In 2018, I went on a canoe trip down the Whanganui River in New Zealand. I went on the trip because, in 2017, the government of New Zealand had granted “personhood” status to the river, giving it legal rights in court to speak for itself. The government’s action was the result of a 140-year legal battle by […]

I’ve spent the majority of my career managing water on the Snake River in Idaho, and I can tell you plainly: This year is different.  According to the most recent calculations by the Idaho Department of Water Resources, the amount of water needed across southern Idaho to feed crops this past spring ran at nearly […]

The timing of the release of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s report on groundwater availability last month was suspicious, given that it was completed in January but not made available to lawmakers or the public until several months after the General Assembly’s legislative session. The science presented in the report is impressive, while its […]

Southeastern Ohio has a serious problem underground. Now that problem is reaching the surface and threatening our drinking water.  As a petroleum geologist, my job is to understand the rock layers deep underground and how fluids move through them. In Washington County, Ohio, toxic, radioactive waste from failed fracking waste disposal wells is surfacing where […]

No resource is more critical to our state’s future than water. Our agricultural industry relies on it. So does our oil and gas industry. And all Oklahomans need it for drinking, cooking and bathing. Yet the state agency entrusted with ensuring that our water resources are being managed appropriately is dispatching a clear SOS that […]

My family farms just under 1,000 acres near the headwaters of the Minnesota River and the Red River on the continental divide. The view out our window is an expanse of fields and sky that spans for miles.  Water that comes to our farm through rain and snow eventually ends up in the Minnesota River, […]