Season 2/Episode 6: Morgan Snyder on the Future of the Colorado River
Morgan Snyder
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In the first of a two-part conversation, John talks with Morgan Snyder, senior program officer in the Walton Family Foundation's Environment Program, about the future of the Colorado River and how to fix the culture of water use in the US West.
Show Notes
Morgan’s bio page at the Walton Family Foundation.
Walton’s Environment Program.
John Sabo in Forbes: Can the Mississippi River Learn from the Colorado’s Failure?
The Hill: “Lakes Mead and Powell are at the epicenter of the biggest Western drought in history”
CS Monitor: What does “dead pool” mean for Lakes Mead and Powell — and what could it mean for Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix?
More on that John Sabo piece in Forbes: “Should We Divert the Mississippi to the Colorado? (Hint: Don’t Ask Captain Kirk.")
Here’s an NPR segment on desalination and the Colorado (Morgan argues it will be extremely expensive and will still only offset a small amount of what we need to pull back).
Morgan mentions the tradeoff between “growing grass” (lawn, alfalfa, forage crops) vs. growing food with Colorado River water. Here’s a Vox piece about how water cuts on the Colorado are hitting winter vegetable farmers in the basin. Here’s a Guardian piece on alfafa farming in the US Southwest.
A piece on the Inflation Reduction Act’s $40 billion funding for climate smart agriculture.
Transcript
Forthcoming