Drought is not synonymous with shortage. Drought occurs when there is a deficit in precipitation, streamflow, soil moisture or all of the above. Shortage occurs when we lack the policies, incentives and technologies to balance supply and demand in a variable and changing climate. That’s water wonk Dustin Garrick in a new piece urging a rethinking …
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Groundwater overdraft, especially at the pace and scale now underway in the southern part of California’s Central Valley, has substantial costs – in terms of lost water availability and ground subsidence. But the discussion of those costs often occurs in a vacuum, without a discussion of the very real costs incurred by fixing the problem. …
Continue reading ‘The costs of getting California’s Central Valley groundwater house in order’ »
The East Mesa Water Co., in its grant application to the roundtable, says the ditch has a service area of 740 acres. And it says the hay grown on that 740 acres is worth about $500,000 annually, assuming a yield of four tons per acre and a hay price of $170 a ton. The ditch …
Continue reading ‘The many values of Colorado River Basin irrigated agriculture’ »
Here’s another example of a New Mexico “hydrograph” – the rise and fall of flow on a river over time – driven by rules, not weather. The drop in river flow happens when the irrigation season begins in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. Here’s J.R. Logan in the Taos News: The Río Grande …
Continue reading ‘The institutional hydrograph: April on New Mexico’s Rio Grande’ »
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California PR circa 1935. Via the delightful MWD 75, Met PR circa 2016.
After a good start this year, New Mexico’s snowpack cratered in February and March. The month just completed, in fact, was the driest March on record in New Mexico. February and March combined were the second warmest and second driest on record, a devastating combination for what had been shaping up to be a decent …
Continue reading ‘Resilience and water management on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande’ »
On paper, it looks like water use in Gainesville, Florida, is going down. But…. “We are seeing public supply water use decrease over time but population is going up,” Greco said. “So everyone is patting themselves on the back, people like myself, saying, ‘Oh, we are doing such a great job. We are conserving water.’” …
Continue reading ‘Are domestic wells hiding Florida water problem?’ »
My life’s kind of a blur right now, but the official Island Press announcement of my book, along with the unveiling of its cover, is a thing that has just happened, so let me pause and catch my breath. People familiar with my frequent ranting about how Mark Twain never said the thing about whiskey …
Continue reading ‘“Water is for Fighting Over” – on the shelves in September’ »
When I read this Phillip Reese story Monday evening about a California community willfully defying the state’s water conservation orders, the name of the place rang a bell. I shot off an email to my friend Cynthia Barnett, author of the wonderful Blue Revolution, a call for a new water ethic in the United States. “Wasn’t …
Continue reading ‘Granite Bay and the California water ethic’ »
When we think of federal water policy, we think Bureau of Reclamation or EPA. But just as agriculture is where the water is, federal agriculture agencies are where the money is. Ellen Hanak of the Public Policy Institute of California had a post yesterday with some useful suggestions for spending it well: Practical reforms in …
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