Laura Paskus has a new web site
Southwestern environmental journalist Laura Paskus has a new web site. Lots of great work linked there, check it out.
Archive of entries posted on September 2010
Water Pricing in California
When the price of water rises, ag users feel the most pain. That seems to be what is happening in northern San Diego County, where rising prices of water delivered by the Metropolitan Water District to the Valley Center Municipal Water District is apparently making a big dent in the avocado business, reports Pat Maio: …
In Search of the Rio Grande
This being “World Rivers Day“, I spent the morning puzzling over the nature of ours. Truth is, I was planning on being aware of our river this morning anyway, via a ride on my new bicycle (seen here propped against a log at one of the constructed wetlands adjacent to the Rio Grande). I don’t …
River Beat: End of the Water Year, Taking Stock
“Water year” 2010 ends next week, making this a good time to take stock of our historic position on the Colorado River. And by a couple of different measures, things are truly historic: The latest forecast (and right now forecasting amounts to tiny fractions of in inch) puts Lake Mead’s surface elevation at 1084.14 feet …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: End of the Water Year, Taking Stock’ »
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Jevons Paradox
From this morning’s newspaper, a column (sub/ad req) about the reasons energy efficiency may not save as much as its advocates frequently claim: In a new paper, a team led by Tsao has drawn international attention by arguing that, instead of leading to reduced energy consumption, super-efficient bulbs may instead lead to people simply using …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Jevons Paradox’ »
The Politics of the Colorado River Compact
In a debate between candidates for Colorado Congressional District 3 (the western part of the state, including the west slope and Colorado river), the two candidates are reported to have shown clear agreement on an important point: Both pledged heartily to fight all efforts to reopen the Colorado River Compact. Also, all efforts to switch …
Continue reading ‘The Politics of the Colorado River Compact’ »
La Niña and the Colorado
With La Niña rapidly strengthening, it is reasonable to ask what can be said about the resulting effect on flows in the Colorado River. The short answer: not much. It is reasonable to guess otherwise, because so much of the southwest depends on the Colorado for its water supply, and because La Niña is so …
Hoover Dam, Servant of the People
Lissa found a treasure for me at Sam Weller’s in Salt Lake City – the March 1956 issue of Arizona Highways: Among the gems within is Ak Akvik’s Servant of the People (tribute to Hoover Dam). An excerpt: Below, stilled forever the red rage of the angry river. Below, in blue serenity, as docile as …
Water Wars, Southeastern Style
Speaking at a symposium in Las Vegas in April, former Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Bob Johnson made a critical point about the differences between water problems on the Colorado River and the current struggles in the southeast over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basins. The ACT-ACF fights made the Economist this week, in an article …
Arizona’s Water Troubles
I am the type of journalist who loves a juicy, seemingly intractable political/policy problem. That’s why I love writing about water. But as a New Mexico water writer, I confess to a certain amount of envy at my colleagues to the west. Sure, we’ve got some tough water problems in our state. But they are …