The Thirsty West

Today, SFR interviewed Dave Miller, who is on Gov. Bill Richardson's Drought Task force, about ways in which the State of New Mexico hopes to address the water crisis. Miller was quite upfront, even saying he believed Cloudcroft, NM could run out of water within days!
There are two excellent books that detail the ways in which water supply has become and will increasingly become a political issue. I see it as, perhaps, one of the most emergent political issues out there (aka Dune). In this way, New Mexico is in an interesting position, because we are, in some ways, confronting the politicization of water early, as a result of, well, not having any.
The two books everyone should read are
Water Wars by Diane Raines Ward and
Blue Gold, The Fight to Stop The Corporate Theft of the World's Water By Maude Barlow
I interviewed Barlow last year, prior to her talk here in New Mexico. She perceives New Mexico to be in one of the most dire situations with regard to the situation. Well, so does everyone.
What's interesting, or perhaps sad, is that while some people, an increasing number of people are looking to conservation to address our shrinking water supply, it is definitely too little too late on that front. Even a complete hault to all building and development probably wouldn't do it. So what's becoming an increasing trend is government and private industry looking to technology to deal with water issues.
In today's Albuquerque Journal it was reported that US Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM wants Sandia National Laboratory involved in a national project to find ways to make unsafe water safe and use less water to produce energy. You know, in between missile testing over White Sands and burying more radioactive waste in Carlsbad and testing out ebola virus in Los Alamos and…
Am I ranting?