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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

@hydrowl.bsky.social
156 followers 919 following 175 posts

Water engineering, accounting, data viz, and policy. Enjoyer of gay sci-fi, philosophy, poetry, and nature.

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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
once I'm licensed I'm getting a mug that says "world's okayest engineer"
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I passed 🥳
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Anyway, I took my PE last week and did not anticipate how agonizing the wait for the results would be. I don't know how people waited for months in the pencil and paper days.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I know I only come on here to complain about my PE these days but I suffer from "I need to be anonymous so I can talk about whatever I want" but also "I don't actually ever know what I'm talking about and I'm scared of being wrong on the internet"
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Another day of wondering whether I would be happier designing pipes
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Does anyone else feel like they live in a completely different reality in their personal life vs at work regarding LLM sentiment or is that just me
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I hate posting on social media but I need to find ways to interact with water/engineering folks in a low stakes way that doesn't involve me going to conferences that make me want to tear my skin off
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Well. 8 months later and I've started my review course.
media.tenor.com
bob ross from bob 's burgers is standing in front of a closet with clothes hanging on it .
Alt: bob from bob's burgers getting ready to leave and saying "okay fine but I'm gonna complain about it the whole time"
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The first three articles in @mavensnotebook.com really exemplify this today. I think we're at Mixed state "bros...."
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Feeling seen by @hankgreen.bsky.social video as someone whose short career has been counting things that are difficult to count (GHG emissions and water) www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6...
youtube.com
Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use??
YouTube video by Hank Green
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Water managers in California talking about the weather
line chart swinging wildly between extremes of a mania-depression axis with labels such as "IT'S SO OVER" at major depression and "WE'RE SO BACK" at mania, and "bros..." when between the two. I'm so sorry this alt text isn't better.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Super interested to read this one - I have family impacted by the fires. I want to know what "building back better" ACTUALLY looks like.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Dramatic increase in conflicts over #water in 2024 compared to previous years. pacinst.org/announcement...
Bar chart of water conflicts by year from 2010 to 2024 showing dramatic increases. Each year is also broken out in three categories: water as a trigger, casualty, and weapon. Water as a casualty is the largest type of water conflict, followed by water as a trigger of violence. Data from the Pacific Institute Water Conflict Chronology database.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
I'll be printing this one at the office... I'm more "modeling adjacent" but this is something I think about a lot.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
I want to put together a queer water group and call it the Frogs but I can't think of a good acronym... FFROGs - Freshwater Freaks Running On Garbage???
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Very exciting bumper sticker find this morning
Bumper sticker that says "F.O.M.O - Fear of missing owls" and has a picture of what I think is a spotted owl? stuck to an army green Subaru outback.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Anyway I should probably have a less work-related interest to engage in on Saturday mornings.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
I guess what I'm trying to figure out with this AI thing as an early career water professional is that everybody is saying that it's inevitable and I need to learn to use it. But I don't know what "it" means, I don't know what the risks are.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Currently working through this paper by @sashamtl.bsky.social et al, starting to get my brain around the throughline between ethics and environmental impacts arxiv.org/pdf/2504.00797
arxiv.org
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
I don't post here that much but my latest obsession has been AI ethics. I'm really interested in what the potential risks are for water management specifically - if anyone has papers to point to, even for public health and resource management more specifically, I'd appreciate it.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
why is talking about climate at my water job so much easier than talking about water at my water job
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
this fire has exploded by over 800% in the last few weeks with almost no containment as we head into another extended period of heat and red flag days
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
may have found a good starting point www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
On the need for an anticolonial perspective in engineering education and practice - Nature Communications
We examine the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to engineering. We argue that anticolonial endeavours should systematically recognise colonial legacy in co...
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
I want to learn more about engineering history, particularly of non-western origins. We sort of learn in school that modern civil engineering (especially water) started in ancient Rome but that feels like an oversimplification. Who gets to decide what engineering is and isn't?
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Traqua.be 💧🧪🔦 @traqua.eurosky.social · 27/08/2025
Medieval Water Distribution We are familiar with water distribution systems of Persia (qanats) and Rome (aqueducts), but we rarely hear about such systems in the Middle Ages. Still, the construction of aqueducts continued, in Europe often initiated by monasteries and shared with nearby cities.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Still going back and forth on this. I'll probably decide by labor day and treat it as a college semester.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
I'm not sure I actually have too many engineer mutuals but question for the class - does it make sense for me to start studying for my PE right now while Rome is burning outside? (Some more thoughts in the thread)
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Shit's on fire but I am researching PE prep courses I guess
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Going to the river to not think about the world but it's a river so it WILL make me think about work. Which usually makes me think about the world.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Never before in the history of this nation has such a large redistribution of income been directed upward, for no reason at all
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Trying to get back into cycling regularly so I bought a bike that is actually my size and not a hand-me-down earlier this week. Shout-out to bike co-ops, that place felt like it was straight out of a solarpunk novel.
white bicycle
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
actually while I'm here my hot take is that "scope 3" is way too broad because how can you put employee commuting and embodied carbon of materials and end use of your product in the same category. The lack of specificity is why scope 3 is optional in many certs and it should NOT be.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
“In a public letter, EPA employees accused the administration of engaging in unlawful partisan activity and endangering public health” Yikes. Tough day for a letter release but let’s all try to multi-task. Gift link: EPA Workers Warn Trump Is Politicizing Their Work www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/c...
nytimes.com
E.P.A. Workers Warn Trump Is Politicizing Their Work
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
NPR @npr.org · 28/06/2025
Hurricane forecasters rely on weather data collected and processed by Department of Defense satellites. That data will no longer be available as of Monday, June 30. By @rhersher.bsky.social
n.pr
Defense Department will stop providing crucial satellite weather data
Hurricane forecasters rely on weather data collected and processed by Department of Defense satellites. That data will no longer be available as of Monday, June 30.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Faith Kearns, Ph.D. @fkearns.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Same for scientists and everyone else who is rewarded professionally for being “objective,” neutral observers and describers.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Jacob Soboroff @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Senator Padilla’s office sends me this video of his take-down and detention at Sec. Noem’s press conference in L.A.
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Paul Krugman @pkrugman.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Folks, CBO estimate of the distributional effect of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is out: www.cbo.gov/system/files... It's grotesque
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
A couple of months ago, I posted a checklist of things one could do to be useful in these days of rising fascism. Here’s Part Two of that list—more focused on ways to protect you and those in your tightest circles of care. Part One is embedded and also skeeted below.
lifeisasacredtext.com
Care for yourself and others!
Checklist 2.0
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
The intentional destruction of US science and academia by Trump and the GOP continues to accelerate. www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/p...
cnn.com
Trump preparing large-scale cancellation of federal funding for California, sources say | CNN Politics
The Trump administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding to California, an effort which could begin as soon as Friday, according to multiple sources.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
This short week felt long and the book fresh from the library is on my shelf calling me to read... but the water must be counted 😔
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
saving this one, I use the crop data layer often
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I did appreciate the presentation where someone just put up a slide of all the federal agencies we rely on for data and said "holy shit guys," that was quite cathartic in a time where it feels weird to get up and go to work each day.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I sat in on some hydrology modeling presentations this week and had the experience where I'm like. I have most of the prerequisites but I have not taken this class. Information overload, pedagogical spiral malfunction, too many engineers.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Uhhh how many reservoirs is that in the Central Valley alone?
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Going to keep this in my back pocket for when people at the lunch n learns talk about using Chat GPT to work with water data because there's some irony happening here.
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
The biggest reason I can't be a politician is because someone will tell me they also work in water and I will impulsively ask them the most controversial question and this WILL get me in trouble one day when I am no longer seen as naive
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Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @hydrowl.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
how it feels working in california water sometimes istg how did I miss THAT agency's 200-page strategic plan
media.tenor.com
an orange and white cat is playing with a cardboard box
Alt: an orange and white cat is playing with a cardboard box as human sticks up fingers in various holes akin to whack-a-mole
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Reposted by Alex (They/Them) 💧🦉🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Sunrise Movement @sunrisemvmt.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
BREAKING: Chuck Schumer arrested 11 young people who were at his office demanding he fight for our generation and block Trump's disastrous budget. He wouldn't even face them. No more cowardice. Step up or step aside.
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