A new environmental water sharing governance experiment is underway this late summer on the Rio Grande in central New Mexico in an effort to keep stretches of the river wet for ecosystem benefits. Ollie Reed sketched out the details in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal: Sandia, Isleta, Santa Ana and Cochiti pueblos each donated 100 acre-feet …
Continue reading ‘Collaboration on New Mexico’s Rio Grande’ »
So I need to correct something that I wrote a month ago. Tony Davis took a deep dive into the Bureau of Reclamation’s data and concluded in a story published this morning (I think accurately) that water conservation savings in the Lower Colorado River Basin will not be as large as I and others have been …
Continue reading ‘Lower Colorado Basin water savings not as big as I thought’ »
I’m generally an optimist about our ability to solve our water problems of the western United States, but the drought of 2000-05 provides a boundary condition to my thinking. In my post-journalism life, one of the most interesting projects I’ve been working on is a study for/by/with Colorado’s West Slope basin roundtables of the risks …
One of the centerpieces of the argument I make in my book, Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West, is that changing patterns in water demand (specifically, that we’re using a lot less of it than we used to, across all sectors of the economy) create significant new flexibility in …
Continue reading ‘New Pacific Institute report on water demand forecasting’ »
The Colorado River District has a great agenda again this year for its annual Water Seminar: “Colorado River Waves of the Future: Fitting the West to the River’s New Normal“. ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten is the lunch speaker, talking about his excelent “Killing the Colorado” series/documentary, which won special recognition award in this year’s Stanford Knight-Risser Prize …
Continue reading ‘River District Annual Water Seminar, Sept. 16 in Grand Junction’ »
I’ll be talking about my new book Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West next Wednesday (Sept. 7) at Bookworks in Albuquerque. I have a fistful of nice new Sharpies if anybody wants me to sign a copy or three. I’ll talk about that time this guy’s pickup truck got …
Continue reading ‘Hey Albuquerque, I wanna sign your book’ »
We all know about the problems of Flint’s water supply, and the relationship between poor communities and infrastructure problems. We also know about the more general decay of our water infrastructure. Robert Glennon has knitted those two problems together with an interesting argument: Episodes such as Flint undermine the public’s confidence in the safety of …
Continue reading ‘A socioeconomic stratification in US water infrastructure?’ »
My friends in the University of New Mexico water community, faculty and students, threw a party for me last night to welcome me as the new director of UNM’s Water Resources Program and celebrate Book Day Eve. A bunch of Albuquerque water people came too. It was a blast, nobody got drunk and trashed the …
Continue reading ‘Book Day: Water is For Fighting Over, and Other Myths….’ »
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority is looking to hire a new Water Conservation Program Manager. Pass the word, we’re already pretty good at conservation here (I brag about this a lot!) but we’re not letting up. More info can be found at the water authority’s hiring web site. Click on “open positions” in …
Continue reading ‘Good at helping communities conserve water? Albuquerque would like to chat….’ »
With my book Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West officially releasing Thursday, this week I’m visiting here some of the issues, themes, and back stories. Mostly I’m doing this for fun, but I would also be delighted if you would click here and buy a copy or two for …