Early this year, after agreement on the fiscal ‘cliff’ deal was reached, the Washington Post published this fascinating chart depicting the various proposals from Speaker of the House Boehner and President Obama. While the chart likely won’t change minds, it may very well betray where a deal might be reached in the coming weeks. President […]
Of the myriad ways to measure anxiety in the West over water, add legislative activity in a drought year. The raft of water-related bills coursing through the Colorado legislature this session prompted one lawmaker, Randy Fischer, (D-Fort Collins), to wryly note in his hometown newspaper, “The number of water-related bills tends to be inversely proportional […]
Last month, Utah’s State Engineer approved the transfer of an established water right on the Green River, from the San Juan County (Utah) Water Conservancy District to Blue Castle Holdings. In many cases, such a transfer wouldn’t muster a second look from observers in Utah or neighbors around the Western U.S. Not so here. Two […]
“Be quick.” We heard this more than once from business contacts we met in China. Our objective – to connect U.S. technology and firms with money and partners in China – met with very positive reviews. But change is the rule in China today, and the advice to move fast reflects a sense of urgency […]
The ongoing debate about energy policy often overlooks the reality that in addition to coal and natural gas, U.S. renewable energy resources are world-class. Take wind. The top global wind energy resource resides squarely in the American heartland. This isn’t lost on global wind companies including Goldwind, China’s top private producer of wind-power technologies. For […]
With a slim snowpack serving only to reiterate Colorado’s long-term water challenge, its clear that reaching out to business to talk about water is increasingly important – but doing so in a meaningful way is difficult. Generally, business hasn’t been involved in the water discussion. There’s every reason to believe they will be. The system […]
Until we have a government that understands we’re running out of water, we’ll get nowhere in the water discussion.” –Participant in Colorado Cleantech Industry Association, Deloitte-sponsored ‘No Water, No Energy’ seminar, Denver, July 2012 One can say this about our current level of understanding about our water future: it’s incomplete, but getting better. We’ve known […]
ColoradoBiz lost a meaningful part of its past this week. Former editor Bob Schwab passed away. Born and raised in Chicago, Bob Schwab was an inveterate newspaper man turned magazine editor. If he had his druthers, he’d probably have lived a decade earlier, been a Mike Royko contemporary at theSun-Times, or Trib, and retired on […]
Colorado’s business community was reminded again last week that water threatens the region’s economic prospects. District Court Judge Paul King ruled that the Sterling Ranch development in Douglas County had not lined up sufficient long-term water supply pursuant to a 2008 statute requiring “a water supply that will be sufficient for build-out of the proposed […]
The tale of the Colorado River has become tangled in part because of its evolution into two distinct water realities, that of the Upper and Lower River Basins. One operates in a deficit relative to its annual water allocation, the other a surplus. Arizona, Nevada and California are managing the river in reverse, backtracking to […]