Week 2: A Storm is Brewing

Arwen H -

Welcome back guys! It has been a pretty busy week since we last spoke. For starters, I finished writing the survey questions and sent them out to the districts this Monday! The most difficult part of this for me however was figuring out how to write/what to include in the informed consent form. The informed consent form goes at the beginning of the survey and informs the respondents of all the terms and conditions of your study. For example, I had to include that their responses to the survey will be anonymous in my final paper and state that the final paper will be sent to and reviewed by The College Board.

It is still early days so I have only received one response so far and one email stating that their district will respond shortly. Depending on how many responses I get in the days to come, I will either be sending a follow up email to the districts on Friday or next Monday so I will keep you updated on that! However, despite only receiving one response, I have already reached what may be a possible problem with one of my questions. One of the survey questions was “What projects/water-saving activities has your district put the grant money towards so far?”, and the response I received was that none had been completed so far due to the funding freeze. The funding freeze I am referring to is President Trump’s series of executive orders that paused or cancelled many federal funding projects. While I was aware that President Trump had issued the funding I had failed to connect the dots that this freeze would also impact the federal funding program I am analyzing – the Water-Saving Commodities (WSC) Program. The funding freeze is still being heavily debated in government and its fate is still unknown, but if the funding for the WSC programs continues to be halted and/or cut, I may need to readjust my research (but I’ll cross that bridge when it comes).

See you guys again soon!

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    tiffany_e
    Hi Arwen! What were some of the other questions that you asked on the survey? Do you expect that all of the districts will answer and will answer truthfully?
    February 20, 2025 at 8:53 am - Reply
    Aashneel C.
    Regarding Indian reservations and the amount of water they get, did you know that the native American tribes are only entitled to 56,000 acre-feet while Arizona gets 2.8 million acre-feet of water alone from the Colorado river. How do you think this disparity will effect the farming capabilities of native Americans as they own 28% of the land in Arizona.
    February 21, 2025 at 10:12 am - Reply
    Elena S.
    Hi Arwen, what kind of responses are you expecting to receive from the survey (and how much variation among responses from different districts), and what specifically did you ask about?
    February 24, 2025 at 7:52 am - Reply
    arwen_h
    Hey Tiffany! My full list of questions I asked are as follows: 1. By selecting “Agree” below, you, on behalf of the Irrigation District you work for, agree to the conditions of this survey and provide your informed consent to participate in this survey. 2. What irrigation district do you work for? 3. How do you feel about participating in The Water-Saving Commodities (WSC) Program by the Farm Service Agency (FSA)? 4. Based on your experiences with your irrigation district, do you believe that the WSC program will be successful in achieving its goal of conserving up to 50,000 acre-feet in water? 5. How many producers in your district have shown an interest in receiving the grant money? Would you consider the amount of producer interest you have received for the funding as higher than expected, lower than expected, or expected? 6. What projects/water-saving activities has your district put the grant money towards so far? 7. What projects/water-saving activities is your district planning to put the grant money towards in the future? 8. How are you determining a producer's eligibility for payments? 9. How are you determining how much money eligible producers receive for their agreement to practice water-saving activities? As for your other questions, due to only receiving a few responses so far, I definitely fear that I will not receive responses from all the districts and that I will have to rely on calling the majority of them to get a response. As for answering truthfully, I am not overly worried about false responses as if they feel as though they can't/shouldn't answer a question, they can simply skip it. However, I am worried about not receiving detailed enough responses. Hopefully conducting the survey over the phone will help avoid this however.
    February 24, 2025 at 11:41 am - Reply
    arwen_h
    Hi Aashneel, thank you for your comment! In recent years especially, Native American tribes and reservations actually have rights to quite a significant amounts of water from Colorado River water in comparison to the rest of the state. What their major disadvantage comes from is the fact that they often don't have the funding and/or infrastructure to make use of that water for drinking, agriculture, or anything else. To answer your question, I think this disparity has and will continue to significantly hinder the farming capabilities of Native Americans despite the large amount of land they have to use. In order for them to receive better living conditions, they need to receive increased funds to help pay for the infrastructure they need to actually use the water and land that they have. The WSC program will hopefully help in this regard as on top of the $15 million going out to each district, an additional $40 million has been set aside to go to Native American tribes across the west.
    February 24, 2025 at 12:00 pm - Reply
    arwen_h
    Hey Elena, thank you so much for your questions! I am expecting to receive responses that obviously answer the question, but in a way that will make both their district and the USDA look good. There will probably be variation among the last four questions (see above for my response to Tiffany for the list of all of my questions) due to the different resources available to each district but the answers for questions 3 and 4, I am predicting that the answers will for the majority be similar and very positive. And then again, you can see my full list of questions I asked about in my response to Tiffany!
    February 24, 2025 at 12:06 pm - Reply

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