The international implications of U.S. water subsidies
While we all understand the market distortions caused in the United States by government subsidies for irrigation water, Michael Campana raises an interesting question about the international implications. Quoting a talk at the XIV World Water Congress by Paul Stanton Kibel of the Center on Urban Environmental Law (“CVP” is the Central Valley Project in [...]
We’re in trouble when we’re arguing about the numbers
John Bass made a great point in a recent comment thread at Delta National Park that highlights one of my frustrations about California water discussions: [I]f basic facts are contentious, then the problem isn’t facts. The comment was triggered by a point the California Farm Water Coalition’s Mike Wade made regarding an editorial that ran [...]
My Fake Rio
In honor of World Rivers Day, I rode my bike down to check out the Rio Grande through Albuquerque this morning. That’s really a bit of a cheat. Most weekends I end up riding my bike down to check out the Rio Grande at least once, but it’s World Rivers Day, and water nerds are [...]
A sign of drought I never thought of: hay theft
The CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth had a report this week on what it characterizes as a growing hay theft problem: Yes, hay, is the new target for thieves. Round bales that used to sell for $20 are now topping $175. The night watchman at Master Made Feed in Grapevine has scared off a half [...]
Climate change and California water: a bad situation likely to get worse
If you think California’s water problems look bad now, just wait. That seems to be the message of a new study by a team from the USGS, Scripps, Berkeley and elsewhere who ran detailed simulations of climate change scenarios on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta/San Francisco Bay system. The project provides a useful exercise, not in [...]
Tamarisk: It’s a fair cop
A wise scientist once remarked on the burnable properties of wood: BEDEMIR: Tell me, what do you do with witches? VILLAGER #2: Burn! CROWD: Burn, burn them up! BEDEMIR: And what do you burn apart from witches? VILLAGER #1: More witches! VILLAGER #2: Wood! BEDEMIR: So, why do witches burn? [pause] VILLAGER #3: B–… ’cause [...]
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: my latest nuclear weapon automotive metaphor
The use of automobile metaphors in descriptions of nuclear weapon technology is somewhere between comedy and cliche. Here’s my latest entry (sub/ad req): You could think of the B61 as the Volkswagen bug of the U.S. nuclear arsenal — reliable, adaptable and very, very old. I also said some other, more substantive things: The risk, [...]
Fiendfyre and the summer of 2011
A guest post from my child, N. Reed Heineman-Fleck, which grew out of our conversations about my work chronicling the southwest’s fires of 2011: When Dad told me about the Los Conchas fire, and how it was different than normal fires–in some places it turned everything to black dust; it rolled instead of catching, it [...]
Water: Why “the Rubik’s Cube of public policy” misses the point
In an interview with Sacramento’s Capital Report, California resources secretary John Laird got off the water wonks’ quip of a lifetime: Water is the Rubik’s Cube of public policy. It will be quoted for all eternity. But really, it’s a lousy metaphor. Here’s the meat of what he said: The thing that probably works to [...]
Central Basin Municipal Water District ignores the first rule of holes
In my automated news searches on California water issues, I’d run across a number of stories of late on a web site called “News Hawks”, which seemed to be devoting an inordinate amount of time to detailing the efforts of an obscure Southern California water agency called the Central Basin Municipal Water District. I didn’t [...]
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