Texas vs. New Mexico: the Water War

This month, Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its complaint that New Mexico has been diverting water from the Rio Grande it is obligated to send downstream under a 75-year-old agreement called the Rio Grande Compact. The compact among Colorado, New Mexico and Texas settled years of litigation by establishing a formula for [...]

The Water Fiscal Cliff

While the fiscal cliff may have been averted for a while, there is still a water infrastructure cliff looming on the horizon. Michael Reuter serves as director for The Nature Conservancy’s North America Freshwater Program and for the Great Rivers Partnership, and he has written an opinion/editorial on the need to reshape the way we [...]

Manmade Waterways Could Be Harnessed for Power Generation

Aiding President Obama’s initiative to generate 80 percent of U.S. power from clean energy sources by 2035, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation released a study, Hydropower Resource Assessment at Existing Reclamation Facilities, on the hydroelectric power generation potential of 530 of its federally-owned waterways (dams, canals, pipelines, and irrigation tunnels). As the largest [...]