Water Talk
Water Talk is a national podcast about all things Water hosted by Drs. Mallika Nocco (University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension), Faith Kearns (Arizona State University), and Sam Sandoval (University of California, Davis; University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources)
Water Talk
Ep 70: Season 6 Teaser
Welcome to the sixth season of Water Talk! Cohosts Drs. Mallika Nocco, Faith Kearns, and Sam Sandoval talk about the new normal, our favorite bodies of water, all-time favorite episodes, and upcoming season. Released September 19, 2025
Welcome to Water Talk. We are getting ready and getting geared up for season six of our podcast. I can't believe that that much time has gone by, and it actually feels like many years have gone by since we recorded our last episode, even though it was not even a year ago. So much has happened, I think, in our world, and especially those of us who are in science or studying water. Faith, Sam, how how are you doing?
Sam Sandoval:Doing well, you know, ups and downs, something that I think that we've been adjusting to according to the situations. It hasn't been been easy being a scientist. But at the same time, I think it's it's part of of life. We have to adjust. I think we're adjusting. And I am really looking looking forward to have the gang, both of you, Faith, Mallika, having our conversations. And really looking forward for this season six. We have some surprises there. What about you, Faith?
Faith Kearns:I'm doing pretty well. I would say, you know, it's the beginning of September, and so we're reaching the end of our hot season here in the Arizona desert, and it's kind of an opposite seasonal affective disorder. You get a little bit depressed in the summer in Arizona, and so it feels like a relief that it's starting to cool off a little bit, and we're still in our monsoon season, and I can take my dog out for walks again in the mornings. And so that's the upside. And I would say probably like Sam and Mallika are feeling. It's been a really challenging time. I think maybe we did our last episode actually earlier just this year, right? Maybe six, seven, eight months ago. So a lot has changed just since the beginning of this year, especially for scientists and the science community, the kind of work that we do. And so I would say, like everybody else, I'm feeling a lot of uncertainty. I have many, many, many friends and colleagues who are out of work at the moment. And it's really interesting because a lot of people don't seem to realize how much what's going on in the country has really affected universities and the scientific endeavor. I really am surprised when I talk to people who have no idea that like half of my friends are out of work, right? So it's a really, really interesting time. And my own project ends in a year, so I'm also feeling the uncertainty and also just the differential way in which that uncertainty gets spread out depending on people's permanency of their position. So I would say, you know, we're still gonna talk about water, but also probably have to talk a little bit about the context in which we're we're all working. So some good, some bad. How about you, Mallika?
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, I think what the way that you're both discussing it makes sense to me. And we had a conversation of how do we not talk about some of this stuff that's happening right now when even looking back at our other seasons, so many of the people we've talked to on the show have had their jobs impacted or have had their work impacted by everything that's going on and the loss of funding and support for science. So I don't think it's something that we can ignore. And I'm glad that we are addressing it. And, you know, even thinking about how we have talked a lot about being different kinds of people who study water and having different experiences and different perspectives as we consider water. And now, more than ever, it feels like those different types of backgrounds and perspectives and experiences are also very much what's the word? I don't even know. Like just very, very much threatened or scared to exist both as just a human and as a human that's studying water.
Mallika Nocco:So taking that into account, we're also just really excited about our national scope. And we love that we have so many listeners who are in the water world and you know are water insiders and have a lot of kind of existing knowledge about water that you you all are bringing to the table. And we love hearing from you. But we also want to make Water Talk more accessible to new people, to water. So to new people to water, to young people, to people who are just kind of getting to know what water is about. So we're gonna change the structure a little bit of water talk to help provide context for what we're gonna talk about. So we came up with two new segments that we're gonna sandwich our interviews when we talk to people. So we're gonna have a primer that's just gonna help maybe if there's key terms that we want to think about or if there's kind of key geography that we want to talk through, we'll talk through that in our primer. And then the other section, we called it the parting gift. And Faith came up with that term. Faith, you want to tell us what the parting gift is?
Faith Kearns:I think it was just a semi-clever way to try to give a too long didn't read at the end, or at least just kind of talk about our favorite parts of an interviewer what we learned, just so that people have a key takeaway in their mind when the episode is over.
Mallika Nocco:And we also want to just add a little bit more fun in these times to our episodes and just think a little bit about the things that we love about water. So, in that spirit, we thought we would share some of our things that we love about water. So, Sam, what is your favorite body of water?
Sam Sandoval:You know, as I was coming here, I was thinking of it. Ah, definitely the Rio Grande, Rio Bravo, and that will be in the Big Bend National Park, Madera del Carmen, and I mean just seeing this river passing through different canyons, and I don't know, perhaps it also has some of the what it can represent. I can identify myself having this dual identity with one name in Spanish, another one in English, shared, living these two lives. Anyway, so yeah, definitely the Rio Grande, Rio Bravo at the Big Ben National Park. Fade, what about you?
Faith Kearns:Yeah, so I have so many different water bodies that I love, and the second you ask that question, I just imagine myself swimming in lots of different amazing places that I've been. But one of my favorites is here in my own backyard in Arizona. It's called the West Fork of Clear Creek, and it eventually empties into the Verde and ends up in Phoenix. But up here in northern Arizona, it's the most beautiful box canyon with a bunch of really beautiful sandstone formations and area called the Hanging Garden where a bunch of ferns grow out of the side of this box canyon and you can swim under them. So I just feel really lucky to have such a thing in my neighborhood. How about you, Mallika?
Mallika Nocco:Yes. So I was thinking about this, and I guess I was just thinking about like when I experienced the most joy around water. And I experienced the most joy on a lake in northern Wisconsin in Oneida County called Lake Minacua. And it's a freshwater, natural drainage lake. And it is this, it's a part of this chain of lakes, and that's what I really like about it is you know, every summer for a day, we just get a pontoon and we kind of tool around on this chain of lakes, and there's so many birds. I always count how many eagles I see, and I always see, I don't know, at least five eagles. Sometimes we've seen them hunt, which is really interesting and fun. And it's the waters are really clear, they're pervivorous swimming in the summer, and it's usually just one of the best days of the year is the day that I spend on that lake or that chain of lakes.
Faith Kearns:Lovely.
Sam Sandoval:Hey, Mallika, one thing, just going back to some of my initial comment that this was our well, we're gonna start in our sixth year, fifth anniversary. Fun fact that was December last year. I was on a concert of one of my favorite rock bands, Cafeta Coup, and they were celebrating their 35th anniversary. And I remember this band, our own band, Faith, Mallika and I, uh on Water Talk. And we were discussing about some of our favorite episodes or some of our moments that we think were fun. I always keep thinking, I think the one that I've listened the most is the one with Felicia Marcus, Water Diplomacy and Dialogue. And I think it really comes back to the moment that we are passing. She talks about having these conversations at dinner when people you may not agree a hundred percent of what it is said, but at the end you are still family and you keep going. So I don't know. I have many, many, many episodes. We were discussing about some of those when we were preparing for this one. And we decided to only choose one, which for me actually that was quite difficult. I'm not sure Faith, Mallika have you thought about so by the way, this is episode twenty-six, water diplomacy and dialogue with Felicia Marcus. I'm not sure if Mallika or Faith you have any episode that you always come back or that that you want to bring in our fifth anniversary.
Mallika Nocco:So Sam, sorry, I was the one when we talked who said I was gonna be such a stickler about only picking one, and I picked two. Just because I feel like there's two phases of the show. So I had a hard time really just focusing on one. Because I think for me in the first phase when we were focusing primarily on California, and we were in like deep pandemic as well. One of my favorites was California Peaches and Water. When we talked to Mas Masumoto about peaches and then just his approaches for farming in the Central Valley, that one really sticks with me. I just loved speaking with him. In my line of work, I feel like I've had the pleasure of talking with some of the most interesting and amazing farmers in the country. And he is definitely one of them. And he's also somebody that I think touches a lot of people. So, like, I'll just be making my way through my life and I'll see like cultural references to the Masumoto peach farm in just the most interesting and uh places. Like I was reading just a novel called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It's about like video gamers. And just at some point, there's this reference to the Masumoto peaches in that book. And I was like, oh my goodness, I know all about these peaches. So yeah, I just there's so many touches to that farm and to those peaches that that is one of my favorite episodes.
Mallika Nocco:And the other one is kind of in the n newer phase for us that I was thinking about. And I really, really loved talking with the law professor Oday Salim, who we talked with last season about the Great Lakes compact. I've been just really wanting to learn more and more about the Great Lakes. And I'm just, you know, so awed by them being back here. And I think it's one of those things where I had to leave and come back because I grew up so close to them that I don't think I understood how special they were until I moved away. And now coming back, I'm kind of re-engaged and thinking about how special they are. And to hear just more about their governance of those, you know, transboundary waters was really, really interesting to me.
Sam Sandoval:And just for the reference of the listeners, so the Peaches and California Peaches and Water, episode 14, and then episode 58, Great Lakes Compact. Faith, what about you?
Faith Kearns:Yeah, I mean, like you all, this is definitely a struggle in terms of there have been so many great guests and so many great episodes, and we have gone through a lot of changes just because we started as this pandemic project, right? And have ended up where we where we are now. But I think I would go back to our second season talking with Cutcha Risling Baldy from Humboldt State, which is now I think I can't remember what the new name for Humboldt State is, but yeah, it's Cal Poly, yeah. Um, and the thing that I loved about talking with Cutcha was something that I think is super helpful right now, which was that, you know, she was talking about land back, the movement and the attached water back movement in terms of thinking about Indigenous peoples getting their land back. And so she was, it was really interesting how hopeful she was and how she kind of started that episode out by saying something along the lines of, you know, surprising things can happen, right? Magical things can happen. And so, you know, we're just as likely to see good things happen as bad things happen. And I think, at least for me right now, that's a super helpful message to hear from somebody whose background is one of, you know, dispossession and really challenging times to sort of say there's always a possibility of something new and interesting happening. And so I think the conversation that we had with her was just really of this time. And, you know, there's been a lot around the taking down of Klamath dams, which we talked with Cutcha about that's now complete, which is really interesting to think about, sort of just a few years later. And then the other thing I really appreciated, right, is Chutcha, um, we were talking a little bit about uh her friend and our colleague, uh, Melanie Yazzie, and she was talking about how radical Melanie is and how that keeps her um sort of uh, you know, thinking about where her positionality is in terms of how she thinks about futures and that kind of thing. And so I really appreciated also just the ability to talk with somebody about the you know different and nuanced um perspectives among many Indigenous people. So I think that was a great episode. And I'm gonna sorry, take one from Mallika's book and say that I also really loved our episode 64 from season five with Sunaura Taylor, who was talking about this idea of disabled groundwater. She wrote a book about some groundwater contamination in the Tucson, Arizona area. And it was just such an interesting and different perspective on groundwater, uh, just one that that people would be really unlikely to hear from anybody else. And so I really, really recommend that episode as well. And I do feel like we should give Sam a chance to pick one from our new season, should he choose.
Sam Sandoval:Oh, yeah. And of the decolonizing water is episode 19 and 20, the the episodes that Faith were were discussing. And yes, I'm gonna pick another one.
Mallika Nocco:Oh Sam, before you do, I just wanted to say I I looked it up while you were talking, Faith, it's Cal Poly Humboldt.
Faith Kearns:I knew there was an extra word there. Thank you.
Sam Sandoval:So you know the the other one that I think all the episodes that you're mentioning surprised me in different ways. This one surprised me, I don't know, something that I haven't thought of myself. Episode 59 uh with Juliet Christian Smith. Science and Civic Engagement. That one was an interesting conversation about the role of scientists and how with or without wanting us, we have a specific positionality in our world. I think that was that was a good conversation. Uh as you are mentioning, we have interviewed amazing guests. This one I know that she was an amazing scientist. The conversation when it starts going on to that direction on our positionality as scientists, how the things that we are doing affect our society, what what is our role in society? I think that that conversation really surprised me and something that I never thought. I learned from that conversation. And perhaps, you know, for me, water talk and all our guests is one of the ways that I keep myself updated on real, local, tangible issues from our guests. And I hope our listeners also learn from this. This is one of the best ways for me to get myself up to date in different topics.
Mallika Nocco:Wonderful, Sam. Yeah, that was a that was also a fantastic episode. So I'm glad that we did relax the rule and have have you highlight that one. For our listeners, we are gonna also link to all of our selected favorites. And I don't want to say all of our favorites because it was even hard to pick two. But as I think to the season ahead, I think we have tried to, you know, find a lot of interesting stories, find a lot of timely stories, still find joy in in some of the darkness, and but also, you know, talk about some some emerging serious issues that we're seeing as well. So it's going to be kind of a mix of it all. And stay tuned for season six of Water Talk. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to the Water Talk Podcast. I'm Mallika Nocco, an assistant professor and state extension specialist in agricultural water management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Faith Kearns:I'm Faith Kearns, and I'm the Director of Research Communications with the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at Arizona State University.
Sam Sandoval:I'm Samuel Sandoval. I'm a professor at UC Davis and a Cooperative Extension Specialist in Water Resources Management at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. If you enjoy our show, please review, listen, like, and subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Please find transcripts and additional content at WatertalkPodcast.com. Original Music by Paloma Herrera Thomas.