A former science journalist, John Fleck is a writer in residence at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center at the University of New Mexico School of Law and a professor of practice in water policy and governance by letter of academic title in the Department of Economics at the University of New Mexico. From 2016 to 2021 he served as the director of the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program. He has been writing about water in the West since the 1980s and is the author of Water Is for Fighting Over: And Other Myths about Water in the West and the coauthor (with Eric Kuhn) of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.

Robert P. Berrens is an environmental economist and a Regents Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of New Mexico. He is also the former coeditor of Contemporary Economic Policy and the associate editor of Water Resources Research. His research interests include water resources, ecosystem services, biodiversity and endangered species, forest resources, wildfire risk reduction, climate change, and environmental policy. He is a coauthor of Energy Use in Bitcoin Mining: The Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrencies.