My life becomes self-parody
In Las Vegas for a two-day conference on the Colorado River law and policy. Checked into my hotel room, looked out the window to see the Bellagio Fountains: My life has become self-parody.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Water and agricultural jobs
Nathanael Johnson, in an excellent recent Grist piece, argues that the impact on California’s agricultural economy from the drought is likely to be less than some of the dire rhetoric might suggest because of the way farmers adapt: Philip Bowles, whose family farms near Los Banos, Calif., said they are changing and adapting every day. …
That giant pipeline from a wet place? Not gonna happen….
This comes up every drought, and people in the Pacific Northwest are worried again that we’re gonna steal their water: It may sound like a loopy idea, but there have been a lot loopier ideas that came true. And this is the American West, where we make a living taking water and moving it someplace …
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Yuma’s economy in a single photo
People I talked to on my recent trip to Yuma repeatedly ticked off the three components of the regional economy: ag federal (mostly military) tourism If you count me as “3” on a Gila main canal ditch bank as a squadron of military helicopters flew over, this picture captures them all. I think it’s fair …
Lissa’s iris and cacti, in the manner of Johnny Appleseed
It was free iris (and a little cactus) day today at the Lissa Heineman Garden and Art Emporium. The garden, a project of 20-plus years’ duration, has come to be Lissa’s best work of art (at least that’s what I think), a constantly evolving thing that is great in part because it will never be …
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1080.18: Lake Mead breaks another record, lowest since it was filled
At the 7 p.m. Pacific Time reading this evening, the surface elevation of Lake Mead dropped to 1080.18 feet above sea level, surpassing the previous low set last August to mark the lowest the big Colorado River Reservoir has been since it was filled in the 1930s: The record came as Hoover Dam’s operators ramped …
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In Coachella Valley, poor people who are always in drought
The Desert Sun has been doing a great series on California’s drought, but this is surely the most important of the stories. While the rest of California worries about a dwindling supply, some poor residents of the palmy, leafy, lawny Coachella Valley, playground of Southern California wealth, don’t have a safe drinking supply at all, …
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“I’m stuck in my ways.”
It was only when I was captioning and filing my pictures from my recent tours of the old bits of Arizona’s Lower Colorado River water infrastructure that I noticed what the graffiti here said: “I’m stuck in my ways.” It’s a surreal spot – springing from the side of a harsh desert canyon, a remarkable …
Lake Mead, always with the record setting lows
As I write, the surface elevation of Lake Mead is 2 1/2 inches away from setting yet another record for its lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s. Henry Brean, with characteristic flair, writes that the threshold will likely be crossed Sunday: The last time Lake Mead was this low was May 1937, …
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In a Colorado River shortage, Central Arizona will be fine for now
The folks at the Central Arizona Project and Arizona Department of Water Resources held a workshop yesterday to discuss the implications of Colorado River shortage. I didn’t have time to get down there, but Summer Pauli covered the basic message for Cronkite News Service: Arizona’s communities, industries, mines and Native American tribes aren’t likely to …
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