Engagement Impacts

Melissa Clutter is an Assistant Professor in the Geosciences Department at Fort Lewis College. Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as member of Cherokee Nation, she traveled west for college. She received her B.A. in Geosciences from Fort Lewis College, and during this time fell in love with Durango and the Four Corners region.

This WRRC Brown Bag presentation reviews the history of potable reuse and lessons learned by examining the key roles of Arizona, California, Colorado, and Texas.

WRRC post-doctoral researcher Valerisa Gaddy has been selected as an MIT Solve Fellow for 2022-2023. Her tech-based solution, "IRRIGaTE: Irrigation Resources Reaching Indigenous Growers and Tribal Entities” addresses the difficulties of science and policy communication between Tribal farmers and non-tribal policymakers through a multimedia platform.

Arizona Project WET has been teaching about the groundwater system for over two decades using everything from two-dimensional drawings to tubs of earth materials and the ever-popular sand tank groundwater model. Helping students to understand this critical unseen system is no easy task. With the support of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, APW partnered with Esser Design to develop a series of nine videos about the groundwater system. In the process, we encountered a variety of challenges and interesting questions on the best way to communicate on the groundwater system.

The Arizona Republic newspaper last Sunday drew on a recent report about plumbing poverty for a feature article on the subject. The report, co-authored by Kings College London professor and UArizona alum Katie Meehan, looked in depth at urban plumbing poverty in the United States. Meehan received her PhD from the UArizona Department of Geography and Development in 2010 and began her study of plumbing poverty while in Arizona.

Last week, WRRC staff member Jessie Hampton visited family in rural southwestern Colorado. She stayed along Cebolla Creek, which flows down to meet the Gunnison River in Blue Mesa Reservoir, one of three reservoirs that make up the Curecanti Unit of the Colorado River Storage Project. Local ranchers use their water rights on Cebolla Creek to irrigate hay meadows. Jessie took photos of places she visited on her trip to showcase different types of water usage and management in the area.