Quickpost: Oily water governance (and lack thereof)

I'm not a huge Brooks fan, but this quote (and his column today) are quite appropriate both for the Gulf oil fiasco and for water governance in general (and certainly for local acequia vs centralized water management issues!): "The balance between federal oversight and local control is off-kilter. We have vested too much authority in national officials who are really smart, but who are really distant. We should be leaving more power with local officials, who may not be as expert, but who have the advantage of being there on the ground." And frankly, the same applies to "state experts" as well - even when earnest, there's only so much (or so little) folks in Santa Fe can actually do when it comes to water resource management (or lack thereof). Read the whole column by Brooks, focused on the bungled fed-BP clean-up coordination efforts, here.

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