0:00

Support for LAist comes from Apple

0:02

TV+, presenting Lessons in Chemistry, starring

0:04

Academy Award winner Brie Larson. Scientist

0:07

Elizabeth Zott accepts a job on

0:09

a TV cooking show and teaches

0:11

a nation of housewives more than

0:14

just recipes. Lessons in Chemistry is

0:16

a PGA, SAG, WGA, NAACP Image

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Award, four-time Critics' Choice nominee, and

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2024 DGA Award

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winner, hailed a triumph by decider.

0:26

Following this podcast, you can hear a

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conversation with actresses Brie Larson and Asia

0:30

Naomi King. More on Lessons

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in Chemistry at

0:34

fyc.appletvplus.com. On

0:39

Inheriting, Carol Park's mom was caught in

0:41

the middle of the LA uprising, and

0:43

she hid that experience. She said, we

0:45

don't need to talk about that. Until

0:47

decades later. Listen to Inheriting

0:49

from LAist Studios and the NPR Network,

0:51

wherever you get your podcasts. You're

0:55

listening to Imperfect Paradise, the show

0:57

about hidden worlds and messy realities.

1:00

I'm Antonia Sirejido. Today,

1:02

we are dropping a special treat. Our

1:04

correspondent, Emily Garin, with the lead reporter

1:06

on our series, The Gen Z Water

1:08

Dealmaker, was invited to participate

1:11

in a live conversation with Luke

1:13

Runyon, co-director of The Water Desk

1:15

at the University of Colorado Boulder's

1:17

Center for Environmental Journalism. He also

1:19

happened to be our editorial advisor

1:21

for this series. Luke

1:23

asks Emily about how she thought

1:25

through the series, which follows the

1:27

ongoing, epic negotiation over the future

1:29

of the Colorado River. Hi,

1:36

everyone. My name is

1:38

Luke Runyon, and I'm the co-director

1:40

of The Water Desk at the

1:42

University of Colorado Boulder's Center for

1:44

Environmental Journalism. For those

1:46

of you who don't know what

1:48

The Water Desk is, we support and

1:50

act as a resource for news organizations

1:53

and journalists throughout the West to better

1:55

cover water-related issues in

1:57

our region. Thank

2:00

you for being here We're

2:02

calling this webinar Reporters

2:05

notebook the making of

2:07

the Gen Z water dealmaker, which

2:09

is a podcast about the Colorado

2:12

River negotiations This is

2:14

the latest season of an ongoing

2:16

show called imperfect paradise from LA

2:18

s 89.3,

2:21

which is the NPR station for

2:23

the Greater Los Angeles area This

2:27

series is a deeply reported

2:29

narrative driven deep dive into

2:32

the ongoing policy negotiations over

2:34

the Colorado River It's

2:37

got a bit of intrigue and some drama

2:39

and a little bit of gossip, which is

2:41

how you know, it's a good show I'm

2:44

a total geek for Colorado River issues

2:46

and I found this show to be

2:48

a really refreshing take on how to

2:51

cover The

2:53

ongoing story of the Colorado River

2:55

and its management full

2:57

disclosure I did work as

2:59

an editorial advisor for

3:02

the series But I would be giving it high praise

3:04

even if I hadn't had that role

3:07

And I'm joined today by Emily

3:09

Garan who's a correspondent for LAS

3:11

studios and the NPR station for

3:14

Los Angeles 89.3.

3:16

She reported the series I Invited

3:19

her here to have a conversation about

3:21

how the series came together Her

3:24

process for turning it turning basically

3:27

a really wonky policy story into

3:29

something that's compelling to listen to

3:32

And chat a bit about what her takeaways were

3:35

in doing this deep dive over negotiations on

3:37

the river So Emily before

3:39

we jump into the conversation, I just wanted to

3:41

give you an opportunity to introduce yourself Yeah,

3:44

thank you so much for having me Luke.

3:46

My name is Emily I work for

3:49

the public radio station in LA LA ist

3:51

some of you may know it as KPCC

3:53

We changed our name recently. It's a little

3:55

confusing. So I now work in

3:57

the podcast studio I work on this show called

3:59

imperfect paradise But before that, I covered the environment

4:01

in the West for many years. I

4:03

wrote for High Country News. I covered oil

4:06

and gas in North Dakota. And

4:08

covering the environment was really sort of my first

4:10

love. And only recently have I left

4:13

that as a full-time beat and gotten more

4:15

into narrative journalism. So this was a fun way

4:17

to kind of combine the stuff I used to

4:19

report on with the sort of format that I

4:21

do now. And I'm looking forward to

4:23

talking about it. Great. Thanks, Emily.

4:25

And just to give you guys a bit

4:28

of a heads up on what the format

4:30

is today. So I have some questions for

4:32

Emily. We're going to listen

4:34

to some clips from the show during

4:36

our conversation. So

4:38

I wanted to start this

4:40

conversation just by asking about the

4:42

series. You know, like where did

4:44

this particular idea come

4:46

from? It seems like Imperfect Paradise has

4:49

a broad range of things that you

4:51

could be focusing on issues that are

4:53

relevant to Southern California. What was the

4:56

inspiration for wanting to tell this particular

4:58

story about the Colorado River and tell

5:00

it in this way? So

5:03

the format of Imperfect Paradise is

5:05

like one narrative story told over

5:07

three or four episodes. And

5:10

the stories usually have a strong central character

5:12

through which you can kind of learn about

5:14

a bigger issue. And I had

5:17

been feeling for a while like

5:19

I really wanted to. I kind of wanted to

5:21

challenge myself to go back to covering the things

5:23

I used to cover, aka the environment, but in

5:25

this sort of new way that I had now

5:28

gotten really into, which is to say this

5:30

long form narrative audio journalism. And

5:32

I wanted to do something kind of epic. And

5:34

I feel like water in the West is very

5:36

epic in this way that I don't know,

5:39

like their pollution kind of isn't. And

5:41

so I was searching for a water story.

5:43

And so I was interviewing all these people

5:46

like what's going on right now that's like

5:48

has really high stakes and like interesting characters.

5:50

And when I learned that the

5:52

way that the Colorado River is managed

5:54

is essentially these negotiations between the seven

5:56

states that use the water and they

5:58

each have a. negotiator, it just

6:01

sounded so kind of like West

6:03

Wing and almost like a

6:05

political drama, not an environmental story, and that

6:07

was really interesting to me. And

6:09

so I figured out who

6:11

was the lead negotiator for California, which is

6:14

this guy named JB Hamby. And

6:17

Luke actually connected me with him because

6:19

Luke has interviewed JB many times. And

6:22

I just called him and kind of told him what

6:24

I was interested in doing. And when you're doing a

6:26

narrative story, one of the first things you need to

6:28

establish is that you have a lot of access to

6:31

your main character. So you have

6:33

to know in advance they're gonna be down

6:35

to talk to you many times for many

6:37

hours, maybe introduce you to their mom or

6:39

their friends from college or their colleagues, you

6:42

know, show you around their hometown. And JB

6:44

Hamby was surprisingly down to do all these

6:46

things. And he was like, yeah, okay.

6:49

And I was like, really? Like no other questions? And he

6:51

was like, yeah. So he was very

6:53

open. And that surprised

6:55

me. And I thought that was, I mean,

6:57

that became sort of a question I had is

6:59

like, what is he getting out of this, you know? So yeah,

7:02

I kind of went from there, me contacting

7:04

JB and then pitching the story as sort

7:06

of a profile of him that illustrates the

7:09

stakes of the negotiations and just

7:11

the dynamics on the river, the

7:13

drama, the kind of personal, like

7:15

the alliances and the divisions as

7:17

told through this one very young

7:20

new negotiator. Were

7:22

you worried at all about, you

7:26

know, like turning this potentially

7:28

very wonky, you know, that's one of the

7:30

things that I've always taken away from covering

7:32

the Colorado River is that it can be

7:34

so easy to get down on the weeds

7:36

really fast. So, you

7:39

know, was it difficult to take something

7:41

that's inherently very kind of wonky

7:43

and down in the weeds and turn

7:45

it into something that's compelling and has

7:47

drama and snakes involved? One

7:51

of the first things JB said to me

7:53

in an early conversation when we were, when

7:55

I was just kind of telling him what

7:57

the idea was, was he started

7:59

talking about the river as having

8:01

different cliques and different factions and

8:03

he was describing the upper basin

8:06

as this clique and the lower

8:08

basin and what the personalities of

8:10

the different negotiators were like and when

8:12

he said that I was like oh so this is mean

8:14

girls you know like or this is like

8:16

the god father there's these families that are

8:18

sort of feuding and they had

8:21

these long-standing reputations that they all are

8:23

aware of like what does it mean to

8:25

be the negotiator from Colorado what does it

8:27

mean to be from Arizona and so they're

8:29

all kind of inhabiting these roles that they

8:32

inherited but they're also trying to make these

8:34

roles their own and then you know within

8:36

the states there's all these divisions so JB

8:38

was talking about sort of the boots in

8:40

the suits right like the cities versus the

8:42

farmers and I know that many other western states

8:44

have that as well including Colorado so it

8:47

just seemed like wow okay this is an environmental

8:49

story but it yeah it just was increasingly feeling

8:51

like a like a drama and that

8:54

you could tell it in this sort

8:56

of political gossipy way and so that

8:59

was what I wanted to do I kind of made

9:01

the choice early on to like not go to the

9:03

river actually and to try to have it be almost

9:06

as detached from the environment

9:08

as it could be because I think a

9:11

lot of the decision-making happens in these rooms

9:13

right like hotel rooms and conference rooms and

9:15

board rooms and at this conference in Las

9:17

Vegas and so I wanted to set it

9:19

there where the drama was happening and where

9:21

the people with the most power on the

9:23

river were kind of you know

9:25

posturing and hashing out their their

9:27

positions so that was the approach

9:31

yeah I try not to take it

9:33

too personally that you started with you

9:35

know nitpicking the reporters who all do

9:37

the very cliched

9:40

stand-up on the top of Hoover Dam

9:43

well I did it too Luke I mean that

9:45

was my own yes if you haven't

9:47

heard it I start the first episode with myself

9:49

walking back and forth on Hoover Dam like

9:52

talking into a microphone and describing the bathtub

9:54

ring like how low the water has dropped

9:56

and it was very easy to

9:58

find many other clips of other reporters who had

10:00

done the same thing. And it is kind of a

10:02

trope. And so I set that up

10:04

to sort of say, like, this is how I used to cover

10:06

this stuff. And I don't want to do it that

10:09

way anymore, because the bathtub

10:11

ring actually doesn't tell you that

10:13

much. I mean, it doesn't tell you that

10:15

it's a people story, that it's a crisis that people

10:17

created that people are trying to fix. And then in

10:19

fact, it's very juicy and

10:21

dramatic. It's just, you know, a physical

10:23

line on a wall that shows you

10:26

how far the water has dropped. So

10:28

yeah, that was the approach. And I told Luke

10:30

that I apologize in advance if he felt slighted

10:32

by my making fun of the bathtub ring, but

10:34

I did it too. So

10:38

why did you choose to focus on

10:40

J.B. Hamby? You know, he kind of

10:42

became your main protagonist, main

10:45

character for this whole series. And

10:47

obviously the series and the

10:50

whole story of the river is broader than just him.

10:52

You know, it's all of

10:54

these negotiators. And you talk to quite a

10:56

few in the course of doing

10:59

the series, you know, what's motivating them,

11:01

what's constraining them. But a

11:03

lot of this is through his eyes. So why

11:05

did you choose to focus on him? Well,

11:08

I think by the time I first talked to

11:10

him, which was last October, there had

11:12

been a couple of profiles of him,

11:14

I think, including one that you edited,

11:16

Luke. And so I

11:19

gathered that A, he was pretty

11:21

willing to talk to reporters. And

11:23

that B, he grew up in a farming

11:26

family in the Imperial Valley, which that area

11:28

is the biggest user of Colorado River water

11:30

in California, I think the single biggest user

11:32

on the river actually, Luke, you can fact

11:34

check me. Okay. Yes. And so he came

11:36

from this place that has

11:39

a lot of power on the river,

11:41

but kind of in California broadly is

11:43

considered like a pretty disadvantaged area. And

11:45

that seemed interesting to me that he

11:47

kind of came

11:49

from this world that had, you know, there

11:51

are just a lot of different ways of

11:53

viewing Imperial Valley and that but that he

11:55

had also gone to Stanford and he majored

11:57

in American history and was this like person

11:59

who would quote you 100-year-old documents from the

12:01

river. And so I felt like he really sort

12:04

of straddled these two worlds.

12:06

Like he could talk to environmental reporters

12:08

like me and talk about climate change.

12:10

And he could talk to students in

12:12

journalism school about the existential crisis that

12:15

we're facing on the river. And then

12:17

he could go back home and go to church

12:19

with farmers and talk to them about the very

12:22

strong emotional connection they have to the area and

12:25

to the water. And so that was

12:27

just fundamentally interesting to me, that he could

12:29

kind of navigate these worlds. And also that

12:31

he's so young. I mean, he's 28. He's

12:33

by far the youngest negotiator on the river,

12:35

by far the least experienced. And he's in

12:38

charge of the state with the most people

12:40

and the most money and the rights to

12:42

the largest amounts of water. So all

12:44

those things were pretty interesting. And like I said,

12:47

he was down to talk. And

12:50

did you have any clips of him that you wanted

12:52

to share? Yeah. So

12:54

this is a short clip from the podcast.

12:56

This is from, so I

12:58

spent a couple days in the

13:00

Imperial Valley with JB. And we drove

13:02

around and looked at all these sort

13:04

of water landmarks and then kind of

13:06

places that were important to him and

13:08

his life. I interviewed his mom. And

13:11

the next day we sat down at his office

13:13

at the Imperial Irrigation District where he's a board

13:15

member to do like a long interview. And so

13:17

he had just finished telling me about

13:19

how when he was a student at Stanford, he

13:22

had gotten to look at his admissions file. And

13:24

he had seen the notes that the admissions officers

13:26

had written in the margins of his application. And

13:29

one of them, when they saw he was from

13:31

Brawley, which is the town in Imperial Valley where

13:33

he's from, they had written like, oh, he's from

13:35

one of those zip codes. And JB knew what

13:37

they meant by that. You know, they were thinking

13:39

about the poverty rate, like

13:41

the low percentage of people from that area that get

13:43

a four year degree. The air

13:46

pollution in that area is pretty notorious. So he

13:48

knew that they had this idea that he was

13:50

from a disadvantaged community. And then I was just

13:52

sort of like developing this idea in my head,

13:54

yes, but the Imperial Valley has so much power

13:56

on the river. So this is me asking him about

13:58

that. Okay, I have a theory I'm going to do. I'm gonna try

14:00

it on you. You can tell me if this

14:02

is totally psychological bogus. But at

14:05

that point, like Stanford people were

14:08

like, he's from one of those zip codes. But

14:10

when it comes to the Colorado River, Imperial Valley

14:12

is not like one of those zip codes. It's

14:14

like the kingpin. Do

14:16

you know what I mean? Do you think that-

14:19

Water is king and here is its kingdom as

14:21

the early newspapers said about us. Well,

14:23

not even that, but like you guys are the kings. Do

14:26

you think that that like factored in at all to your

14:28

wanting to work on this? In the Colorado

14:31

River world, Imperial Valley is not like one

14:33

of those zip codes. It's like the

14:35

most important player. You

14:38

can view us as the small

14:40

rural isolated community with a lot of

14:42

limitations and so on. And we don't

14:44

make our way onto the map most

14:46

of the time. But on

14:49

the other hand, the Imperial

14:51

Valley has this massive importance

14:54

across seven states, two countries,

14:57

millions of people. And the future

14:59

of this massive region

15:01

of the American West and these

15:04

broader impacts across the country, all

15:07

from this little community here.

15:11

I think that tension was very interesting to me.

15:14

And it did make me wonder if that was

15:16

a reason he wanted to work on the river was

15:18

because, you know, because he told me stories

15:20

growing up. He did like mock

15:22

trial in high school and they'd go

15:24

travel to Santa Barbara or, you know,

15:27

Los Angeles and the judges would always be

15:30

very encouraging of them for being from the

15:32

Imperial Valley. But there was the sense of

15:34

like, oh, you're doing so great for given

15:36

where you're from. And I

15:39

think he felt that it's Stanford too. And so

15:41

I was interested in whether or not that motivated

15:43

him to wanna work somewhere where no one thought

15:46

of his hometown that way. So

15:48

he didn't always get personal when I asked

15:50

these questions, but I asked the questions regardless.

15:54

Coming up on Imperfect Paradise. I

15:57

think I decided to focus on

16:00

on the people with the

16:02

most power on the river. And I guess this is

16:04

also sort of revealing what I'm into as a

16:06

journalist. I'm really into investigative

16:08

reporting, where you look at kind of

16:11

the perpetrators of unjust systems

16:13

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16:15

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17:48

inheriting. Carol Park was 12

17:51

years old, working at her family's gas

17:53

station in Compton, California, when

17:55

a big moment in US history changed her

17:57

life. Korean businesses in South

17:59

Central. have been torched, dozens looted.

18:02

The 1992 LA Uprising. Why

18:05

would this happen? I didn't get to answer

18:07

that until I was an adult. Listen

18:09

to Inheriting from LA Studios and

18:11

BAN Per Network, wherever you

18:14

get your podcasts. This

18:19

is Imperfect Paradise, a special conversation

18:22

with correspondent Emily Garin and Luke

18:24

Runyon of The Water Desk at

18:26

the University of Colorado Boulder's Center

18:28

for Environmental Journalism about the making

18:30

of the series. Here's

18:32

Emily and Luke again. So

18:35

in doing a series like this, inevitably

18:37

you're going to be leaving things

18:39

out. Like you kind of have

18:41

to deliberately choose the people

18:44

that you want to talk to, the focus,

18:46

the framing of your story in order for

18:48

it to feel like something that people can

18:50

actually wrap their arms around. What

18:56

choices did you make along the way

18:58

about what storylines, what

19:00

narratives to leave out of this?

19:03

And why did you focus just

19:05

on these state level negotiators and

19:07

not get into tribal

19:09

issues or international issues with

19:12

Mexico? Like what was your

19:14

thinking behind that? Yeah,

19:16

I thought a lot about

19:18

that. And I think I decided

19:20

to focus on the people with

19:22

the most power on the river

19:25

because I think that, and

19:27

I guess this is also sort of revealing what I'm

19:29

into as a journalist. I'm really into investigative

19:32

reporting where you look at kind of

19:34

the perpetrators of unjust systems

19:36

and not just the victims of those

19:38

systems. And so I like

19:40

to try to get at why is the system the

19:43

way it is and who are the people with the

19:45

most power. And I really feel like if you like

19:47

understanding the people with the most power is a way

19:49

to hold them accountable. And also

19:51

just then you understand how the decisions

19:53

are made. And I think it's pretty

19:56

clear that the system of who has power on

19:59

the river is pretty. I mean it's the

20:01

seven states, it's not the tribal nations

20:03

that also have water rights, it's not

20:05

Mexico. And so

20:07

I knew I was leaving a lot of those

20:09

folks out, but I really wanted to focus on

20:11

the people with the most power. Also

20:14

Luke had done a podcast about the Colorado

20:16

River that came out I think the year

20:19

before of mine as well as there's another

20:21

reporter from Colorado Public Radio, High Country News

20:23

has really great Colorado River coverage. And

20:25

I read all of that stuff and felt

20:27

like they had gotten into the sort of

20:30

inequities a lot and really

20:32

addressed like tribal issues and the

20:35

environment and you know how

20:37

Mexico fits into the negotiations and I hadn't seen

20:39

as much of a deep dive into the kind

20:41

of drama of the negotiation. So it also

20:43

felt like that was something new that I

20:45

could provide. So those are the

20:47

reasons why. I love that you

20:50

made the conference in Las Vegas

20:52

the focal point of episode one,

20:54

the sort of the mean

20:57

girls analogy that you brought up at the

20:59

beginning, the high school cafeteria or

21:02

the prom so to speak. And

21:04

I think a lot of journalists can

21:07

empathize with trying to make coverage

21:09

of any sort of public

21:12

meeting or conference interesting.

21:16

How did you find the drama

21:18

in this sort of like kind

21:20

of stilted and staged event?

21:23

I think in general I

21:25

really like to in journalism

21:28

point out kind of like point

21:30

out what's happening and not just sort of

21:32

quote what's being said. So I guess an

21:34

example of that is like the

21:36

first thing I did when I got to

21:38

this conference which is colloquially called CRUWA was

21:40

I went to this this

21:43

meeting where it was all people from

21:45

California. They were all and I noticed

21:47

that the head of the Metropolitan Water District from

21:49

Los Angeles had this little pin that said we

21:51

are one. And I was like, what

21:54

is that? And later when I talked to him, he

21:56

brought it up on prompted as like this

21:58

slogan. And it just. It

22:00

just felt so performative to me.

22:03

Like, really, you're not really one. Like, you're

22:05

not really one with the other agencies

22:07

in California. Like, you guys have all the

22:09

money. You pay the farmers to fallow. You

22:12

have them bank their water. But I

22:14

could tell he was really trying to show this sort of, like, unified

22:17

front. And so I guess my

22:19

approach was to point out stuff like that when I saw

22:21

it, which is a much more first-person

22:23

approach than when I used to be a news

22:25

reporter. And I felt like I didn't really have

22:27

the license to make those kinds of observations. But

22:30

I just kind of would do things like that.

22:32

So later I pointed out, at the principles panel,

22:34

when it's all seven lead

22:36

negotiators, only one of the

22:39

people on the panel really raised their voice. And

22:41

it was Becky Mitchell from Colorado. And

22:43

she was yelling at times. And her voice is

22:45

sort of echoing around the room. And people are,

22:47

like, looking at each other. And so I

22:50

sort of pointed that out. And so I

22:52

think if you kind of are

22:54

really explicit about what is happening,

22:56

not just what's being said, there's

22:59

a lot of drama in these

23:01

very sort of, like, minor, you

23:04

know, public conference type of

23:06

interactions. And you

23:08

talked to Michael Cohen, who

23:12

is a longtime Colorado River

23:14

policy guy who is based

23:16

here in Colorado, where I live. Yes. And

23:19

he was able to kind of, like, give some

23:21

behind-the-scenes look at how

23:24

it all happens. Yeah. So I can play that. So

23:26

this is just after that panel I mentioned,

23:29

where California is, you know, all patting themselves

23:31

on the back for saving water. And

23:33

what I would do a lot after these things is

23:35

I would be like, okay, I think I know what's

23:37

happening, but I need someone who's really an expert who

23:39

I can run my theory by. So

23:42

I would find these people like Michael Cohen or Jeff

23:45

Keitlinger, who used to be the head of Metropolitan Water District,

23:47

or just – I would be

23:49

like, okay, I think this is what I saw, but

23:51

what did you see? And then they would tell me

23:53

what they saw. So this was an example of what

23:55

Michael Cohen observed at a meeting that I actually had

23:58

missed earlier that day. I'm

24:00

standing in the hallway outside the Champaign Room

24:02

just after the panel, talking to Michael Cohen,

24:05

cowboy boots, jeans, blazer. He's

24:07

an environmental policy guy from Colorado. He

24:10

tells me I missed something interesting earlier today.

24:13

A contentious meeting of representatives from

24:15

the Upper Colorado River Basin. California

24:18

is considered part of the Lower

24:20

Basin, along with Nevada and Arizona. The

24:23

Upper Basin states are Wyoming,

24:25

Utah, New Mexico, and of

24:27

course, Colorado. Was that this

24:29

morning? Yeah, that was actually just in the

24:32

room over there. So it was right next

24:34

door. Why was it contentious? Because there's still

24:36

assertions from the Upper Basin.

24:38

The Lower Basin is overusing water. And

24:42

it depends how that's measured. But

24:44

that to me suggests that they're still

24:47

far apart in how they're going to resolve this

24:49

huge problem, how to manage the river moving forward.

24:52

So like in this room, they're like, look at everything they've done.

24:55

And in that room, they're like, you guys are still using

24:57

too much? Yeah, that's exactly right. That's

24:59

exactly it. And I think part of this

25:01

conversation is in response to their conversation. They're

25:04

like talking at the same time.

25:06

Through the wall, basically. Yes,

25:08

they're talking through the wall to each other. And

25:10

maybe the wall is a good metaphor, because they're

25:13

not really talking to each other. I

25:16

got really excited about the wall metaphor. I was like,

25:18

you know, just leaning into it there.

25:20

But yeah, people like that were

25:23

really helpful. They were sort of like my guides to

25:25

make sure I was interpreting what was happening correctly. So

25:28

this, this wasn't your first time reporting on

25:30

the river, as, as it was obvious,

25:32

you know, you had these Hoover Dam moments earlier

25:35

in your career. And you've been

25:37

an environment beat reporter

25:39

in California before. What

25:41

did you hope to kind of add

25:43

to the conversation about the river? Because

25:46

it's been getting a lot of coverage

25:48

over the last couple of years. So

25:50

what were you hoping to add? I

25:54

think I wanted to produce

25:56

a piece of journalism that I hope would

25:58

appeal to people who were not. like

26:00

river geeks or environmental policy people

26:02

or people who cared about water.

26:06

And so to do that, I

26:08

mean, that was sort of explicitly why I chose to

26:10

really not go to the river at all and make

26:12

it a story about people and their drama. And

26:16

I felt that I hadn't really

26:18

read anything like that. So

26:21

I don't know. Yeah, that was really

26:23

my goal. And I also really wanted

26:25

to tell the story through a character.

26:28

I think that that's sort of a privilege

26:31

we get when we do narrative long-form journalism is you

26:33

can really get to spend a lot of time with

26:35

someone and get in their head. And although there have

26:37

been some written profiles of J.B. Hamby, I

26:39

don't know. To me, when you hear how

26:41

someone talks, how they laugh, like

26:44

their way of speaking, it's so much

26:46

more intimate than reading a magazine profile

26:48

or a newspaper profile. So

26:50

I felt like that was also something I

26:52

wanted people to know is who is this

26:54

guy and how did he acquire so much

26:57

power? And what influence does he have over

26:59

the river? So

27:01

yeah, that was the goal. And actually,

27:03

Luke, I wanted to ask you because you took a really

27:05

different approach in your show Thirst Gap. And I

27:07

thought it would be fun. I don't know. Talk

27:10

about what you did and the choices that you made.

27:14

Yeah. So I

27:16

did Thirst Gap, learning to live with

27:18

Les on the Colorado River last

27:21

year and had probably

27:23

spent the previous two years gathering

27:25

tape and reporting for that project.

27:28

And I was coming at it from a different perspective

27:30

because I was a, you know,

27:33

at that point when I was doing

27:35

the podcast, I was five

27:37

years on the Colorado River beat where

27:39

like every day I was waking up

27:42

and thinking about the Colorado River all

27:44

day long and then going to bed. And

27:46

so I felt like I was really,

27:48

really steeped in it. And

27:53

steeped in a lot of the

27:56

policy and the negotiations because as

27:58

a beat reporter, you're kind of

28:00

following all of those developments as

28:02

they're happening. And

28:05

so what I really wanted to

28:07

do was take the different approach

28:09

of like, I need to get

28:11

my head out of these like

28:13

down in the weeds sort of

28:15

negotiations and actually visit people who

28:17

are grappling with water scarcity in

28:19

real time and figure out how

28:21

they're adapting, how this is playing

28:24

out on farms, in

28:26

neighborhoods, in tribal

28:29

nations. I was really, really

28:31

curious to learn about what the actual

28:33

effects of water scarcity are on the

28:35

ground. And so

28:37

I feel like this show that

28:39

you've produced is kind of the

28:42

perfect compliment to mine. That's what

28:44

I liked about it so much

28:46

was you aren't spending

28:48

as much time out in the

28:50

field with farmers or

28:52

water users or residents

28:55

of these large cities in the West that

28:57

rely on the Colorado River. And

28:59

I think that it was really effective in

29:02

learning about the behind the scenes machinations

29:05

of all of the people in power. And so

29:07

I really liked that you were able to kind

29:10

of follow up on all of the threads that I left

29:12

dangling at the end of my show. My

29:15

favorite episode of yours was the houseboat episode,

29:17

where you talk to the people who have

29:19

houseboats on Lake Powell about how

29:21

distressed they are at the lake dropping. And

29:24

yeah, that was just a really lovely example of

29:27

people who are affected who you wouldn't

29:29

think would care so much, but it's very

29:31

emotional for them. And would know a lot.

29:33

I mean, the house boaters on Lake Powell

29:35

are talking about like the 1922 Colorado River

29:39

Compact and like water deliveries from the

29:41

upper basin to the lower basin and

29:43

like a really clued in. And that's what

29:45

I love about the Colorado River and the beat

29:47

is people who care

29:49

a lot about it know the

29:52

down in the weeds stuff and like are really

29:54

interested in it. It's a whole community of people who

29:57

are like really clued in to what's going on

29:59

on the Colorado River. It's fun to

30:01

visit with them. Yeah. There's a lot

30:03

of farmers at this water conference that I went

30:05

to. And if they're farming in

30:08

places where that's their only water, they

30:10

care that much that they would come

30:12

to this conference in Vegas to figure

30:14

out what might happen. That was fascinating

30:16

to me. And you visited with one

30:18

of the water widows at Crewe. Yeah.

30:21

Those spouses who get dragged along by people who

30:23

are even retired and still end up showing to

30:26

the conference. Yeah, that was

30:28

an example of something I thought was kind of hilarious.

30:30

And my editors were like, I don't

30:32

know about this. There's a spouse lounge at this

30:34

water conference where it's all women.

30:37

And the day I went in, they

30:39

were all wearing smocks. And they're like

30:41

painting by numbers, this desert scene, while

30:44

their husbands are doing water negotiation. It

30:46

felt very 1950s. And

30:49

anyway, we ended up cutting that out. But I

30:52

met one of the men whose wives came

30:54

because she never gets to see him, because

30:56

he's doing river stuff so much. She's a

30:58

water widow. And she was also in the

31:00

room wearing the smock painting. Coming

31:03

up on Imperfect Paradise. So

31:06

I've never been a politics reporter

31:08

before. And I felt like this

31:10

really was politics reporting. And

31:12

I think that one thing I found fascinating

31:15

was kind of how petty it is. Like

31:17

the little things that people do to set

31:19

each other off that can turn into real

31:21

grudges that can harden. And when

31:24

these grudges are held by people who are lead negotiators,

31:26

they have real impacts on all of us. That's

31:29

coming up after a break. I

31:33

want to tell you about a

31:35

new podcast called Reimagining Democracy for

31:37

a Good Life. We all

31:39

know about the threats to democracy, how

31:42

things can and have gone wrong. But

31:44

there's something happening in LA that offers

31:46

hope. Organizers building across

31:48

differences in division. A

31:51

movement born out of deep

31:53

struggle. What can LA teach

31:55

the nation about building a

31:57

radically inclusive, thriving multiracial democracy?

32:00

Find out on Reimagining Democracy

32:02

for a Good Life, hosted

32:04

by longtime equity advocate Angela

32:06

Glover Blackwell. Available now wherever

32:08

you get your podcasts. California

32:12

and six other states are scrambling

32:15

to work out an agreement to

32:17

save the Colorado River from drying

32:19

up. So we turned to a

32:21

negotiation expert. People do have fear

32:24

when they negotiate. And learn the

32:26

best practices to secure the deal.

32:29

The number one reason why we don't put the

32:31

right issues on the table is egocentric bias. Binge,

32:34

Imperfect Paradise, the Gen Z water

32:36

dealmaker, wherever you get podcasts. This

32:43

is Imperfect Paradise, a special conversation

32:45

with correspondent Emily Garan and Luke Runyon

32:48

of the Water Desk at the University

32:50

of Colorado Boulder Center for Environmental

32:52

Journalism about the making of the

32:54

series. Here's Emily and Luke

32:57

again. So what do you

32:59

think you ended up learning

33:01

during the process of reporting

33:03

this? Because you basically since, you

33:06

know, late last year, you've been kind of

33:08

steeped in the Colorado River. What

33:11

did you end up what did you end

33:13

up learning along the way in the course

33:15

of producing this? Yeah. So

33:18

I've never been a politics reporter before.

33:20

And I felt like this really

33:22

was politics reporting. And

33:24

I think that one thing I found fascinating

33:27

was kind of how petty it is. Like

33:29

the little things that people do to set

33:31

each other off that can turn into real

33:33

grudges that can harden. And when

33:36

these grudges are held by people who are lead negotiators,

33:38

they have real impacts on all of us.

33:40

I mean, if people don't get along, if

33:42

people feel slighted, if people feel like someone

33:45

is rolling their eyes at them on a

33:47

panel or raising their voice, like it can

33:49

actually mean they might be less willing to

33:51

make a concession about water conservation. Which is

33:54

kind of wild and fascinating. And so

33:56

that was really interesting to me. I

33:59

think the other thing was... coming into it, you

34:01

know, like I read Cadillac Desert, that classic

34:03

book, when I was in college and I

34:05

was like, wow, water in the West, you

34:07

know, I'm from the East Coast, and I

34:09

found it fascinating. And I think

34:12

that I always had kind of a, you know,

34:14

there's something wrong with the way we use water

34:16

in the West view. Like it's

34:18

weird to pump water for over long

34:20

distances, and it's weird to farm with

34:22

the Colorado River in Yuma, Arizona. It

34:24

just felt like unnatural, and I was,

34:26

I think, a little judgy

34:28

of that for a long time. Definitely an

34:31

East Coast thing. And I feel

34:33

like in the course of reporting the series and

34:35

hanging out with JB Hammey, visiting with

34:37

farmers in Yuma and Imperial Valley, I

34:39

kind of came to understand why desert

34:41

farming with Colorado River water makes sense

34:44

and is in fact a quite efficient use of

34:46

the water. And that

34:48

was not a perspective I expected to hold at

34:50

the beginning of this. I think I thought, you

34:52

know, what are they doing flooding their fields with

34:54

Colorado River water? And it's like, oh, they're harvesting

34:56

broccoli and they harvest it like four times a

34:58

year, you know. And

35:01

if you're farming, if you're growing alfalfa

35:03

in Wyoming at 8,000 feet, you

35:06

know, you maybe get like one cut a season and then

35:08

it's freezing the rest of the time. So I think

35:11

it did change my view of how

35:13

the water is used and what's like an

35:15

efficient and sort of beneficial use of agricultural

35:17

water in ways that I was not

35:19

expecting. Any other myths

35:22

or misconceptions that came

35:25

up in the course of doing this? Yeah, well,

35:28

I think I asked people a lot and this didn't

35:30

make it into the show that much. I would ask

35:32

people this ridiculous question. Like, if you're at a

35:34

party and I want you to describe all the

35:36

major players on the river like their guests at

35:38

a party and I'm new to

35:40

the party and you know everyone and so

35:42

you're like, oh, that's Colorado, that's Nevada. So

35:44

I would ask people this question. Some people

35:46

were really down to answer and some people

35:49

were super uncomfortable. But

35:51

I think through that, like learning the

35:53

sort of roles that these states have

35:55

played historically was really interesting and

35:57

especially like Colorado and California. me

36:00

to be fascinating. And I thought, you know,

36:02

living in California, it can

36:05

be kind of this all consuming, you're not always

36:07

like, aware of what other people

36:09

think of California, you're like, does it matter? Like,

36:11

we're the biggest, you know, and so hearing that

36:13

the California had this reputation as like this bully

36:15

with a lot of money, they would throw around,

36:17

you know, overusing water, kind of

36:19

giving the middle finger to everyone else, what are you

36:22

going to do about it? That was

36:24

really interesting to hear people outside the state

36:26

talk about the state's reputation in that way. And

36:28

then it was also interesting to hear, you know,

36:31

former lead negotiators talking about how Colorado

36:33

has always been this kind of like

36:35

watchdog on the river going back to

36:37

when the Colorado River Compact was signed,

36:39

like they've always been paranoid that California

36:41

and Arizona are going to grow too

36:43

fast and use all this water

36:45

and that it'll grow into this entitlement, kind of like

36:48

a common law marriage, like it'll just it'll just end

36:50

up being what they have rights to because they've been

36:52

using it forever. And

36:54

so that helped explain a lot to

36:56

me about how Colorado's current negotiator Becky

36:59

Mitchell views California and Arizona. So

37:02

the party question was really fun. And yeah,

37:05

like people talked about Nevada as being like Switzerland,

37:07

like they're little, they don't have a ton of

37:09

water, but people take them seriously, you

37:11

know, it's a good place to like bring warring

37:13

parties together. And I was like, Oh, that's so

37:16

true. They're like the neutral party. So things like

37:18

that were very interesting. Got all kinds of analogies

37:20

that you can poke and prod and use to

37:22

your advantage. One

37:25

more question. I was curious, you

37:27

know, you were still

37:29

like this is still happening. This isn't

37:31

like, this isn't like wrapped

37:33

up neatly with a nice bow. This is all

37:36

still very much in flux. I

37:38

wanted to see if you could speak at all

37:40

to like, just where are we now? Because I'm sure

37:42

you had to do a little bit of reporting as

37:45

you're wrapping up the series of just like where to

37:47

leave things for your listeners. Well,

37:49

and actually, what was sort of

37:51

stressful timing was that all seven

37:53

lead negotiators met in person on

37:55

Tuesday for the first

37:57

time in months, and then the third episode of my

37:59

show. came out on Wednesday in which two of

38:01

them are sort of talking trash about each other. Which,

38:05

you know, my intention wasn't to influence

38:08

the negotiations. I

38:11

mean, I'm sure the people who are involved listen to

38:13

it and have thoughts, but that wasn't the goal. In

38:16

terms of where things are now, I think

38:19

up until Tuesday, I gathered

38:21

that the two sides, the upper and the

38:23

lower basins, seemed very divided. They all agreed

38:25

that it was great that the lower basin

38:27

was finally acknowledging that they had historically overused

38:29

and they were going to use less. But

38:31

the question was, okay, if that's not enough

38:34

to solve the problem, if climate change gets

38:36

worse, who's going to cut back then? And

38:38

they had very different answers to that question. So

38:41

the upper basin was like, we don't think we

38:43

should have to cut back. You know, we've never

38:45

used our full allocation. We

38:48

don't want to cut back. We don't want to commit to

38:50

anything. And the lower basin was like, okay, but

38:52

it's like a basin wide problem. Like really, we're going

38:54

to do everything. Like that's a little ridiculous. So

38:57

they were really divided, kind of not

38:59

speaking. But I think

39:01

there's been a few sideline meetings in

39:03

recent weeks. And then this

39:05

in-person meeting that just happened makes

39:08

me feel more hopeful that they are

39:11

starting to set aside some of the

39:13

grudges and work on solutions. So I

39:16

think that's where we're at. And they still have time.

39:18

They have till the end of 2025. I know they're

39:21

trying to get a lot in place before the election.

39:24

And it seems like they're actually making progress. Okay,

39:28

with that, I think we're going to wrap

39:30

up because we're almost at time. And so

39:32

thank you all for joining us

39:34

for this conversation. I hope it was interesting. And I

39:36

want to thank Emily Garren again

39:38

for her time and for her willingness to

39:40

share a bit more about her process, give

39:42

us this kind of behind the scenes look

39:45

at how this storytelling

39:47

came together. Thank you so much, Emily. And

39:49

thank you all for being here. You've

39:52

been listening to imperfect paradise, a special

39:54

conversation with correspondent Emily Garren and Luke

39:56

Runyon of the water desk at the

39:59

University of Colorado. Colorado Boulder Center

40:01

for Environmental Journalism. Listen

40:03

to new episodes of the podcast every Wednesday

40:05

or tune in on Sunday night at 7

40:07

p.m. on LAist 89.3 or

40:10

laist.com. This

40:15

series of Imperfect Paradise was written and

40:17

reported by Emily Guerin. I'm the show's

40:19

host, Antonea Sadeh Hido. Catherine

40:21

Millhouse is the executive producer of the

40:23

show and our director of content development.

40:26

Shaina Naomi Crockmall is our vice president

40:28

of podcasts. Mike Kramer is

40:30

our editor. Minju Park is our producer.

40:32

Jones Campbell is our production coordinator. Luke

40:35

Runyon is our editorial advisor. Backtracking

40:38

by Gabriel Donatov. Mixing

40:40

by East Bart Kelly. Original music by

40:42

East Bart Kelly and Andrew Ethan. Imperfect

40:45

Paradise is a production of LAist

40:47

Studios. This podcast is powered

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by listeners like you. Support the

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show by donating now

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at laist.com/join. This podcast

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is supported by Gordon and Donna

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Crawford who believe quality journalism makes

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Los Angeles a better place to

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live. Additional support from

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the water desk at the Center for

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Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado

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Boulder. This

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program is made possible in part by

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the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private

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corporation funded by the American people.

41:29

Support for LAist comes from Apple TV

41:31

plus presenting

41:37

Lessons in Chemistry starring Academy Award

41:39

winner Brie Larson as scientist Elizabeth

41:42

Zott. Lessons in Chemistry is focused

41:44

on a chemist who can't seem to

41:46

quite make it through the political game

41:48

and the misogyny that's happening in the

41:50

world of science in the 50s. And

41:53

as she's making her way through trying to

41:56

make this great discovery about abiogenesis, about the

41:58

origin of life. happens

42:00

to her. She experiences love

42:02

and loss and an unexpected pregnancy

42:04

and all of these things move

42:06

her into this direction of starting

42:09

this TV show called Separate Six where she

42:11

becomes famous for something that she

42:13

never thought she would be famous for which

42:15

is cooking and that's because she has this unique

42:18

perspective on it where she's able to take all

42:20

the things that she loves about science and

42:22

apply it to cooking. When you're

42:24

thinking about lessons in chemistry it's a play on

42:26

so many different things. Yes it's about science and

42:28

chemistry but it's also about that

42:31

inexplicable connection of chemistry you can have when

42:33

you're falling in love, the chemicals inside of

42:35

our bodies and the chemistry that makes us

42:37

up and makes life happen and

42:39

it's also about the way that life can

42:42

surprise you, the way that you can't always

42:44

predict and plan out. Elizabeth has to make real

42:46

choices in terms of how her voice and how

42:48

these things will affect her community, how

42:50

it will affect the crew and their pay. In

42:52

this case we're telling a story about a woman

42:54

and so for me it relieves

42:56

the pressure when there's a lot of women in

42:59

the room because then it's not just up to

43:01

me to decide what female representation is in this

43:03

case. There's so many examples on

43:05

screen but then you also have it behind

43:07

the camera as well so whether it's props

43:09

or production design or costumes you're getting that

43:11

experience in every layer of it so it

43:13

was very important to us that you're seeing

43:16

various representations of what it is to be

43:18

a woman to advocate for yourself to

43:20

rise and fall. Asia Naomi King stars

43:23

as Elizabeth's neighbor Harriet Sloane. She's

43:25

a phenomenal woman. I am so

43:27

inspired by her, I am so in love with her. She

43:29

is driven, she has this

43:31

moral compass. She

43:35

really seeks out justice in every aspect by her.

43:37

I am so in love with her. She

43:41

is driven, she has

43:43

this moral compass. She really seeks

43:45

out justice in every aspect of

43:48

her life but she's

43:50

so much more than that. She's a great

43:52

friend, she's a great mother and wife and

43:54

she's an activist and she really takes part

43:57

in her community and part of what

43:59

pushes her forward. forward is that she

44:01

chose to be a mother. And I

44:04

just found a lot of those themes really moving

44:07

and palpable

44:10

with what's important to me

44:12

in my life and the things

44:14

that I seek out. Self-worth and

44:16

community and love,

44:18

but beyond romantic love, like

44:20

love in the greater sense, love of self,

44:23

love of family, love of community. I

44:25

just feel like people are going to want to

44:28

engage in this story, that

44:30

it's going to remind them of

44:33

their own capacity for greatness. Lessons

44:36

in Chemistry is a PGA,

44:38

SAG, WGA, NAACP Image Award,

44:40

four-time Critics' Choice nominee, and

44:43

2024 DGA Award winner, hailed a

44:45

triumph by Decider. More

44:47

on Lessons in

44:50

Chemistry at fyc.appletvplus.com.