The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
[Music]
today’s episode is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind each and every year the rising tide Mastermind
gets together in Atlanta for a live event this is one of the most
anticipated events within the rising tide Mastermind normally we have a zoom
call each and every week but this is where we all come together and we become
better friends we learn more about each other and we help each other with their
issues it is my favorite thing and I’m sure it is going to be your favorite thing to look forward to if you were a
member of the rising tide Mastermind that could be a possibility to find out
if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you and you are right for the rising tide Mastermind go to scaling up h2o.com
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more welcome to scaling up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems I’m
Trace Blackmore the host of the scaling up H2O podcast and Nation I got the most
amazing gift towards the end of last year and I I don’t think I ever recognized it and I want do that now
because I’m actually reading the book so I came back from Thanksgiving vacation
and there was a book on my desk and somebody had opened the package so I
just figured it was a book that somebody borrowed from my bookshelf and I looked at it and I didn’t recognize it and it’s
a mystery of my Mysteries the death and life of Edgar Allen Poe and I’m a Edgar
Allen Poe fan I shared that with you on episode 166 I’m from Richmond Virginia
and Edgar Allen Poe lived in Richmond Virginia so we had a PO Museum and a PO
house and there was a pub called uh the Raven and it was actually the raven that I read for the scaling up Nation back in
October so many years ago I’m trying to remember what that was I think that was in 2020 I think we did that during covid
so had lots of time to practice I guess that was a one of the more difficult episodes cuz I wanted to make sure I did
it justice and I wanted to make sure that hopefully I created some more Edgar Allen po fans out there well you have no
idea what’s going to happen when you release an episode and it could be years
later in this case almost four years later where somebody sent me a book and
let me tell you the story about this book so at at first glance I was like well I I don’t recognize that book and I
open it up and there’s an inscription to me from the author and I’m thinking I’ve
never met that author I don’t remember this again there there was nothing that was telling me what this book was from
or where this book was from so I pick it up and a card falls out of it and it is
a very nice thank you card with sincere appreciation it says and it’s from Rick
Conrad and he met the author I don’t know if I’ll say his name right Mark uh
dsnc I’m not saying that right um anyway if you look up the title his his name
will be there and I’ve really enjoyed this book I didn’t even know this book
existed and it was all because somebody said that they not only enjoyed the
podcast but they were a fellow Edgar Allen po fan and they thought enough
when they met this author they got not only that author to sign a book for them
they signed one for me and sent it to me as a gift Nation I cannot tell you how
valuable this book is to me and whenever I hear somebody just appreciate this
podcast I can’t tell you how much that is worth to me we of course want to make
sure that this is a platform where people can tune into each and every week to learn how to be a better industrial
water treater and learn all things within the water treatment industry so my hope people appreciate and enjoy it
but you honestly never know until people let you know and so many out there in the scal andup nation have just come up
to me at a convention or some sort of conference and said thank you for the podcast or here’s a show idea uh but
that means so much to me and when I get things like this book I I can’t thank you enough so so Rick thank you so much
for sending that to me on days when I don’t have time to record
the podcast because life is in the way and we’re up against a deadline I
remember little things like that and I remember people coming up and saying that they look forward to every Friday
having that podcast episode and that gives me the energy to stay here late at
night after everybody else has gone home after I finished all my other work and
record this podcast for you so I just wanted to open up and say how fantastic
that was and thank you so much for all of you out there that not only listen to the podcast uh but you let people know
that it’s a podcast for the water treatment industry and it just really really warms my heart so thank you
everybody out there I really appreciate that something I’m also told when people
come and talk to me is how easy it is to figure out what the next show they’re
going to go to is because my great staff my great team
here at scaling up H2O put together an event resource it’s much more than a
page it’s everything that’s going on in the Water Treatment Community and I’m going to list a couple of things that you can find on it but there are so many
more things by going to scaling up h2o.com
events you will find things like the war this is hard to say the Rural Water rout
there we go I said it the Rural Water rally that’s taking place February 6th through 8th in Washington DC and this is
an opportunity for supporters of our industry to make their cases directly to
elected officials so if you are in the Rural Water affiliation Arena this is
something that you probably want to take advantage of and we’ll have information for you on that page I mentioned earlier
also the 2024 wqa that’s the water quality Association is having their
Convention and Expo March 5th through 7th in Orlando Florida who wouldn’t want to go to Orlando in March so we’re going
to have all things wqa on our events page and this is a great one to go to
this is uh if you’re in uh the drinking water industry and uh it is just a a
great great conference it’s got a lot of vendors that attend the papers are great
and it’s just a great Association so we’ll have all of that information on our events page the American Chemical
Society is having their spring conference in New Orleans that’s going
to be March 17th through 21st so if you’re a member of the American Chemical Society this is probably something that
you want to check out and maybe you’re considering becoming a member of the American Chemical Society so we’ll have
all that information for you on our events page and then finally the Texas water week is taking place April 9th
through 12th in Fort Worth Texas I absolutely love Fort Worth Texas one of
my favorite restaurants is there it’s called hard8 it is one of the best barbecue restaurants you will ever go to
so if you’re going to Texas water week you want to make sure that you check out hard8 they’ve got lots of locations
around there and tell them that you heard about it on the scaling up H2O podcast I don’t think that’ll do
anything for you but who knows you never know unless you try so this is actually the 28th year that they’re holding this
conference and we will of course have all of that information for you on
scaling up h2o.com events Nation James McDonald is a great
friend of this show he’s a great friend of the scaling up nation and he is making sure that we are getting smarter
each and every week drop by drop
welcome to drop by drop with James the podcast segment where we wonder explore
think about imagine and learn industrial water treatment you guessed it drop by
drop together in today’s episode we’re thinking about the carbonic acid
bicarbonate and carbonate distribution as a function of pH now I sometimes have the memory of a
goldfish but this is one time I get to claim to have a photographic memory by saying oh yes that’s found in the graph
on page six of the ninth edition of the BET’s Handbook of industrial water conditioning
W I don’t know why that exact page number is always stuck with me but I cut my teeth on this book and apparently
parts of it adhered to my brain anyway as gous carbon dioxide dissolves into
water it reacts with the water molecules to form carbonic acid this carbonic acid can depress the pH of
the water but being a weak acid it won’t lower the ph below 4.3 by itself if we
raise the pH of the water you will see the carbonic acid gradually start to transform into bicarbonate ions or H3
with a negative 1 charge this transformation is complete at a pH of about
8.3 if we keep raising the pH we see this bicarbonate then trans forms into
carbonate ions or CO3 with a Nega -2 charge by simply adjusting the pH of the
water up and down these three species of carbonic acid bicarbonate and carbonate
can be converted from one into the other now alkalinity is the acid absorbing
property of water and as we just heard these bicarbonate and carbonate ions are absorbing acid typically when we talk
about alkalinity we are talking about by carbonate and carbonate ions although
there are other ions that can impact alinity as well such as hydroxide you may have recognized the
key PHS I mentioned previously 4.3 and 8.3 those just happen to be the phes
where the total alkalinity and P alkalinity end points are respectively these are two of the tests you use to
measure alkalinity and water all this is shown in the graph I mentioned before found on page six of the 9th Edition of
the B’s Handbook of industrial water conditioning it’s found in figure 1-2 actually I’ll be sure to share a link to
the graph for Trace to include in the show notes of this episode understanding the carbonic acid
bicarbonate and carbonate distribution as a function of pH is important for many reasons such as when trying to
reduce alkalinity with the degassing Tower troubleshooting by carbon dioxide is found in arop perade understanding
how cinity impacts scale forming potential and
more I’m James McDonald and I want to encourage you to be like water by forming bonds with those around you
dissolving new knowledge and making worthy ripples drop by
drop well thank you James Nation here’s our [Music]
interview my Live partner today is Emily Lewis director and shareholder at the law firm of Clyde snow in sessions and
she acts as the co-chair of the natural resources and water Law Practice Group
welcome Emily well I’m very excited to be here and join you for this conversation I am excited to have you
too and I didn’t mention this in your intro but also fellow podcaster fellow
podcaster we are self masochist here with our talking talking habits who who would ever want to go
start a podcast what’s wrong with us especially about water well well tell us a little bit
about yours uh what is your podcast and uh where can you find it great so um as
you mentioned in the introduction I am a water law attorney practicing here in the state of Utah and we just have so
many fascinating issues happening here in Utah in the west and so in 2020 I thought it’d be a great idea to just
kind of do a podcast to interview you know people I run into in my practice on a daily basis folks I follow on LinkedIn
you know interesting projects that are occurring in the state and so we’re going on our third year the podcast is
called ripple effect and we are about to round out our 150th episode or so
congratulations yeah we’ve been pretty busy so with that you are a water
attorney I know for a fact people are tuning in and they are thinking I didn’t
even know there were water attorneys so what does a water attorney do and what’s a day in your life like yes uh we are
are a special breed um and I actually went to law school wanting to do water law so that
is something that I knew I wanted to do my history is that I’m from Wyoming
we’re a very active outdoorsy State and I did a lot of raft guiding in my 20s
and just kind of being on the river and seeing you know the day-to-day changes in a river depending on which river I
was on depending on whether it was early season depending on if it was a dam controlled River and just literally
tasting the difference in water seeing our boats float up and down depending on the hour I just thought was really
really interesting and so I actually went to uh law school here at the SJ quiny College of Law here at Salt Lake
City at the University of Utah to study water law and so a water attorney um
it’s a great field if you are someone who’s intellectually curious who likes to solve hard problems being a water
attorney is a great position to do because we get to basically have our fingers in everything
interesting which I like so on a day-to-day basis you know our clients range from kind of independent water
users so I deal with individuals who are honestly just looking to drill a well on a property to we represent one of the
largest wholesalers of water in the state of Utah the uh Central Utah Water Conservancy district is a client of ours
obviously I’m speaking today on my own personal behalf and not any of my clients and you know we deal with trans
Bas and diversions from the Colorado River Basin into the Great Salt Lake we represent very large agricultural
interests so we deal with a lot with um more recently assisting with kind of a optimization projects having agriculture
become more efficient and then kind of unique to our practice and something that um I’m I’m very passionate about is
we’ve been working a lot with the state of Utah through various kind of contractor projects working on kind of
broader water policy and so we’ve got a really great Great Salt Lake integ integrated Basin plan plan that deals
with water policy for the Great Salt Lake coming out and just this week we released our website which is the
culmination of a three-year effort developing water marketing strategies for the state of Utah and so we really
have a very broad base of what we do I’m curious you went to law school knowing
you wanted to specialize in water was that a specialty in law school or did you have to create that after you
graduated so the University of Utah and the SJ quiny College of law have what’s
called an environmental certificate so typically a law degree is kind of a
general practice degree like you would have if you were kind of just like a general practitioner like a doctor and then you you know later people go on and
specialize in Orthopedics or whatever you know a law degree is kind of supposed to be a kind of a generalized
education and law and then once you move into practice you kind of specialize in tax or family or whatever the SJ quiny
College of Law is a little bit different in that they are one of the few institutions in the country that offer a
specialized environmental law certificate and so you kind of can take a a heavier case load in environmental
laws like the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act Natural Resource law mining law water law and so I received the
certificate through our law school program and then ended up specializing in water uh kind of in my practice as I
moved into actually practicing law and you are also a Professor is that what
you’re teaching your students I am I’m a busy Professor I have to tell you I kind of feel bad for my students this
semester but I actually love teaching and and water’s just like such a great
course to teach because it’s so visual you know we are on the state Engineers website every day looking at water
rights we did a fantastic field trip a couple weeks ago where we went and spent all day looking at one of our clients uh
irrigation canal company systems and they’re installing $ 17 million efficiency program to do automated Gates
and so it’s really a fun practical course to teach because you can go out and touch the things and see the maps
and talk to the people um instead of that like esoteric tax stuff or torz so
if we had a syllabus in front of us what would be some of the things on that so the course is kind of divided into two
halves um the first half is really kind of you know I do one day on uh riparian
rights which is uh the doctrine that’s primarily practiced on the east coast and I’m based in Utah and so you know
that’s not something I do on a day-to-day basis so it’s kind of more of just a overview of the general principles and then we really do spend a
good six weeks talking about the the components of the prior appropriation Doctrine and kind of how that developed
here in the west and we talk a lot about the history of the West and how you know water law in the west really is a
reflection of the westward migration of the conditions that people found It’s a
combination of you know how do we resolve conflict you know the you know the prior part of the prior
appropriation you know we talk about first in time first and right you know that was a way to resolve conflict on
little tiny streams between minors you know if you had a you know a minor come out you know first you know you had to
figure out a way for them to claim their water so that they could defend against you know later comers in the Stream we
also talk a lot about the migration of Western settlement you know the wagon trains that came out and how those ended
up developing into you know communal water companies and how they shared water amongst all the settlers and so we
really do kind of take like a very historical basis because at the end of the day you know the doctrine of Prior
appropriation is built around this concept of beneficial use you know water rights are designed to fulfill a very
specific use at a very specific place for a very specific stream and you know once you kind of understand that you
know then you can kind of see how the doctrine was built but more importantly how it was built in a way that is
flexible to adapt and amend to kind of today’s conditions um you know water law
gets kind of this bad wrap of being this Antiquated hard to work in thing but in
all actuality it’s very straightforward I mean it is a prospective way to
resolve shortage and once you know that then you can contract with people about different Arrangements you know the
value of water rights you know what’s going to happen you know it really adds certainty to the discussion so you can
kind of create some creative ways to deal with some of the issues that we’re dealing with today that they never would
have thought of 150 years ago so this podcast serves the industrial Water Treatment Community how are you working
with them in your day-to-day so we do represent several municipalities you know that have water
treatment facilities and so most of our work for them is kind of more in the the
terms of water rights portfolio management you know do you have the right amount of water rights uh you know
what from what sources are they coming from are they coming from ground are they coming from surface are they coming
from you know contracts with large wholesalers um and so that’s kind of one way we deal with them here in the state
of Utah we’ve had some very robust discussions about reuse recently and so
how how do we deal with kind of like reuse that’s something that we’ve been working with our clients a bit on but
also another aspect of water and especially from the policy perspective you know is revenue you know how do our
clients make money so that they can build another treatment plant or so that they can do a pipeline installation and
so you know I’m less involved in the dayto day of you know how a treatment
plant is built or operated but kind of more on the back end of what is the water going into the plant what is the
water coming out and then how do we make sure that that is a you know economically viable operation for one of
our clients we had somebody on the podcast not too terribly long ago and they were talking
about how we could just go out drill down so many feet and we can find water
but as we continue to pull water out of the ground it’s not always going to be
there so more and more facilities are trying to reuse as much water as they
can and eventually people are going to start drilling Wells and that water’s not going to be there I’m curious from a
law standpoint what do you think that landscape is going to look like I’m so glad you
mentioned that because as you said that I’m wondering what state your guest was
in uh because our our groundwater laws are very very different and actually you
know if you’re if your listeners are interested the New York Times is presently doing a very very good
interactive series of Stories on groundwater and the one that came out last week was just about the different
rules and laws that apply to groundwater water across the West because they are very different and so here in the state
of Utah we’ve regulated our ground water as early as 1936 so you know you had to
get a a you know if you wanted to drop a well you needed a permit from the state as early as 1936 to get groundwater and
you know and oftentimes earlier than that we recognize diligence claims for underground uses but in contrast you
know California didn’t adopt their sustainable groundwater management act until 2014 and didn’t really become
effective on the ground until 2016 so I mean that is you know almost a hundred years difference in groundwater law and
so realistically the ability to just drop a well and get more water is more
and more limited and physically the water is not there and then legally uh the challenges are you know it’s much
more of a heavily regulated space these days I’m sure there are some people listening and they get frightened when
they hear an attorney especially in the water sector so what’s a common
misconception that we can clear up about what you do yeah I can say this very
sincerely is that um you know I’m an advocate of this particular role um you
know I teach because I like being with the students you know I also really like being with kind of like upand cominging
Minds who want to be thinking about this stuff and and I can say this with a very much of a straight face is that the
water law bar here in the state of Utah you know I don’t work in many of States even though I do have a lot of
interactions with attorneys in other states is very different than other kinds of law you know whereas you might
have like a divorce litigation where it’s a some game you know one one person moves a check in one column to the other
column with water everyone loses or everybody wins you know like there really can’t be winners and losers in
water because that means that we have failed as a society to you know properly Steward to manage this resource that is
for everybody and so it’s an exceptionally collaborative area of law
you know we spend a lot of our time in working groups I mean just yesterday I was at the Utah water task force which
is a an an appointed body of 14 individuals who come from different stakeholder groups you know DEQ
Municipal providers you know water rights and then typically we have about a hundred people attend these meetings
that are just public members of the public or members of other groups and we literally sit together and vet ad
administrative rules as a group I mean like line by line it is very boring but
also thrilling at the same time and so um you know I think one of the misconceptions is when you put lawyer
next to anything is that it automatically indicates that something’s adversarial but with water at least here
in the state of Utah you know we really try to work together to find solutions
to make our very scarce resource go as far as it can with as little conflict as
possible because you know we’re all busy we all have limited resources and we
realize that we really got to spend our time doing things that are pragmatic and not you know fighting when we treat
water there’s always discharge there’s always runoff and we have to make sure
in some cases we have certain permits and things that we are familiar with in our world but I’m curious what are some
things maybe we need to get familiar with in the legal world that you’re familiar with
yeah and to be really fair my practice does less and less on the water quality
aspect so I do very few UT UDP PDS permits I don’t do a lot of storm water permits I’m more on kind of the quantity
side you know the water right side the Water Management side but I do think that one thing that you know that’s come
up in our practice but honestly more of my conversations through the podcast my podcast tripple effect because I choose
people I think are interesting and I want to know what they have to say say is that you know really this concept of
kind of one water is really permeating everywhere you know how how do we really
you know make our infrastructure work for the best so that it’s really looking at like a circular water economy you
know we have discharge but is there a way that we can do Upstream infrastructure so that we have less
storm water at the end that I have I’ve seen a lot of conversations about that you know I had a a podcast interview
with gentleman named Kevin Mercer who does rain barrel not exactly remembering the name of his entity but basically
it’s you know onsite distribution of water for storm that basically does like you know rain barrel to you know little
tiny shallow well to puts put the water back into the system at its local Point instead of having to run into the gutter
and then run into a storm water system and so I am seeing a lot of movement of kind of this distributed infrastructure
concept of you know how do we take small bites everywhere to make sure that you know the water that actually goes
through our treatment systems is one you know not as contaminated as it possibly
could be and two you know not overwhelming the system because you know we are seeing these disruptive events
where you know instead of the slow spring trickle we’re getting the huge spring delu and the huge fall delu and
so you know our built concrete gray infastructure is is not always built to accommodate those kind of new conditions
there’s a show on the Discovery Channel and its name is escaping me right now but it’s the gold miners up in Alaska
and and and they’re they’re taking water from the river and of course they’re using the water to wash all the rock and
all the dirt to find the gold and then they’re putting that water back into whatever source that it is and I think
there is a settling Pond but when I watch that I think of all the things they should be doing as an industrial
water treater to make sure that safe Downstream as an attorney what do you think of when you see something like
that I hope they have their permitting an order um yeah I see something like that
I mean a mining operation in Alaska like that that that’s a pretty heavy intensive use of the resource so imagine
you know they’d have to be working with the forest service or you know whomever their permitting entity is to make sure they’re not you know releasing too much
muck into the river to make it turbid and you know those are some pretty you know some pretty heavily regulated
activities who knows what actually happens on the TV show but it should be heavily regulated more when I kind of
see things like that I think maybe a more accessible you know uh example that
I’m thinking of is that you know just here in a city you have places and your
listeners probably really you know relate to this you know you know you have different kinds of contributors to
a municipal treatment system you know you’ve got regular homes I’ve got like pretty regular use but then you have you
know industry like a brewery that has like a really you know High total dissolve solid or you know they’ve got
really kind of a larger impact on you know water treatment and so one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had
in the last couple years on the podcast that that I host is one with a aquacycle
where they do these really cool kind of onsite TurnKey pre-treatment systems and
so you could like if you were a brewery or some other you know you know if you’re like a paper mill I don’t I mean that seems very large I don’t know EX
exactly what extent they could have but if you had an entity that really did um had a higher percentage of treatment
needs you could do an on-site kind of pre-treatment so-called you know rinse quote unquote before the water actually
got released to you know the regular Municipal system and so I think that you know there’s all these kind of cool ways
that we can you know integrate these systems to be a little bit more flexible and resilient to kind of what our actual
needs are and you know this one- siiz fits-all system I think is probably going to be kind of a model of the past
and I think the future is gon to look really different we have several guests on this show and we talk about how we
can maximize the water in our customer locations nanofiltration ultra filtration reverse osmosis but we’ve
never had that discussion around law and what that landscape looks like can you help us out with that yeah I think it
really depends on where your listeners are so in the east coast while there is
you know you know definitely drought in East Coast now I mean I just read an article this morning about you know
fires in Appalachia you know we’ve got the Mississippi River with the you know encroaching salt plume because of
drought in the Mississippi I mean drought really is a thing in the East but typically you know eastern and
western water issues are a little bit different you know and so in the east coast you know I don’t really work there
so I can’t really speak to you know water supply but I think here in the west you know the water right side of
things is that you know we are in an acute crisis when it comes to water
right now you know Arizona Utah parts of Colorado you know Nevada we really do
not have very much water and we have absolutely ballooning populations and
ballooning needs you know one of the things that I think is really interesting here is that we in the state
of Utah have had several requests for data centers you know very large data
centers because we have a lot of public land that’s closely located to Big transmission lines which is kind of one
of the big components but one data center that uses water is the equivalent of 10,000 homes and so we’re really
having to think about how do we distribute our water amongst a wide variety of different users and so from
the treatment side I think as we grow one of the questions is is where are we
getting this water to support our new growth and so I think that you know one
of the things that you know I’m not an industrial water worker so I’m not in the day-to-day of it but you know that
water is going to come from your local municipality and so your local municipality I foresee is going to be
looking at a lot of more programs to reduce their Municipal footprint I foree
a lot more like rip your strip you know Zer escaping water-wise Landscaping activities happening which means less
water going into systems too you know if that water has to get you know spread out amongst more systems um you know
there’s going to be a lot more Regional trading I see of water you know between um you know systems that can manage it
differently we already see that here in Utah I mean we are a I think the general
public turns on their tap but may not have a comprehensive understanding of the fact that most of the water we use
on the wasach front is Colorado River Basin water I mean we take it all the way across the state through large pipes
and reservoirs and so as the West really grows um we’re going to be looking to
one manage our source is better but two much more creative water sharing and
much more kind of like creative water sources quote unquote through conservation and reuse and other kind of
new activities would your advice be that the East watch the West because it’s
coming to a neighborhood by them soon uh I think we should all be watching each other because I do think there are
interesting Innovations about you know how the East is doing some of their um we typically in the west haven’t had to
deal with these large flooding events in the past you know whereas you know in the west they have the um please excuse
my ignorance but the permits that allow you to uh kind of overflow during storm events I forgot what those are the you
guys are more used to having kind of like big water events whereas we here in the west have you know traditionally had
some monsoonal events but with climate change we’re seeing really big swings in when and how we get our water and so I
think there’s things that we can kind of learn from each other as we’re both adapting to change conditions I mean nothing’s going to look the same
regardless of where you live tell us about the Utah water banking project yes
I’m very excited about this one so the Utah water banking project should really be called the Utah Statewide water
marketing strategies project but this is actually the culmination of really a
fiveyear effort so I mentioned earlier you know here in Utah we are very into
collaborative processes and so in about 2016 2017 the state of Utah invest in
several large scale reports to kind of say hey what is happening with our law
what is happening with our needs what what are some things that we can do to be a little more flexible in our water
you know how can we amend the prior appropriation Doctrine to kind of meet real needs and one of the things that we
hit upon was this concept of water banking quote unquote and what that means was a
mystery and so we spent kind of the 2017 through the 2020 process studying water
banking projects across the west and also in the state of Utah and really what that ended up meaning was water
leasing how are people putting Surplus water out into the market in a way that
those who want water can take advantage of it and it actually results in a wet water transfer from point A to point B
and so we created in 2020 the Utah water Banking Act which basically focused on
three key principles you know temporary leasing local we really wanted this to
something that local people did it wasn’t going to be a state down you know top- down program this is something that
if you wanted to do it you could do it and then um voluntary this is just a totally voluntary program and
essentially what we did is we created a way for certain leasing arrangements to
apply to the Utah Board of Water Resources to be approved as a Utah water
bank and then if they approved as a Utah water Bank bank they were extended certain benefits under the law like
their water rights got protected from forfeiture they were able to be used for instream flow purposes which at the time
in 2020 was pretty novel we we’ve changed the law since then and then also kind of um some streamlined
administrative processes and so that law was put into place in 20120 and then we
got about $800,000 in funding from the federal government and the Utah state
government to do pilot projects across the state of Utah and so what we did is we did three pilot projects and then
actually ultimately ended up doing a fourth pilot project at the end kind of testing the water Banking Act but more
broadly learning like what does it mean to do water marketing like when you say that out loud like what does that mean
and how can we help water users kind of better organize their thinking about
that process and so what the actual deliverable of this of this effort is is
a Statewide water marketing strategy report and we’ve got a great website you
can go to water. utah.gov fatwater marketing and what we’ve done
is based on our conversations with the pilot project participants we’ve organized kind of the process to
organize a water lease into kind of five key milestones and those five key Milestones
are people you know do you have the right people in the room markets do you have the right balance of supply and
demand and then Logistics can you physically and legally move the water where you want and then once you’ve kind
of decided those three things you can kind of move on to you know designing a transaction you know what are the
pricing elements how are we going to coordinate who’s going to watch it and monitor it and then our fifth Milestone
is approval seeking various approvals from the agencies that you need and so really the Statewide water marketing
strategies you know information is that we’ve got a whole bunch of videos that kind of like unpack each one of those
milestones and we’ve got interactive tools like we’ve got a series of kind of Choose Your Own Adventure questions that
walk participants through each of the Milestones that talk about really nitty-gritty things that we heard our
pilot participants ask you know like oh is there a storage unit in our area
where people are storing water in the late season that they may not need that people in the local area could
potentially lease or is there enough Telemetry in our local area to actually
physically distribute a water you know distribute a water lease and so you know the goal here of this project is to
really put a bunch of information out there in the public and then hopefully they’ll pick it up and kind of create
little water Banks or water leasing Arrangements that are really well suited and tailored to their local needs do you
see other municipalities outside the state of Utah using this project as a model I hope so I mean we really learned
a lot from our sister states too so I think that you know we’re not alone in exploring these topics for example the
state of Utah has a actually a pretty similar water banking program it’s a little different in that their um State
Department of ecology holds the water rights and trust but they have you know some really cool water markets that have
popped up as well the state of Idaho they have both local rental pools and a state Room pool and so I think you know
what we’re doing is very on Pace with what some of the other states are doing
but this is just maybe a little bit more water user Centric and that’s kind of
what we found is that some of the other programs in other states weren’t being utilized to their fullest because it was
too top down and so this was really trying to kind of model it on you know private irrigation company principles
that we apply here in the state and so we’re hoping that this maybe is the magic solution to kind of getting more
water marketing going is that we really are focusing like at the very very local level why should everybody have their
eyes on the Great Great Salt Lake right now the Great Salt Lake is fascinating so for those folks who are not you know
familiar with the Great Salt Lake it has received a lot of international press in the last couple years but just to kind
of paint a big 10,000 foot picture the Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake so
there is no outflow And So It basically receives all the water from several tributaries along the wasach front and
it is quite salty it is I think 12 times saltier than the sea in the lower half and even and 30 times saltier in the top
half the lake is actually cut in half by a Causeway so it’s actually two separate and distinct ecosystems but the lake is
of hemispheric importance it is an international Flyway for Birds you know
if you like to come to Utah and ski that beautiful Utah snow is is all lake
effect snow you know the storms from the Pacific come in they get stuck on the wasat pull up all that water and then
they drop it in snow which is super fun I’m a big skier um but then it’s also
90% of the water supply and so you know the lake in the last couple years due to a combination
of the of climate change and drought and and hot conditions it’s also a shallow
lake so you know it has very high evaporative conditions and also you know human diversions there’s a lot of us
here who are using the same water has basically declined to its lowest levels ever and so that is really really
a big problem because we are reaching such critical salinity levels in the
South Arm of the lake that there are some threats about the kind of indicator species the brine flies the the
microbialites that live on the lake you know being too salty for them to live and so when those keystone species you
know cease to thrive everything above them does as well and so we are
exceptionally fortunate in that we had one of the largest recorded water years ever in the 2022 2023 winter and so we
got a little bit of breathing room but um there is a very real and very accute need to actively and proactively you
know manage the Great Salt Lake to increase those lake levels what’s being done to increase lake levels so I think
that the Great Salt Lake is not only important to watch because it’s it’s a critical ecosystem to watch in the west
but also you know Paul Krugman had a really good article in the New York Times oh about a year year and a half
ago where he really said this is the canary in the coal mine for climate change he’s like this is really the case
test of whether we can get it together as a society to solve hard problems together because it really is a wicked
problem and we have 10,000 water users who take water from the tributaries to the lake you know getting all those
people coordinated to bring water to the lake is going to be exceptionally difficult and so one of the things I
think is really important for you know Watchers of of the Great Salt Lake to realize is that you know in the last
four or five years the state of Utah has made light years worth of work in
modernizing their water law to figure out ways and tools to get water to the lake and it’s taken a couple years to
get that in place but we are on the precipice of really having a lot of exciting things happen for example one
of the things that we did is because the prior appropriation Doctrine was built
to accommodate you know 19th century agrarian Utah letting the water sit in the Great Salt Lake was never considered
a beneficial use and so now we’ve amended our laws to allow for instream flows for water to go to the lake and be
used for those purposes however just stating in the law that water can be used for that purpose doesn’t physically
get it there so we’ve also made a whole Suite of laws and changes to update our
Distribution Systems you know how you know not meant monitoring measuring so that if you wanted to bring water to the
lake you actually know it gets there the other thing we’ve done is the state has pumped you know hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of millions of dollars into AG efficiency projects and so we you
know here in Utah 70% of our water is used by Agriculture and so we are working hand inand with our agricultural
Partners to try and figure out ways to you know make those operations as efficient as possible because we really
want to also keep our agricultural community you know the solution is not to dry up a the solution is to work with
a the other thing we’ve been doing is we’ve been passing you know tons of laws
about land use and water integration you know you know municipalities having you know much stricter laws on water-wise
conservation really kind of trying to move the needle on the municipal component and so you know we have a long
ways to go like don’t get me wrong but I would really like the public to understand that you know we have really
heard the call and I do think the water user community and the water policy Community is has really stepped up to
the plate to make big changes and we’re about to you know the last couple years has been you know building the bus and I
think in 2024 we’re really going to start driving the bus and I it’s just it’s just a really exciting time to kind
of see what happens as new policy is written how does our industrial water
treatment team work with your legal team to make sure we’re getting the best policy out there that is a really good
question because the way I like to describe water to people is that it’s kind of like a sweater where you pull
one thread and something else happens over here and so for example I have Weezer in my head now thank you for that
I know that’s okay everyone should go home with Weezer you know why not it’s fun happy
buddy holidays so a good example for industrial water users is that you know
the Great Salt Lake is actually a really big beneficiary of effluent you know and
so like for example the Jordan River that is one of the main tributaries to
the Great Salt Lake in August something like 30 to 50% of its flow is from
publicly operated water treatment plants and so you know it’s been really interesting because on the one hand
we’ve been having really interesting discussions about reuse and trying to make our water go further but on the
other hand the more we reuse water the less water gets back into the natur system and so it’s been this really
interesting kind of trying to find the balance of you know where is striking the right cord with encouraging reuse
because we need our sources to go further but yet making sure enough wet water flows into the system so this do
not further degradate the Great Salt Lake it’s it’s complicated there’s a lot of countervailing positions to be had
with all the things that you’ve been talking about that you’ve been doing over the last few years what are some of
the takeaways that you have I think the takeaway that I really think is important to kind of get across is
that the reality is here in the west especially in Utah we are going to ask
the public to do a lot of really hard things because these things are hard there’s just no way around it water is
complicated it’s nuanced it takes a lot of expertise it takes a lot of care and
I think that it’s for us to actually be successful you know we also need public
buyin on it and so I think that one of the things I really love you know the conversation to kind of move towards is
that recognizing that this collaborative ecosystem that we’ve built around water
here in Utah is really working and it has been working for a long time and we
have very big challenges which make it seem like it may not be working but the
reality is is that we are so much stronger when we work together on these problems and what I really fear is that
you know we’re going to start pointing fingers and when we start pointing fingers all of our resources get you
know dragged into litigation dragged into fighting where the reality is is that you know we all have to win and so
I just think the biggest takeaway of the last couple years is one I think we’ve been very successful on this front of
working together to modernize our water law but two just trying to increase the
level of water education includ increase the level of water fluency in the general public and also kind of just you
know like a little bit of expectation management and also a little bit of excitement and kind of Celebration like
we’re in hard times but we’re also doing hard things and sometimes you kind of have to stop and take a bigger picture
because if you don’t do that you’re just going to get bogged down and being negative and the reality is is that we
just don’t have time to do that you know we really need to kind of like put our heads down and get to work and honestly
be kind of happy Warriors so that would be my my takeaway is that I think we’re doing a good job and there’s a lot of
opportunity to do even better and I hope that everyone kind of joins us on that journey I love what you said earlier
about that and water we either all win or we all lose well speaking of winning
I know you’re going to do very well with our lightning round questions so are you ready to segue over to those I am ready
all right so if you had the ability to go back in time and talk to your former self on your first day as a water
attorney what advice would you give yourself I would give advice that a very good
friend of mine gave me about five or six years into my career and she said what we do is hard and you should remember
that and you should be okay with it because I think sometimes we lose track of the fact that what we do is difficult
and we signed up for difficult tasks and we when we don’t see immediate success that doesn’t mean we’re failing it just
means we’re doing the job what are the last few books that you’ve read oh my
gosh you guys are going to hate me when I I say this out loud I’m actually reread Gone With the Wind really yeah nobody assigned it to
you no I you know I read it in high school and I recently had a move and
there’s been this really interesting public conversation about books and what books we should B and what books we should keep and you know it was one of
these things where I was like this is kind of part of the American Canon it is sitting on my bookshelf I’m looking for
some light reading what does it look like to read this with an eyes of a new per you know as a 40-year-old woman
who’s you know different and and evolved and you know kind of watching how we think about literature and it’s been
really interesting I I’ve really enjoyed it and also really see why we have some interesting discussions about that book
you know interestingly I live in Atlanta we have the Margaret Mitchell house here it’s a really big deal here in Atlanta
yeah I uh that’s funny I didn’t actually quite realize you were in Atlanta so that’s even more fitting for you so
outside gone with wind if you were looking for a good water law book and there have been many many many great
water books that have come out in the last couple years uh I think a seminal book to read actually I’ve got two of
them two really seminal books to read would be um beyond the 100th Meridian by
Wallace stegner and I would consider it to be the professional biography of John
Wesley Powell and so John Wesley Powell is typically thought of as the you know
the the first person to conquer the Grand Canyon but you know he did that when he was 35 and 36 and he had a
professional career that spanned until his early 90s and he created multiple
you know offices of the Smithsonian he did all kinds of things but he was also kind of like the father of the public
land survey system and the Western Irrigation Survey System and he was just
so precient in understanding how our Water Resources would work into the
future and he actually recommended that our Western States be designed along Watershed lines and not these big boxy
States at the federal government was proposing and so you know he really foresaw what the impact would be of all
these homesteading acts happening and so it’s just is a is a fantastic and fascinating book and then I would say
the other side of the coin of that is also a Wallace stegner book but I would read the angle of repose because that is
more of a fiction book that it’s actually told from a women’s perspective but she’s the wife of an engineer and
they travel all through Silverton and boisee and they talk about water and the mining camp camps and they talk about water and the canal systems and boisey
as they’re getting developed and so it’s a really kind of good double feature about actually what was happening versus
you know a storyline to actually uh give you some perspective when Hollywood writes the script about your life who do
you want playing Emily oh God nobody that’s too that would be just a that
would be a difficult a difficult Jennifer Lawrence because she’s funny There You Go final question
if you had the ability to talk talk to anybody throughout history who would it be with and why if I had the ability to
talk to anybody throughout history who would it be with and why probably like
Georgio o’keef she’s really fascinating and has an interesting perspective she
went a walk she really thought about things I think she really saw the world in a way that really kind of captured
some of the mystery of the West and so I really would like to I think she’d be really fun to talk to well you were
really fun to talk to and I really appreciate you coming on the scaling up H2O podcast I just can’t help but say
that water touches every single industry every single job and I bet people didn’t
think they were going to tune in today and hear from an attorney but we learned so much because of that so thank you for
coming on the scaling up H2O podcast yeah I’m happy to be here and if you guys want to learn more about Western
water law not to do a plug selfishly but you know we do the ripple effect podcast specifically just to kind of put cool
stories out about Western water because there’s a lot happening out here and it’s it’s kind of fun to watch it all
progress we will make sure to link that to our show notes page and I’m sure just
like the scaling up H2O podcast you can find the ripple effect anywhere you find
podcasts scaling up Nation one of the best things about my job is meeting all
the people that touch the industrial water treatment industry and who would
ever think when I started this show s years ago that we would have an attorney
on the show that just specializes in water law I think that’s cool that’s a
career that I never would have thought about and not only did we meet somebody
we learned so much by talking with Emily Emily thank you for coming on the show
and as she mentioned she does have a podcast so after you listen to to the scaling up H2O podcast you can go over
on your favorite podcast player and look for the ripple effect and you can learn
all things Emily and what she talks about in her podcast we met Emily
through somebody that listens through this show nation that is how we find our
next guest so I appreciate all the things that people send to us as far as
ideas and people to interview if you’ve got an idea please go to scaling up h2o.com
and then navigate over to our ideas page and that will help us keep many episodes
to come into the future I mentioned last week we’re going to hit episode 400 by
the end of the year and I can’t tell you how mindblowing that is because I
remember sitting at this very desk with another microphone and Antiquated
equipment I’ve got really cool equipment now but with that I remember remember not knowing anything about a podcast I
remember recording actually it wasn’t even a microphone now that I think about it it was on my Blue Tooth headset and
that was episode one and if episode one is not motivation that you get better
the more you practice I don’t know what is but I made it through episode one
apple for some reason accepted my podcast and I then had a podcast in
April of 2017 that was episode 1 we’re now on episode
347 and I didn’t even know what a podcast was 3 years prior to recording
that first episode so to think about all the things I’ve learned through other
people’s podcasts and then all the things I’ve learned through my own podcast and all the people that I’ve met
from the scaling up H2O podcast it has just been an incredible journey and I
don’t want it to stop so you can help me make sure it does not stop by going to
the scaling up h2o.com web page and letting us know what you think our next
show should be Nation I really appreciate you listening to this show
and I would even appreciate it more if you tune in next week where we’re going to have a brand new episode for you of
course we do that each and every Friday so until then have a great week
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technologist examination do you wish you just had a little bit of extra help to
build your confidence so you can sign up for the exam well Nation I’ve heard you
and I’ve got what you were asking for I work each one of the 75 mock questions
that you receive when you sign up to take your your certified water technologist designation I share with
you the logic behind how I get to certain answers and I show you how to set up each math equation go to scaling
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