Trump’s Water Ambitions Have a Staffing Problem

Federal water managers and the local agencies they serve usually gather every January in Reno, Nevada, to swap wish lists, from higher dams to new reservoirs to changes to endangered species rules. This year, at the Mid-Pacific Water Users Conference, the focus was more basic: whether the federal water system has enough people left to keep it running.

“We’re left with so many holes, there’s no way we can do business the way we used to,” Adam Nickels, acting regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation’s California region, told the gathering last week.