Water in the Community

Registration for the 2022 WRRC Annual Conference is now open! This year’s conference, Arizona’s Agricultural Outlook: Water, Climate, and Sustainability, will take place over three days, July 12-14. Day One will be held in person at the University of Arizona Student Union on Tuesday, July 12 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Arizona time. Two mornings of virtual programming, 9:00 am to noon, will follow the in-person event.

As part of the WRRC’s Indigenous Water Dialogues, we are pleased to announce a special panel discussion of INHABITANTS: Indigenous Perspectives On Restoring Our World, as well as free screening for all event registrants.

Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs, is the name that was given to civil society in several of the Minutes from the 1944 Treaty on International Waters between the United States and Mexico. The NGOs appear as party to a three-way contribution of water for the environment in Minutes 316, 319, and 323. But the contribution of the NGOs to the accomplishments of these Minutes in the Colorado River extends beyond the traditional place of environmental advocates, contributing as shuttle diplomats to facilitate cross-border understanding.

This presentation offers a critical reassessment of the emblematic water conflict over the Los Angeles Aqueduct, one of the first large inter-basin water transfers in the American West. Based on three years of in-depth archival, ethnographic, and collaborative research, it examines how public, private, and tribal interests have been weighed in decision-making about this water transfer over the course of more than a century of social, regulatory, and environmental change.