Dry Year
We’ve received 2.15 inches (5.46 cm) of precipitation since Oct. 1 (the “water year”) at the Heineman-Fleck house in Albuquerque. That’s 44 percent of average for the first 8 months of the water year. (My average is based on data going back to the 1999-2000 water year.) A sidelight: 1.41 inches of that (3.58 cm) [...]
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: A Great View of Mars
From the morning paper, an epitaph to NASA’s Mars rover Spirit (sub/ad req). I’ve been writing about Spirit with some regulatory since before the mission, thanks to the presence of mission scientist and geologist Larry Crumpler in our midst here in Albuquerque. Larry is a delight in part because he really gets how cool it [...]
California and the Problem of Variability in Water Management
Part of my standard schtick when I talk about water management in the arid southwest is an explanation of the problem of variability as it relates to aridity. It is so obvious that it almost goes without saying that life in an arid climate poses climate problems because it’s dry. But the more subtle problem, [...]
Co-Equal Goals
Mark Reisner, in Cadillac Desert, describes Jerry Brown’s struggle back in the late 1970s and early ’80s to sort out the conflicting interests surrounding the Bay-Delta System as plans were developed for what was then known as the Peripheral Canal: Jerry Brown’s dilemma – which was insoluble, but which he thought he could solve anyway [...]
Our water, our values
Here’s one of those societal water value questions that doesn’t get a lot of attention. How cool are massive waterfalls? “Breathtaking, that’s what it is,” said Lynne Bousie of Scotland, who stopped to pose for a photograph at the spot where the paved trail to Yosemite Falls makes a turn and the first full view [...]
River Beat: Drop 2 From Space
One of the strangest western water projects of recent years is the Drop 2 Reservoir on the All-American Canal. Here’s the problem. Irrigators in southeastern California, mostly in the Imperial Valley, get their water from the Colorado River. It sits in storage behind Lake Mead, and when they need it, they put in a request [...]
Three Gorges: Spanning the Environmental Kuznets Curve
Environmental economists talk about the relationship between affluence and environmental values – the idea that a society’s desire for things like clean air and water are low when folks are poor, but as basic needs for food and shelter are satisfied, environmental desires rise. It’s captured notionally in the “Environmental Kuznets Curve”. It’s not a [...]
River Beat: On the lack of a plan
Rob Davis at Voice of San Diego has an excellent explainer this week on his community’s dependence on Colorado River water, and the central problem of what happens if Lake Mead gets really low: If the Colorado consistently comes up short, no one knows who will cut consumption to keep Lake Mead from running dry. [...]
The Water Pricing Dilemma
Janet Zimmerman in the Riverside (Calif.) Press Enterprise on what happens to water agencies when their customers use less: Water use has dropped by double digits across Southern California as residents heeded the call to conserve. As a result, water district revenues fell drastically. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the wholesaler that supplies most [...]
Leaving Water in the River
When Lissa and I were up in Santa Fe a few months back, I took along the binoculars and took a walk along the Santa Fe River as it passes the old city’s downtown, hunting birds. I found few. Because it’s not much of a river, really. As David Groenfeldt notes, there’s an effort underway [...]
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