On Hobbies
I wonder what my life would be like if I’d stuck with model trains rather than taking up blogging. Probably less stressful.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
The Colorado River “psst psst” scheme emerges into public view: the “Supply Driven” concept
See note of correction/clarification below: Arizona yesterday finally moved the super-secret idea at the heart of current Colorado River negotiations out of the shadows. The idea is deceptively simple: base Lake Powell releases on a percentage of the three-year rolling average of the Colorado River’s estimated “natural flow” at Lee Ferry. Allocate water …
Agave season
It’s that time of year when the family collects agave sightings around our Albuquerque neighborhood, detouring our drives and walks and bike rides to follow their progress, sharing locations and pictures whenever we’re out and about. This one greeted me this morning as I was returning from my first tentative bike ride in a week …
Quoting Simon Willison
I really do feel like blogging is onto its second wind. The amount of influence you can have on the world by consistently blogging about a subject is just as high today as it was back in the 2000s when blogging first started. The best time to start a blog may have been twenty years …
Brad Udall on climate change and the Colorado River
Via Allen Best, Brad Udall’s critically important comments at last week’s Getches-Wilkinson Colorado River conference: Within this basin, we can and have worked together to deal with a really sticky, difficult issue like climate change, to inform decision-making given the right partners, including the federal government at the table. Point two is our current climate …
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The Colorado River Conclave
Fascinating observation from Jim Lochhead this morning at the Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado River Conference about the nature of the current negotiations and the role of the federal government. It came during a panel moderated by Anne Castle focused on what we learned from the expiring 2007 river management guidelines, which are the subject of intense …
Raton, New Mexico: notes on western railroad towns and urban form
RATON, NEW MEXICO The decorative streetlights, the hanging planters, the Chamber of Commercial-style tourist banners, the antique stores, the nascent brew pub scene. The old motels, with their seen-better-days charm. The newer motels (but still old), out by the interstate, with U-Hauls in the parking lot and their seen-better-days lack of charm. The abandoned buildings, …
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Colorado River Basin Reservoir Storage: where do we stand?
Jack Schmidt* and John Fleck** *Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University **Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law 1 June 2025 We now begin June, when the Colorado River’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, should be swelling with melting snow for use later this year …
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What the Mexican Treaty negotiations of the 1940s can tell us about 21st century Colorado River governance
Eric Kuhn, with some help from Anne Castle and myself, has taken a useful dive into what was known in the 1940s as Congress was considering the treaty between the United States and Mexico regarding how to share the waters of the Colorado River. Drawing on the analysis of Colorado’s Royce Tipton, Eric draws out …
The pink hollyhock by the bike sheds: a delight
A friend (thanks R!) hipped me to Ross Gay’s Book of Delights, which is what it says on the tin. It is full of charming morsels by a charming writer as he observers his own proclivity for delight. This is a useful life skill. I’m lingering over it a few morsels to start most days …
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