Engagement Impacts

Melissa Clutter is an Assistant Professor in the Geosciences Department at Fort Lewis College. Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as member of Cherokee Nation, she traveled west for college. She received her B.A. in Geosciences from Fort Lewis College, and during this time fell in love with Durango and the Four Corners region.

This WRRC Brown Bag presentation reviews the history of potable reuse and lessons learned by examining the key roles of Arizona, California, Colorado, and Texas.

On Wednesday, September 28, Central Arizona Project (CAP) representatives hosted a roundtable for state water users to discuss the proposed CAP conservation incentive program. Earlier this year, the CAP board said they would “work with stakeholders to develop a conservation incentive program that is consistent with [CAP] legal authority.” This roundtable provided an opportunity for stakeholders to share ideas and provide information so CAP can develop an effective program.

WRRC post-doctoral researcher Valerisa Gaddy has been selected as an MIT Solve Fellow for 2022-2023. Her tech-based solution, "IRRIGaTE: Irrigation Resources Reaching Indigenous Growers and Tribal Entities” addresses the difficulties of science and policy communication between Tribal farmers and non-tribal policymakers through a multimedia platform.

Arizona Project WET has been teaching about the groundwater system for over two decades using everything from two-dimensional drawings to tubs of earth materials and the ever-popular sand tank groundwater model. Helping students to understand this critical unseen system is no easy task. With the support of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, APW partnered with Esser Design to develop a series of nine videos about the groundwater system. In the process, we encountered a variety of challenges and interesting questions on the best way to communicate on the groundwater system.