Denver Museum of Nature & Science Dives Into Colorado's Water Scene

Looking for a new podcast to listen to as you travel or clean up after Thanksgiving? The Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Institute for Science & Policy is following up its successful Laws of Notion podcast,
Coal at Sunset: A Colorado Town in Transition, with a new podcast dubbed Water, Under Pressure:The Uncertain Future of Colorado’s Most Valuable Resource.

The Institute for Science & Policy, founded in 2018, is the museum's civic engagement arm, which considers how science plays a role in policymaking and helps to foster productive dialogue on issues such as climate change, energy and public health. Water, Under Pressure, for example, uses interviews with experts, government officials and community members to consider whether water should be pumped from the San Luis Valley and sold to the Front Range.

Kristan Uhlenbrock, director of the Institute for Science & Policy and host of the podcast, calls 2022 "the year of the water," and says she wanted to tell a story about water on the hundredth anniversary of the Colorado River Compact.

“We started to kind of think about, 'Well, what are some stories and challenges in communities facing problems when it comes to water here in Colorado, and where do we want to kind of dig a little bit deeper into that story?'” she recalls. “A podcast is a beautiful forum for us to do that.”

The five-episode podcast follows a proposal by Renewable Water Resources, a wastewater treatment company, to pump water from under the Great Sand Dunes and export it.

The Institute describes itself as nonpartisan and policy-neutral, saying that its goal is a deeper illumination of complicated scientific issues. Despite its neutral stance, though, the Institute doesn't shy away from conflict in Water, Under Pressure.

“You've probably heard the saying that 'Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting,'” Uhlenbrock says. “You can't turn around and talk about water in the state without ultimately ending up talking about conflict. Our whole purpose of existing is, how do we move beyond conflict and start to really listen to people and start to really try to understand some of those root challenges that are happening? How can we ultimately maybe think about them a little bit more critically? Or with a little bit more empathy? Or with a little bit more curiosity?”

A podcast has the space and time to tell a story in depth, and for people to absorb the complicated scientific and policy issues, Uhlenbrock says. Water, Under Pressure has been in production since 2021, while she and three other Institute staff members traveled to the San Luis Valley and across the Front Range to report the story. Since the staff is small, the podcast was created in partnership with House of Pod, a Denver podcasting production company that creates podcasts focusing on science and social justice.

Uhlenbrock encourages people to listen with a willingness to understand a perspective that could be different from their own.

“What I find most intriguing about water here in our state is, not only is it a resource that is dwindling and truly is under pressure — hence the name Water, Under Pressure — but it is a really complicated topic, and I'm hoping that listeners will stick with it for all five episodes and feel as though they've learned something new,” she says.

Uhlenbrock has, and she’s thankful that she gets to keep doing so: Laws of Notion is already planning season three.

A new episode of Water, Under Pressure will be released every Wednesday through December 14 on all major podcasting platforms; find the first two episodes here.