On May 1, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center projected 3 million acre feet of runoff into Lake Powell from Aril 1 through the end of July. This was bad. Then it started raining. On June 1, the forecast was increased to 5 million acre feet. As of late last week, the estimate actual inflow …
In his dissent from the majority on today’s gay marriage ruling, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia weighed in on a central question confronting those of us in the western United States: Is California in The West? The court, Scalia notes, contains “not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner. …
Continue reading ‘I am a Californian. I am a Westerner. I proudly wear flip-flops.’ »
By the powers invested in my by no one in particular, I hereby declare Albuquerque’s 2015 Monsoon Season underway. The weather radar is showing blobs of color in the high country to the southwest, there are high clouds popping up above the mountains to the east of the city, but the real clue was how …
Continue reading ‘Albuquerque’s monsoon officially underway’ »
You can’t supply unlimited amounts of water to every person for every purpose. – Phil Isenberg, vice chairman of California’s Delta Stewardship Council, in today’s New York Times.
Crystal: “I’m not even going to the pool.” Cop: “What’s with the noodle, then.” Also, a dude busted for eating almonds.
The June mid-month forecast from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center is up a million acre feet from June 1. Total April-July inflow into Lake Powell is now projected to be 6 million acre feet, up from 5 million acre feet forecast on June 1. That’s still below average, just 84 percent of the mean. …
Continue reading ‘Halfway through June, another million acre feet on the Colorado River’ »
Wyoming is pursuing federal legislation to take another 150,000 acre feet per year from its share of the Colorado River’s Upper Basin allotment: If successful, the project would allow the state to use the bulk of its remaining allocation under the Colorado River Compact, diverting another 149,600 acre-feet from the Green River annually, according to …
Continue reading ‘Taking more water from the Colorado River’s upper basin’ »
Andrea Costillo in the weekend Fresno Bee: East Porterville’s poverty and education shortcomings stand out in a state analysis of communities with the highest health risks. The analysis from the California Environmental Protection Agency shows the town’s poverty level is among the highest 10% in the state. In education, the community ranks worse than 91% …
Continue reading ‘When the drought story is really a poverty story’ »
Before I went on the Children’s Hour this morning on KUNM (archived for now here, go to June 20, 9 a.m.), I looked at a few graphs. Here’s the first – Albuquerque precipitation since Oct. 1. It’s the accumulated precip on the Y axis, date on the x. The brown line is mean, the green …
In one of those wonderful emergent social media moments yesterday, a suggested reading list emerged on Twitter, hashtagged #CharlestonSyllabus. I have two personal contributions. I’ve written previously in this space about Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. It’s a powerful economic history arguing that America’s great …