Precipitation this winter at Crater Lake, in northern California southern Oregon, is a tad above normal. Snowpack is at record lows: On Friday morning, the snow level was at 32 inches, tying the Feb. 27 record for low snow. However, snow was falling Friday from a new storm system bringing rain to the Rogue Valley …
Continue reading ‘In the mountains of southern Oregon, what used to be snow turns to rain’ »
Matt Jenkins, the best journalist we’ve got covering water in the western United States, has an insightful cover story in the latest High Country News on Pat Mulroy, the recently retired head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. (Not on line yet – subscribe!) Mulroy is known for being brash and pugnacious, but Matt gets …
Brandon Loomis at the Arizona Republic, with an O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism through the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University, is trying to help us with this: Will Arizona and the Southwest continue to lead the nation in growth as the Colorado River dries? The first round of stories, with Republic photographer …
Continue reading ‘Arizona Republic tackling the Colorado River’ »
BOULDER CITY, NEV. – I was standing at a pullout on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam late this afternoon, taking pictures of the big empty, when a Japanese family got out of their car and walked up to the edge. One of the men pointed down at the big empty, then made a broad …
Continue reading ‘Equilibrium in the Colorado River Basin’ »
With Lake Mead projected to drop 15 feet between now and mid summer, to historic lows, the National Park Service is planning to spend another $5 million extending boat ramps, Steven Slivka at the Boulder City Review reported today: Vanover said drought conditions are expected to continue, and the Park Service is ready to deal …
Continue reading ‘Park Service to spend $5 million chasing water at Lake Mead’ »
Erika Moonin, the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s engineering project manager for construction of the agency’s new Lake Mead intakes, showed me a picture yesterday of water pouring over Hoover Dam’s spillways in 1983, the last time the reservoir spilled. When she was a youngster, her dad took her out to see the spectacle. Looking at …
LAS VEGAS – I like the fact that Las Vegas, Nev., is preserving the relics of its water origin story. From “spring hill” at the Springs Preserve municipal park, you can see the towers of Las Vegas’s gambling strip. Visitation at the park this afternoon when I snuck away for a bird-watching walk after a morning …
People monitoring snowpack and planning for the coming water year use two quite different definitions for the “Upper Colorado” basin/headwaters/watershed. One definition involves the watershed above Glenwood Springs, within the state of Colorado, where the branch of the big river once known as the “Grand” and then renamed the “Colorado” begins. (Bob in the comments …
Continue reading ‘A word of caution about what “Upper Colorado” means’ »
Here’s my obligatory picture of Lake Mead’s bathtub ring, as seen this afternoon from Hoover Dam: The surface elevation this afternoon was 1,088.97 feet above sea level, the lowest it’s been at this time of year since 1956. It has dropped 20 feet since this time a year ago, which is among the biggest one-year …
Continue reading ‘Bathtub Ring, and yet more thoughts on why Lake Mead is dropping’ »
PARKER STRIP – In 2005, according to the Bureau of Land Management, the 16 concessionaires leasing BLM land along this strip of the Colorado River reported more than 4 million “visitor days”, people like these motorboaters enjoying a warm (but not hot) late winter day on the river. That’s a mobile home and RV park …
Continue reading ‘“half-told stories about the value of water”’ »