sewage and refugees
Do not underestimate how important a sewage system is to your humanity; refugees know that their subhuman status as the waste of nations is confirmed by having to live in their own waste. Viet Thanh Nguyen
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Verde Water Treatment Plant
my interdisciplinary life
My new life at the University of New Mexico includes teaching in and overseeing an interdisciplinary graduate program for water resources students (Not too early to apply for next fall!). But what does this word “interdisciplinary” mean? My day thus far: morning phone call with law school faculty member about arcane structure of New Mexico’s …
Some context on the Colorado River and the U.S.-Mexico reset
Rhea Graham, a savvy veteran of western water governance, made an interesting observation about my book over on Goodreads: One of the few thoughtful discussions of the Lower Colorado River international boundary, it unwittingly becomes context for the reset of USA-Mexico relations begun in 2017. I spend a good deal of time in Water is …
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New Mexico’s Rio Grande forecast: 50-plus percent above average
Runoff this year on the Rio Grande at Otowi in northern New Mexico is forecast to be 50 percent above average, according to preliminary numbers out this morning from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the March-July forecast. There’s always a big spread in the forecast this early in …
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soil moisture and the new forecast for an above-average year on the Colorado River
A wet January added nearly 3 million acre feet to the Colorado River runoff forecast, with the Feb. 1 forecast update from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center sitting at 9.5 million acre feet for April through July. That is 34 percent above average. The snowpack currently sits at 56 percent above average. The dropoff …
that time I wrote about Ed Meese’s unpaid jaywalking ticket
Going through boxes in the garage, I came across this treasure: I was a young intern at the late, lamented Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Meese, for those too young to remember, was Attorney General of the United States of America under Ronald Reagan. Good times.
evidence, policy, and the importance of stories
Upcoming discussions in my spring University of New Mexico Water Resources Program class about the importance of evidence in policy-making seem freshly relevant. The class, co-taught with hydrologist Jesse Roach and economist Jingjing Wang, has a pretty nerdy focus on dynamic simulation modeling. Over the course of the semester, the students work through the problem …
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the understandings and misunderstandings of science
The task of imparting clarity about the understandings and misunderstandings of science is, I have come to realize, one of my important tasks in my new role as university educator. Our students are pursuing masters degrees in water resources (check us out, not too early to start thinking about applying for fall semester!). The curriculum …
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Churchill on brevity
I’m increasing the emphasis on communication in the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program core curriculum. I want our graduates to not only do solid technical water management work, but to develop the tools to communicate it to the people who need it. With that in mind, I’m giving them this as one of …