Irrigation Leader Magazine

06/06/2026

The New Mexico edition of the June Irrigation Leader is here!

In our cover story this month, we interview Sara Fox, a senior water planner at the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission ’s Water Planning Bureau. The commission has been intimately involved in the state’s recent renovation of its regional water security planning, mandated by the 2023 Water Security Planning Act. Ms. Fox walks us through the many stages of public consultation, planning, and implementation that are involved in this important process.

https://bit.ly/43hQj6c

06/04/2026

The Nebraska edition of the June Irrigation Leader is here!

In our cover story this month, we speak with Jerda Garey Vickers, a Nebraska native who has been heavily involved in educational and civic efforts throughout her entire life. In recent years, she has become interested in telling the story of the generation that founded the Republican Valley Conservation Association, including her father, Don Thompson, and Harry Strunk, a local dynamo who ran the McCook Daily Gazette and managed to get President Harry Truman out of bed and on the phone when necessary. Readers will enjoy this story of fiery personalities, determination, hard work, and achievement.

https://bit.ly/43OfSMl

06/04/2026

The Montana edition of the June Irrigation Leader is here!

In our cover interview this month, Alex Ocañas, the manager of community conservation at the Bitterroot Water Partnership (BWP), explains that her organization relies on two main vectors of action: community engagement and restoration. BWP finds and activates community members who are interested in conservation; then, it moves toward immediate action to improve watershed health and water quality.

https://bit.ly/4vt5Qfx

06/03/2026

The Arizona edition of the June Irrigation Leader is here!

In our cover story this month, we speak with Elvy Barton, the senior manager of water and forest sustainability at the Salt River Project (SRP), about the utility’s major efforts to protect watersheds from the effects of wildfire through forest thinning projects, some of them supported by major companies as part of their water stewardship commitments. While these efforts help irrigators by protecting water supply at its origin, SRP’s community-based irrigation efficiency projects improve water use on the demand side, too. We learn more about both.

https://bit.ly/4uLRbMp

06/02/2026

06/02/2026

The June issue of Irrigation Leader is here!

In our cover story this month, we speak with Brad Wind, a longtime veteran of Colorado water utility Northern Water who today serves as its general manager. Northern Water operates the majority of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado–Big Thompson project, which brings an average of 215,000 acre-feet of water per year from the western side of the Continental Divide to its service area in north-central Colorado. To continue serving this growing region, Northern Water is working on two vast system improvement projects, the Windy Gap Firming Project and the Northern Integrated Supply Project, both of which involve significant water storage. Mr. Wind discusses the planning, ex*****on, and planned benefits of these impressive efforts.

https://bit.ly/4uVe9k8