The dewpoint yesterday (Tues. June 28, 2016) passed a sort of vaguely science-based but somewhat arbitrary threshold for the start of the monsoon in Albuquerque – three consecutive days above 47F (8.3C): They’re partying in Tucson, too: It's official! The monsoon is here https://t.co/Aq14D9L3Aj via @tucsonstar — mike_crimmins (@mike_crimmins) June 28, 2016
The trick now is for the three U.S. states sharing the Colorado River’s water downstream of of Lake Mead – Nevada, Arizona, and California – to negotiate some sort of a deal that reduces their collective take on the river. That’s trick one. Trick two is for state negotiators to then sell the deal back …
Continue reading ‘The argument for California to make a Colorado River deal’ »
Lake Mead this evening is passing through a historic milestone – below elevation 1,072 feet above sea level for the first time since it was filled in the 1930s.
Despite a below-average year in the Upper Colorado River Basin, Lake Powell will reach its summer peak this year at its highest level in four years. That comes despite the fact that, once again, the Upper Basin is releasing “bonus” water from Glen Canyon Dam to prop up water users in Arizona, Nevada, California, and …
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We now have an answer to the question of where the money will come from for a billion dollar diversion to take water from the Gila River, a Colorado River tributary in southwestern New Mexico. Nowhere. Laura Paskus has the scoop on this week’s decision by the project’s governing body to abandon the Cadillac versions …
Continue reading ‘Gila River diversion being significantly downscaled’ »
This is one of my favorite weather times of year in Albuquerque, the moment of anticipation when our monsoon looms. As monsoons go, it’s a pretty modest affair, and I’d frequently get crap from Albuquerque Journal readers objecting to the term – it’s not a real monsoon, someone who’s been to south Asia would frequently …
Palm Springs, in the deserts of Southern California, would never be mistaken for an actual desert. They dump too much water on their landscaping for that. But Ian James reports they’re getting better: May turned out to be a banner month for water conservation in the Palm Springs area, with customers of the Desert Water …
Continue reading ‘Palm Springs, a water conservation success?’ »
Steve Scauzillo wrote last week about the Water Replenishment District of Southern California’s decision to invest $110 million in a new wastewater treatment plant, that they might use 21,000 acre feet now discharged to the ocean to recharge regional aquifers instead. Formed in the early 1960s, the WRD is the best example of one of …
I think we often think the worst of people, and despair of certain political mechanisms, when they don’t deliver what we want. We fear the consequences of political outcomes that don’t reflect our values or interests and – particularly during a heated referendum in which so many people are involved – get a bit of …