There’s a letter to the editor in the latest High Country News (it’s in the paper edition, can’t link yet) that repeats a California water myth that’s just flat wrong – the California Supergiant Alfalfa Water Use Export Myth. Alfalfa alone is using more water than all the other water uses combined, and most of …
A correction: last night I posted about the new Resorts World Las Vegas, to be built at the north end of the strip. I said it would have a 29,350-square-foot lake. That is not a “lake”. That is half the size of a football field. That is a “pond”. I apologize and stand corrected.
John Whitehead: Economists are often bad at considering the distributional impacts of policies: To the point that we often ignore issues of equity in favor of the more objective measure of efficiency. If two policies were to result in the same net benefits to society, but different distribution of those benefits within society, the efficiency-oriented …
With the current snowpack in the Colorado Basin watersheds above Lake Powell at 93 percent of average (source: CBRFC), we’re entering the critical time for the 2015-16 water year on the Colorado River. Today’s forecast from the federal government’s Climate Prediction Center has the odds tipped toward a wet later winter and spring, but not …
Continue reading ‘Odds favor wet late winter, spring across Colorado River Basin’ »
The new Resorts World Las Vegas, on the north end of the strip: According to county documents, the arena will be part of a later phase but a 29,350-square-foot lake that is part of a Chinese garden, and other water features, is part of the initial development.
The latest U.S. Bureau of Reclamation two-year Colorado River operational forecast, released last week, projects that Lake Mead will end December 2017 at elevation 1,074.2 feet above sea level, about 10 inches below the level that would trigger a first ever shortage declaration on the Lower Colorado River. Here’s the legal mumbo-jumbo: In years when …
Continue reading ‘Odds now favor a Lower Colorado River Basin shortage declaration in 2018’ »
The snowpack this morning in the Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell (source: CBRFC) measures at 90 percent of average for this date, which is a bit nerve wracking with the basin’s reservoirs only half full (source: USBR pdf). The latest forecast runs from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the folks who run the …
Continue reading ‘Colorado Basin snowpack lagging, forecast for a wet spring’ »
From H2oradio: When he’s doing his search pattern if he detects the odor that he’s trained to find, which is invasive mussels, he’ll sit down. Then as a handler, I’ll ask him to pinpoint exactly where he found it so he’ll point to it with his nose and then I’ll verify and I’ll look and …
Continue reading ‘Adorable dogs protect our waterways from evil quagga mussels’ »
OtPR has a super insightful observation about three decades of California water policy: The Peripheral Canal was voted down in 1982. My sense is that the possibility of the Peripheral Canal has largely paralyzed California water policy since then (with the possible exception of IRWM). If the Peripheral Canal had been entirely off the table, the regions …
Continue reading ‘Has the Peripheral Delta Tunnel Canal Thingie paralyzed California water?’ »
The great decoupling between Albuquerque’s growth and its water use, with total use down another 3 percent in 2015, continuing a trend that over two decades has led to a 24 percent drop in water use, even as population has grown 25 percent. I don’t have population numbers yet that I need to do the …
Continue reading ‘Albuquerque’s water use dropped another 3 percent in 2015’ »