The Future of Water in the West is Both Complex, and a Hard Issue to Face

BY GREG BAIRD

As a society, we constantly hear the “drought warning.” Then we employ some water conservation efforts and a couple of years later everything seems to go back to normal. As a result, we have become numb to the word “drought.” Wildfires are brutal and get our immediate attention, but we expect they will also burn out.

Sounding alarms can get immediate attention, maybe some awareness and even short duration actions. But most of the time, real fundamental changes, policy reversals or epic infrastructure planning shifts that are focused on long-term objectives are never achieved. As a society, we seem to only want to pay up once the damage occurs, a quick and easy monetary policy fix as we continue to put ourselves on a course of catastrophic failure.