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September 3, 2021 / Volume 9, Issue 24
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IN THIS ISSUE: Conference, Coverdell Students, Water Series, APW, IBWC
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Perspectives Heard at the
WRRC 2021 Conference
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“Greetings. It’s a good day,” said a speaker at the WRRC 2021 Annual Conference, Tribal Water Resilience in a Changing Environment, held August 30 – September 1. Attendees from throughout the state, country, and world tuned in to hear from conference speakers, who spoke movingly about water and Tribal resilience. Comments honoring the late Rodney “Rod” Blaine Lewis, to whose legacy the conference was dedicated, underscored his profound impact on his contemporaries and the generations who benefited from his leadership. As one speaker observed, he “bent history to justice.” With this legacy in mind, conference participants extended an understanding of Native experiences, perspectives, and wisdom on water resilience and how to achieve it. Recordings of each session and speaker slides, where available, are posted to the conference website. The following quotations give but a sample of the richness of conference commentary. Check future editions of the Weekly Wave for more information on the Rodney Blaine Lewis Scholars Award and more of what was shared at the conference.
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Brown Bag Webinar — Binational Cooperation in the Colorado River Basin: United States and Mexico
Date: Tuesday, Sep 14, 2021
Time: 12:00 - 1:15 pm MST
Speakers:
Amy Witherall, Binational Program Manager, Lower Colorado Basin Region, Bureau of Reclamation
Sean Schrag-Toso, Binational Program Analyst, Lower Colorado Basin Region, Bureau of Reclamation
The Colorado River is shared between the United States and Mexico pursuant to the 1944 Mexican Water Treaty (Treaty), which addresses both operational issues and water volume allocation of the river between the two countries. The Treaty also provides a mechanism for the adoption of binational agreements to address issues that arise during treaty implementation. These implementing agreements are known as “Minutes” to the 1944 Treaty, and are negotiated under the authority and direction of the US Department of State and the US Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission IBWC) and their counterparts in Mexico. Reclamation has been working in partnership with the seven Colorado River Basin States, IBWC, non-governmental organizations, and the Republic of Mexico to develop binational approaches to address water conservation, historic drought, and environmental enhancement along the Colorado River in the border region. This presentation will provide an overview of the partnerships and negotiations that led to the adoption of Minute 323 to the Treaty, which provides operational certainty for water users in both the United States and Mexico by extending proactive, cooperative reservoir management strategies previously agreed to in 2012 through “Minute 319.”
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New Students at the WRRC
The WRRC is pleased to welcome Taylor McHugh and David Morales, our new Coverdell Fellow Graduate Outreach Assistants. The UArizona Peace Corps Coverdell Fellows Program assists returning Peace Corps Volunteers in pursuing graduate degrees with assistantships with organizations throughout Tucson. The WRRC is thrilled to be a participating agency once again. Taylor McHugh is pursuing their Master’s in Landscape Architecture. McHugh served as an Agriculture Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Tanzania from 2016-2018. There, they worked at the intersection of public and environmental health: in school gardens, teaching an environmental education curriculum, planting trees, and engaging in reproductive health education. In their position at the WRRC, McHugh will work on outreach, research, and resource development projects related to water conservation and planning in rural Arizona counties and community perceptions of water challenges in the face of climate change. For his Peace Corps service, David Morales served as an English teacher in Madagascar. In addition to engaging with regional English instructors to encourage student-centered pedagogy, Morales worked on food security issues in the schools. Morales is a Hydrology Master’s student and will be helping the WRRC on a range of projects related to our Indigenous Water Dialogues efforts and the 2022 Arroyo. Welcome, Taylor and David, to the WRRC!
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September 22 Panel to Discuss Implications of Colorado River Drought
On September 22, the Arizona Institutes for Resilience, the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and the Water Resources Research Center will present the fourth episode in a public webinar series on Water Solutions for Our Warmer World. Episode 4 is titled “Drought in the Colorado River Basin.” A panel of distinguished speakers will discuss the potential impacts of a decades-long drought on important Colorado River Basin reservoir management decisions and multi-party discussions of new shortage-sharing guidelines. Panelists include Amelia Flores, Chairwoman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Gloria Gray, Chairwoman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Terry Goddard, President of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board, Paul Bruchez, who represents agriculture as a member of the Colorado River Basin Roundtable and Interbasin Compact Committee, and Taylor Hawes, who is the Colorado River Program Director for The Nature Conservancy. A presentation by a representative of the US Bureau of Reclamation will lead off the program. The WRRC Director, Sharon B. Megdal, will moderate the discussion.
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APW Welcomes New Staff!
Kirstyn Kay is thrilled to be joining APW as their Outreach Instructional Specialist for the Water Festivals. She is a passionate and creative environmental educator, who hopes to inspire positive change toward a more sustainable future. Kirstyn grew up in Southern California, holds a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has been very fortunate to be able to study, volunteer, and work abroad while traveling to many amazing places. She enjoys sharing her love of the natural world with everyone she meets and believes that by using nature as our guide, we can restore our disconnected relationships to each other and to our environment. Kirstyn has always been enamored with desert ecosystems and how life is able to thrive in such an extreme environment, so she is very excited to call Arizona home and to help educate the next generation of water stewards.
Josh Ruddick joins Arizona Project WET as their Tucson Program Coordinator, after working nearly 10 years as a high school science instructor, teaching classes focused on project-based learning opportunities, such as aquaponics greenhouse operation and management, erosion control, tree planting and pruning, urban habitat restoration, outdoor classroom design, and social and environmental justice initiatives. Josh has been an active participant in many of APW’s professional development workshops and has served as a mentor teacher in the Recharge the Rain program. Josh is also a co-founder, instructor, and acting President for the Pima County Chapter of the Arizona Master Naturalist Association. Teaching is Josh’s second career after he spending 15 years in executive management positions in the healthcare industry. Josh, his wife Emily, daughter Isadora, son Cassius, and the family dog Rocco, live on the ancestral lands of the Tohono O‘odham and Pascua Yaqui peoples on the east side of Tucson.
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Maria-Elena Giner Appointed US
IBWC Commissioner
The International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) has a new US Commissioner. Recently appointed by President Biden, Dr. Maria-Elena Giner is the second female and first Latina appointed to the position. Prior to accepting a leadership post in the IBWC, Dr. Giner was General Manager of the Border Environment Cooperation Commission, which works with the North American Development Bank to develop environmental infrastructure projects in the US-Mexico border region. A first-generation college graduate, she holds degrees in Civil Engineering, Business Administration, and Public Policy, and is a registered professional engineer. As US Commissioner, Dr. Giner will work with her Mexican counterpart to advance the transboundary cooperation necessary to apply bilateral boundary and water treaties.
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The WRRC seeks applicants for a student hourly position that will be overseen by WRRC staff in close collaboration with ADEQ and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Cyber Communications and Technologies (CCT). This position will start in September 2021 and continue through the end of the Spring 2022 semester, with possible extension depending on funding.
Please visit WRRC's website for a complete listing of water jobs & opportunities.
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Unema, J.A., Topping, D.J., Kohl, K.A., Pillow, M.J., and Caster, J.J., 2021, Historical floods and geomorphic change in the lower Little Colorado River during the late 19th to early 21st centuries: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2021–5049, 34 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20215049.
Jones, C.J.R., and Robinson, M.J., 2021, Groundwater and surface-water data from the C-aquifer monitoring program, Northeastern Arizona, 2012–2019: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021–1051, 34 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211051.
Callegary JB, Norman LM, Eastoe CJ, Sankey JB, Youberg A. Preliminary Assessment of Carbon and Nitrogen Sequestration Potential of Wildfire-Derived Sediments Stored by Erosion Control Structures in Forest Ecosystems, Southwest USA. Air, Soil and Water Research. January 2021. doi:10.1177/11786221211001768
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