Archive of entries posted by jfleck
The problem with Victor Davis Hanson’s case for California’s water policy failures
In a twitter discussion this morning, Brian Jordan shared a telling graphic that exposes the problems with Victor Davis Hanson’s recent City Journal essay about California’s water problems. Hanson’s argument is that California abandoned a dam-building program that, had it been pursued, would have provided the necessary storage to meet needs in this year of …
Overheard on the bus: Beowulf
Overheard on the 766 Rapid Ride bus as it pulled into downtown Albuquerque…. Guy standing in the aisle: “Is that a good book?” Guy seated: “I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.” Pause. “It’s as old as fuck, though.” I look over to see the guy sitting across the aisle from me has a …
Tree rings in the Rolling Stone
Would I be right to guess that this is the first time tree rings have been in the Rolling Stone? “It was like looking through a telescope into the future to see how forests would respond, and it felt awful,” Williams says. “The result was totally unimaginable: wildfires, bark beetles, a huge reduction in forest …
In California, a new face of water conservation?
One way to conserve water is to pay people to not use it. That’s not the normal way of talking about water markets, but that’s one way of framing what’s going on right now between Southern California urban water users and rice farmers up north: With the drought stretching into its fourth year, a heavyweight …
Continue reading ‘In California, a new face of water conservation?’ »
A reminder that stormwater isn’t free water
There is a natural desire in water-short communities to capture and use stormwater. But a brewing feud between the state of New Mexico and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a reminder that tweaking the stormwater management system is not without consequences, because the water you’re capturing would otherwise be going somewhere and doing something. …
Continue reading ‘A reminder that stormwater isn’t free water’ »
Agricultural land, drought and taxes
The New Mexico legislature is considering a bill this year that would make it easier for farmers to maintain their “agricultural” designation, for property tax purposes, during drought. This is important for preservation of rural agricultural ways of life, because ag land taxes are cheaper than land otherwise labeled (“residential”, for example). For this reason, …
Good news and bad news for Lake Mead
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s monthly report forecasting Colorado River Basin reservoir operations for the next 24 months (pdf) came out today, and it had some good news and some bad news for people in the Lower Colorado River Basin worried about dropping levels in Lake Mead. Mead ended February at a surface elevation of …
Tracking Arizona water supplies
The folks at Montgomery & Associates are publishing a handy new summary of reservoir storage for Arizona, which I’m told will be updated monthly.
Interest in water follows a seasonal cycle
Our interest in “water”, as measured by the frequency with which we type it into Google, follows a seasonal cycle, peaking in July and bottoming out in December: