212: Groundwater Management in the San Luis Valley

Amber Pacheco, Deputy General Manager for the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, joins us for a very special Ripple Effect episode to discuss the development of groundwater sub-districts to manage groundwater in the San Luis Valley. This discussion is being recorded ahead of the American Groundwater Trust's Rocky Mountain Conference in Grand Junction, Colorado. Amber does an excellent job of describing how the San Luis Valley developed a unique and local approach to managing groundwater overdrafts. By dividing the Valley into sub-districts reflecting shared local conditions, each sub-district created a unique governance structure using a mix of market incentives, water augmentation, and water allocation tools to keep groundwater withdrawals at sustainable levels. Amber and her team have undertaken an immense amount of work and it is exciting to see how the project is working.