The HBO comedy news show featured Utton Center Writer in Residence John Fleck's work in a June 26 episode on the water crisis in the American West. Fleck's books on the Colorado River, Water is For Fighting Over: And Other Myths about Water in the West, and Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River, figured prominently both in some of the show's comedy bits and also the production team's research on the problems facing the West as climate change shrinks the Colorado River.

Water is For Fighting Over was also chosen this year as publisher Island Press's "free summer read", with e-book editions free through July 7.