New Mexico has a relatively short part in the conventional story of the making of the United States from east to west. The older, longer-lasting story of a country made from south to north, or in gridwork and patches with contributions from all over the hemisphere and the world, has resumed there. It is a …
It’s a little thing, this new breed of drought-tolerant alfalfa bred on New Mexico State University research plots in the southern part of my arid state. But it provides another clue (behind a Google surveywall) about what the path forward in western water management might look like: Adoption of a new crop takes time, so don’t …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Drought-tolerant alfalfa’ »
People in arid lands have always been very ingenious when it comes to conserving water. The late New Mexico writer and irrigator Juan Estevan Arrellano, from his new book Enduring Acequias: Wisdom of the Land, Knowledge of the Water, which came out in August, shortly before his recent sad and untimely death.
The latest USGS “Estimated Use of Water in the US” is out. It says we’re using less water. From 2005-10, a 13 percent drop. “Peak water” happened back in 1980: There are lots of caveats. This analysis uses “withdrawals” rather than “consumptive use”. So if a power plant sucks up river water for cooling, …
Water is photogenic, even at a sewage treatment plant. This is from a tour this afternoon of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s Southside Wastewater Reclamation Plant with a couple of University of New Mexico faculty colleagues and a bunch of students, including the graduate students in the Water Resources Program, where I’m an …
I had a lovely afternoon yesterday walking alongside the Bear Canyon Arroyo in Albuquerque’s northeast heights, talking with fellow water nerds Katherine Yuhas and Amy Ewing, and watching water flow in New Mexico’s first operational aquifer storage and recovery project (behind a Google surveywall): Nearly 3,000 gallons a minute of water began spurting from a …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: ASR in New Mexico’ »
My daughter noticed the new Starbucks Vonnegut cups: Really psyched about the Starbucks Vonnegut cups: "This is a picture of an asshole" pic.twitter.com/cKfwReOUFK — Norapinephrine (@NoraReed) November 2, 2014
About a decade ago, New Mexico state Rep. Mimi Stewart introduced legislation to collect a “water resource fee” on all water use in the state – $2 per acre foot for ag, $20 per acre foot for municipal and most other water users. (details in a 2003 talk by Steward here – pdf) The idea …
A lovely fall day in the Rio Grande Valley, on Albuquerque’s west side. The green field in the lower left of this picture is alfalfa. The scraggly brown stuff in the middle and right foreground is a part of the same field left fallow this year. The cottonwoods, God love ’em, suck up water no …
Continue reading ‘Here’s what ag water conservation might look like’ »