o temperaturas del cambio climático”. En Providence, los terrenos abandonados son una prioridad en la labor continua por revitalizar corredores fluviales y zonas costeras.

Fuentes: Acondicionamiento de terrenos abandonados en zonas vulnerables al clima, EPA de EE.UU., 2016; Plan de Visión de Woonasquatucket, Ciudad de Providence, 2018.

Ver la versión PDF de este mapa para obtener más detalles y una clave.

Crédito: PolicyMap, https://www.policymap.com

Santa Mónica evoca imágenes de sol y surf, pero la ciudad del sur de California también debería ser conocida por la sustentabilidad, y con razón. El ayuntamiento adoptó el programa Santa Monica Sustainable City en 1994. Veinticinco años después, la ciudad implementó proyectos que van desde tareas de modernización de edificios hasta programas de energía renovable, y cada uno o dos años hay un nuevo alcalde para garantizar que haya nuevas perspectivas. Gleam Davis asumió como alcaldesa en diciembre de 2018, luego de ejercer en el consejo desde 2009. Participa de manera activa en la comunidad desde que se mudó allí en 1986, y se ha involucrado con organizaciones como la Comisión de Planificación de Santa Mónica, WISE Senior Services y Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights. Como asesora corporativa de AT&T, trabajó con Kids in Need of Defense, que representa a menores solos en tribunales de inmigración. Antes de unirse a AT&T, Davis procesaba violaciones a los derechos civiles como abogada litigante en el Departamento de Justicia de EE.UU. y fue socia en el estudio de abogados Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. Nació en California y se recibió en la Facultad de Derecho de Harvard y USC. Davis tiene un hijo con su esposo, John Prindle. Habló con Anthony Flint, miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln, para este número de Land Lines.

Anthony Flint: El sistema de Santa Mónica de cambiar de alcalde cada dos años, ¿presenta un desafío para las labores de sustentabilidad, que suelen demorar en su proceso y en mostrar resultados? ¿Cuáles son los proyectos que pueden tener más impacto en su próximo término?

Gleam Davis: No creo que esto genere un gran impedimento para el programa de sustentabilidad. El alcalde y el alcalde pro tempore son miembros del ayuntamiento de toda la ciudad. El ayuntamiento establece la política, adopta el presupuesto y lleva adelante las políticas de la ciudad. Luego, es el administrador de la ciudad quien las implementa. Todas las orientaciones de políticas que recibe el administrador de la ciudad provienen de votos de todo el ayuntamiento.

En el frente de la sustentabilidad, la gran noticia es que ahora pertenecemos a un grupo llamado Clean Power Alliance

Otro hilo conductor que mantenemos en el tiempo es ofrecer opciones de movilidad. Vivimos en una ciudad compacta, menos de 23 kilómetros cuadrados, y tenemos la capacidad de ofrecer opciones de transporte a nuestros residentes. Tenemos un metro ligero con tres estaciones; entonces, se puede tomar ese transporte hasta el centro de Santa Mónica o el de Los Ángeles. Para nuestro Big Blue Bus [que funciona a gas natural y se está cambiando para tener toda la flota eléctrica en 2030], tenemos una política de “cualquier viaje, en cualquier momento”. Así, los estudiantes se pueden subir a un autobús, mostrar su identificación de cualquier universidad (muchos estudiantes de UCLA viajan allí, y por supuesto [estudiantes de] Santa Monica College), y es gratis.

AF: La estrategia ecológica general de la ciudad ha incluido una norma pionera de energía cero para nuevas construcciones unifamiliares y el compromiso de que toda la energía municipal se debe obtener con métodos renovables. Pero el proyecto de US$ 75 millones para el nuevo edificio municipal ha recibido críticas por ser demasiado caro. ¿Cómo se hace para que ser ecológico también sea rentable?

GD: Es importante saber que estamos alquilando una buena cantidad de propiedades privadas para las oficinas gubernamentales, con un costo de unos US$ 10 millones anuales. Necesitábamos llevar a los empleados a una ubicación central, que ahorrará dinero en los alquileres y promoverá las reuniones cara a cara y “accidentales”, que pueden resultar tan importantes para la comunicación. Sencillamente, tenía sentido a nivel empresarial que todos estuvieran bajo un mismo techo. Con el tiempo, terminaremos ahorrando dinero, y al final el edificio se pagará a sí mismo, solo con esa base. Con el tiempo, habrá ahorros adicionales, si el edificio es energéticamente neutral y reduce el consumo de agua (no consumiremos recursos fuera del edificio).

Una de las cosas que hemos hecho fue exigir a los desarrolladores que cumplan requisitos de sustentabilidad bastante estrictos. Si vamos a hacer eso, debemos predicar con el ejemplo. Esa es una de las cosas que demuestra este edificio: se puede construir un edificio extremadamente sustentable que, al final, ahorrará dinero. Intentamos ser un modelo, demostrar que, con un poco de inversión anticipada, se puede tener un gran impacto con el tiempo.

AF: ¿Cómo se conecta el proyecto Wellbeing, que ganó un premio de Bloomberg Philanthropies por la evaluación prolongada de las necesidades de los votantes, con sus labores de sustentabilidad? ¿Qué ha revelado?

GD: Nos declaramos una ciudad sustentable de bienestar. ¿Cómo les está yendo a las personas de la comunidad? ¿Prosperan o hay algún problema? El proyecto Wellbeing comenzó como una evaluación de la juventud y cómo le iba, y qué podemos hacer como ciudad para ayudar. En verdad, se trata de cambiar la relación entre el gobierno local y la gente. No es un concepto nuevo, en realidad. Sin intención de ser cursi, se remonta a la Declaración de la Independencia: vida, libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad. Eso no tiene que ver con que la gente salga y se divierta, sino con la capacidad que tiene de prosperar. El sentido de comunidad se puede desgastar, sea por la tecnología o la cultura. Una de las cosas que hacemos es asegurarnos de que los niños entren al jardín de infantes listos para aprender. Para los ciudadanos mayores, [nos preguntamos] ¿se sienten aislados en sus departamentos? Es un movimiento global en el cual nos entusiasma participar.

En nuestro programa Wellbeing Microgrant, si a la gente se le ocurre algo para fortalecer la comunidad, lo financiaremos, hasta US$ 500. Un ejemplo fue salir y escribir las historias y los recuerdos de los residentes hispanohablantes en muchas partes de la comunidad en que el inglés es la segunda lengua. Otra fue una cena para acercar a la comunidad latina con la etíope. Un individuo tomó un terreno vacío y creó una zona de juegos temporal y un espacio de arte. Se trata de que la comunidad esté conectada.

AF: Otra estrategia innovadora es aplicar recargos al uso excesivo de agua para financiar programas de eficiencia energética en viviendas de bajos ingresos. En lo que respecta al agua, ¿cuál es su visión a largo plazo sobre la gestión de este recurso, siendo que parecen venir tiempos peligrosos?

GD: Una cosa que hemos hecho, que se propagará en mi término y en el próximo, es trabajar para ser autosuficientes con el agua. Controlamos algunos pozos en la región, pero [en la década de 1990] tuvimos contaminación, y acabamos por llegar a un acuerdo multimillonario [con las petroleras responsables]. Hemos estado obteniendo el 80 por ciento de nuestra agua del Distrito Metropolitano de Agua [desde que se descubrió la contaminación]. Si ha visto Barrio chino, ese [es el sistema que] chupa agua del río Colorado y lo lleva a Los Ángeles; y ahora lo hemos revertido por completo, y volvimos a recibir el 80 por ciento del agua de nuestros propios pozos (restaurados). Con esto, tenemos mayor capacidad de resistencia en caso de que un terremoto afecte los acueductos u ocurran otros eventos disruptivos a la infraestructura hídrica, por ejemplo si se rompe un conducto de agua. Además, bombear el agua de las montañas [desde el río Colorado] cuesta mucha energía. Nos estamos asegurando de que nuestra infraestructura hídrica esté en buen estado. No estamos intentando aislarnos. Pero si obtenemos mejor agua de nuestros propios pozos, tendremos agua buena y limpia en el futuro próximo.

AF: ¿Qué políticas le gustaría ver que podrían limitar la devastación tan triste que se vio en los últimos incendios de California?

GD: Por suerte, Santa Mónica no sufrió efectos directos del incendio Woolsey. Nuestra vecina Malibú sí, su centro de operaciones de emergencia estaba justo en el camino del incendio, entonces vinieron a usar el nuestro para combatir el fuego, rescatar a personas y limpiar. Bajo el enfoque de ayuda mutua, algunos bomberos de Santa Mónica trabajaron en el foco en distintas partes del estado. Organizamos reuniones con la FEMA sobre el desplazamiento y la recuperación. Tenemos una directora general de recuperación; ella es como un martilleo constante, les recuerda a las personas que [un desastre natural importante] podría ocurrir aquí. Promocionamos el Plan de Siete Días: ¿todos tienen siete días de agua y comida y una radio de emergencia que no necesite electricidad? También aprobamos requisitos agresivos para terremotos y evaluamos las propiedades más vulnerables; ahora estamos pasando a hacerles reformas antisísmicas.

Estas cosas que hacemos en Santa Mónica pueden parecer un poco extremas y cuestan dinero, pero no se trata solo de ganar premios o darnos palmaditas en la espalda por ser progresistas con el medioambiente. Es para que podamos capear eventos climáticos como incendios. La gente dice “están gastando dinero, aumentan el precio del agua, y la energía cuesta más . . .” queremos hacerlo para afrontar los impactos del cambio climático. Pero también significa que, cuando haya un desastre natural, seremos más resistentes.

AF: La experiencia de la ciudad con los escúter eléctricos (me refiero a la empresa que lanzó una flota sin pedir permiso) parece demostrar que la transición a una economía compartida sumada a la innovación tecnológica puede ser desprolija. ¿Es posible aceptar la alteración y mantener el orden?

GD: Fuimos una especie de foco con los escúter. Al principio, fue una alteración, y tuvimos que hacer muchos ajustes. Su filosofía fue que era más fácil pedir perdón que permiso. Hubo un poco de pánico, y algunas personas también los usaban de una manera horrible. Ahora estamos en un programa piloto de 16 meses, para el cual seleccionamos cuatro operadores de movilidad sin anclaje: Bird, Lime, Jump, que es parte de Uber, y Lyft. Creamos un límite dinámico sobre la cantidad de aparatos en la calle, para que no puedan soltar todos los que quieran. Tenemos algunas políticas para abordar los conflictos y la seguridad, y se emitieron multas cuando fue necesario.

Todo esto forma parte de la intención de dar a nuestros residentes muchas opciones de movilidad. Todo está diseñado para dar a las personas la opción de salir del auto, ya sea para ir al centro de Los Ángeles o para caminar dos cuadras al restaurante del vecindario. Queríamos asegurarnos de que nuestras comunidades con mayor diversidad económica tengan acceso, que no sea solo el centro. Si se puede reemplazar al auto por medios alternativos como los escúter o bicicletas eléctricas para la primera o la última milla, eso es mucho ahorro en costos. [En noviembre de 2018] tuvimos unos 150.000 viajes en movilidad compartida. Eso es bastante increíble para un lugar con 93.000 personas. Al final del piloto, evaluaremos todo y descifraremos cómo seguir a partir de eso.

Algunas ciudades vecinas prohibieron los escúter por completo, pero Santa Mónica no lidia así con la tecnología. Estamos buscando el mejor modo de gestionar la tecnología disruptiva. La alteración no es mala palabra.

Anthony Flint es miembro sénior del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

Fotografía: Gleam Davis, alcaldesa de Santa Mónica. Crédito: Kristina Sado

If the Colorado River Basin is a test case for how a massive watershed can prepare for scarcity in the years ahead, recent news has been encouraging.

Seven states, tribes, conservationists, and other stakeholders agreed to a Drought Contingency Plan, signed into law by President Trump last month, that spreads out cutbacks so that Lake Powell and Lake Mead don’t drop too low.

While the seven-year agreement confronted the nuts-and-bolts realities of keeping water flowing to forty million people and five million acres of farmland, the hard work to bring about a truly sustainable future is just beginning, participants agreed at the Lincoln Institute Journalists Forum this spring in Phoenix. The two-day event, attended by about 50 reporters and editors, was organized by the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy in partnership with Walton Family Foundation, Gates Family Foundation, and the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“We’ve made enormous progress. We are learning to talk to each other,” said former Arizona Governor and U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt (video). Now, he said, “We need to talk to each other about how we’re using water . . . how water gets used on the land.”

That conversation—both among and within Colorado River Basin states, with all stakeholders at the table—will help determine the best mix of future policies basin-wide, including conservation, efficiency, market pricing, and infrastructure. The problem, Babbitt said, is that the adversarial stance has dominated for so long—“waving the bloody shirt” as he put it, never giving in, never yielding a drop—it has blotted out these longer-term considerations.

“That’s where we’ve always been. How do we divvy up the river, who gets what share, how much, in what circumstances . . . and it’s nobody’s business about how it’s used,” he said. The sooner that changes, the better, he said, so the next crisis in the basin doesn’t dictate how this most precious resource is managed.

The Journalists Forum, a tradition at the Lincoln Institute going back nearly two decades, has focused on various themes including climate change, gentrification, infrastructure, and property rights, to name a few. This year’s issue was the Colorado River Basin and the integration of water management and land use—the mission of the Phoenix-based Babbitt Center, established two years ago. On social media, the hashtag was #WaterMeetsLand.

After hearing an overview of the history, hydrology, and the laws, treaties, and other agreements governing the use of Colorado River Basin water, the journalists considered how intensely and quickly climate change has complicated everything about the system. Despite this year’s relatively robust snowpack, warming trends will inexorably decrease supply, said Kathy Jacobs, director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona, and a leader in the National Climate Assessment initiative. Virtually all future decisions and actions must be based in the understanding of climate science, she said.

Climate change has also raised the stakes in the already challenging business of bringing together stakeholders, including those in agriculture, the growing constituency of urban areas, and environmentalists concerned about the integrity of ecosystems. The intensity of the crisis tends to make different groups feel defensive and wary, just at the moment when they should be open to new ideas, said Colorado rancher Paul Bruchez, who has worked to blend the interests of wildlife habitat, recreation, and irrigation needs for agriculture.

Similarly, indigenous peoples, overlooked or excluded from many previous agreements, bring a lot to the table. “Tribes have lived for hundreds of years in some kind of balance,” said Daryl Vigil, water administrator for the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and part of the Ten Tribes Partnership. “We want to show the world how we fit into this picture.”

The journalists also heard from Stephen R. Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community; Terry Fulp, Lower Colorado Regional Director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; and Roberto Salmón, Mexican commissioner of the Mexico-United States International Boundary and Water Commission (video). All emphasized the importance of keeping and building relationships, and basing decisions on solid evidence.

As the forum turned to exploring solutions, technology emerged as one of the more promising tools for making water infrastructure more efficient, improving conservation, facilitating desalination and storage, and revealing what’s happening to the water on the land through satellite imagery and data collection. A solid foundation of evidence can guide decision making in powerful ways, said George W. “Mac” McCarthy, president of the Lincoln Institute.

Data collection tells stories that confront the intense emotions pulsing through all issues of water and land, he said, citing the Chesapeake Bay Conservancy’s high-resolution mapping, which helped farmers pinpoint areas of runoff from fields. That knowledge allowed farmers and environmentalists to target riparian buffers where they were most needed, rather than requiring blanket solutions for such interventions throughout the properties. Two potential adversaries started working better together, aided by technology. “It changed the entire sociology,” McCarthy said.

Still, there was no universal agreement about the path forward. “We have to address the structural deficit,” said Pat Mulroy, senior fellow at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a veteran of water battles (video). That means augmenting the system with new sources, and entertaining more radical ideas, like the sea-to-sea pipeline to stabilize California’s Salton Sea and the provision of extra water through desalination. “We can’t get through the next seven years simply by taking away. You can manage the system all you want. It’s going to crash. . . . You can’t conserve your way out of it. Everything has to be on the table.”  

Added Dave White, director of the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University: “There is simply no historical record that approximates what the future will be under the climate change scenario. . . . The mechanisms designed for the system thus far” can’t just be tweaked.

Yet all stakeholders should stay wary of “magical thinking” and a quest for a silver bullet, which can become a distraction, said Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River Program director for the Audubon Society. Others agreed that there is still plenty to gain by eliminating grass lawns, recycling water for use in toilets, or finding different ways to grow thirsty crops—and by scrupulously linking water management with land use, zoning for housing, and economic development. Many of those steps are being taken at the local level, seen in one presentation on policies and initiatives in the city of Westminster, Colorado.

Anne Castle, senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources at the University of Colorado, Boulder, echoed the sentiments of several speakers by pointing out that the window for action will close soon. “We’ve only got a couple of years to do a lot of creative thinking and change our paradigm.”

Many agreed that the management of water resources “needs a lot of journalistic attention,” as Bruce Babbitt put it. Reporters and editors shared how they have engaged readers on the topic by telling stories that go beyond horse-race coverage of incremental political wins.

Ted Kowalski, senior program officer for the Walton Family Foundation’s Colorado River initiative, announced the establishment of The Water Desk, an independent news organization dedicated to coverage of Western water issues, to be led by Mitch Tobin at the University of Colorado.

In a session titled “Practicing the Craft,” Elizabeth Hightower Allen, features editor at Outside magazine, shared examples of content that engages readers by building on human drama. The challenge is to draw in the “concerned middle” between those who are “freaked out” and those who deny there is a crisis unfolding, suggested Cynthia Barnett, environmental journalist in residence at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Water Knife, fielded questions about his disturbing narrative of a dystopian future of chronic water shortages. The dark and action-packed novel was certainly one way to draw attention to water issues. But, he added, “I’d love to be proven wrong,” he said.

The journalists agreed that while specialized outlets like Circle of Blue, Aspen Journalism, and ProPublica have been putting water issues front and center, there is no substitute for thoughtful coverage by major metropolitan newspapers, which can have greater influence on elected officials and policy makers. One important journalistic obligation emerged: holding all parties accountable for following through with commitments.

Coverage flowing from the 2019 Journalists Forum included dispatches by Josh Stephens at California Planning & Development Report Jason Blevins at The Colorado Sun Ry Rivard at the Voice of San Diego and Tom Yulsman at Discover magazine. James Brasuell, managing editor at Planetizen, has also been aggregating stories about water and land use here.

Slide show presentations and videos of portions of the Journalists Forum are available on the Lincoln Institute website.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Photograph: Journalists at the Tres Rios water treatment area in Phoenix, one of several field trips to innovative projects, in collaboration with the 10X Water Summit, held just before the 2019 Journalists Forum. Credit: Anthony Flint