“This is an amazingly comprehensive and interactive explanation of what’s happening on the Colorado River and the history of how we got here from the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy” — Heather Sackett
Day: June 20, 2020
TomTalks Episodes 5 & 6: #Colorado- The Headwaters State — @OWOW_MSUDenver
Join the OWOW Center for Episode 5 of TomTalks where co-director Jennifer Riley-Chetwynd joins an online conference hosted by Environment America. Jennifer presents the importance of the Colorado River and our state’s role as a headwaters state.
In part 2 of Colorado- The Headwaters State, co-director Jennifer Riley-Chetwynd talks with Environment America about how Colorado provides water for 19 states and Mexico through thick and thin.
The #NewMexico Interstate Stream Commission votes to stop work on #GilaRiver diversion — The Silver City Daily Press
From The Silver City Press (Geoffrey Plant):
In a 7-2 vote Thursday morning, the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission declined to further fund the National Environmental Policy Act process for the controversial proposed Gila River diversion project in southwestern New Mexico.
The decision to stop work on the federally required environmental impact statement effectively prevents the New Mexico Entity of the Central Arizona Project, otherwise known as the N.M. CAP Entity, from pursuing its proposed development of 14,000 acre-feet of Gila River water under the terms of the 2004 federal Arizona Water Settlements Act. Any project that seeks to develop the AWSA water or use money from the New Mexico Unit Fund — the monetary component of the settlement — is required to complete an environmental impact statement as part of the process.
The move also portends a major policy shift regarding how the remaining $70 million in settlement funds will likely be spent, with the focus moving to so-called “non-Unit projects,” such as municipal and regional water supply projects.
Webinar: The Latest on Demand Management – Creating an equitable, feasible program: Where does #Colorado stand — @WaterEdCO
During this May 8, 2020 webinar we heard an update on progress and current thinking around demand management in Colorado. Speakers discuss what “equity” might mean and how a pilot project slated to begin this summer could help answer some technical questions around feasibility. Join us to hear from leaders around the state working to move this exploration forward.
With Speakers:
2020 #COleg: Colorado governor signs sweeping police accountability bill into law — The #Colorado Sun
Here’s a report from Jesse Paul that’s running in The Colorado Sun. Click through and read the whole article for somme of the details of the bill. Here’s an excerpt:
Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 217 at a ceremony at the state Capitol on [June 19, 2020], calling it a landmark piece of legislation that speaks to a national moment of reckoning.
Senate Bill 217 was introduced and passed in a matter of two weeks after being introduced in the days after Floyd’s May 25 death at the hands of police officers in Minnesota and as Denver and cities across the nation were being rocked by protests in response.
“This is a long overdue moment of national reflection,” Polis said just before he signed the measure at a ceremony in the Colorado Capitol. “This is a meaningful, substantial reform bill.”
Polis said the bill contains “landmark, evidence-based” changes that he hopes will help build trust between communities and law enforcement. But he said that more work must still be done.
Colorado is one of the first states to take legislative action in the wake of Floyd’s death and demonstrations across the nation.
Also in attendance at the bill signing were Democratic and Republican state lawmakers who worked on the legislation, as well as law enforcement officers and the family and friends of Coloradans killed at the hands of police.
The governor planned the bill signing for Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free. It was more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation and about two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at the end of the Civil War.
We Are Never Ready For Anything Anymore — @CharlesPPierce #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround
Charles Pierce’s lede today in his weekly newsletter kills:
Someday in our dystopian half-life of a future, a sweaty and thirsty historian is going to work up the spit to write a long volume about how we of this generation manage to walk, sweltering and dust-tongued, through the accumulating evidence that we were allowing the planet to boil and burn.
He goes on to list reasons for voting this election:
We could’ve been ready for 9/11, but we weren’t. We could’ve been ready for the pandemic, but we weren’t. We are never ready for anything anymore. We don’t have the political will to get ready, and we’re too cheap to get ready for anything. We are never ready for anything anymore, because it’s become good politics to hold in contempt the ideas of the people who know what we need to do to get ready. We could’ve been ready for the climate crisis, and for all the crises arising from it, but we’re not because we don’t have the political will, won’t spend the money, and spend too much time listening to the angry and the loud.
Click through and read the whole thing.
