It almost felt like a setup when Steve Harris asked me to talk at a conference about how “water is for cooperating over.” I make a meager but steady living these days writing about water conflict. And yet….

[B]efore I got to Ghost Ranch on Friday afternoon, I took the turnoff to Abiquiu Reservoir. In drought-parched New Mexico, this is the one reservoir that has a lot of water. It glistened blue-green beneath a bowl of rust-red cliffs, shimmering in a brisk afternoon wind.

For fans of cooperation, there is hope in plans for a release beginning today or Wednesday out of Abiquiu, a big slug of municipal water now in storage to try to boost the meager flow of the Rio Grande.