Wildfire smoke at dusk
Not a big fire, or a bad fire, at least not yet. Until humans arrived in force to change things, fires were common in those mountains. It’s a fire-adapted ecosystem. We’ve got to get used to the smoke.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
The Colorado River is no one thing, episode XXVI
Laughlin, Nevada: The river is the focal point — and reason behind — the town’s existence. Without it there would be no casinos. During the summer months, the river is more of a factor in the Laughlin experience than at any other time of year. The all-too-easy-to-adopt thought that Laughlin is too hot in the …
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The Colorado’s problems: if you’re not talking about alfalfa, you’re not being serious
Let’s revisit regulated deficit irrigation and the analysis Mike Cohen did last year of the problems and opportunities associated with forage crops in the Colorado River Basin, shall we? Golf and the Bellagio Fountain are easy targets. But if you’re not talking about alfalfa, you’re not being serious. Here’s Cohen et al.: Irrigated pasture and …
Golf
I love this bit of business from Charles Fishman’s visit to Angel Park, a Las Vegas golf course, in his book The Big Thirst: By the time a golfer steps up to the first tee, Angel Park has used 2,507 gallons of water to make that round of golf possible, 139 gallons of water for …
Grover explains how to solve the Colorado River’s problems
Grover’s talking here about raisins, but I think it generalizes.
Lake Mead’s coming record low
Four years ago, I stood on Hoover Dam staring down at the receding water line as Lake Mead set what was, at the time, a record low: If you blow this picture up enough, you can probably see pixels of rock that have not been exposed since the 1930s. Or maybe not. The surface elevation …
Why water governance fails
In his new book Chasing Water, Brian Richter offers an interesting list of the ways in which water governance fails: Insufficient Financial Capacity If the government is not generating enough money from taxes or other means to meet these needs, or if the government simply is not allocating enough of its resources to the governing …
Las Vegas water rights not what they used to be
Las Vegas golf course developer selling water rights at $20,000/af (http://t.co/3wP6VliFTm) Lower price than 2012 (http://t.co/S8d4dg8rf6) — Brett Walton (@waltonwater) June 24, 2014 In 2012 The Walters Group, a golf course outfit, offered millions of dollars of water rights at $25,500 per acre foot. Two years later, the going price seems to have dropped: The …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: It’s the farms
Readers of this blog tend to be self-selected group (I’m looking at you, water nerds), so the fact the bulk of the West’s water goes to farming is not news to you. But my hunch (without any data) is that this is not well understood among the broader public. Which is who I write for …
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Why it’s not about the Bellagio Fountain redux – a peek into the solution space
Here’s The Nature Conservancy’s Brian Richter, in his new book Chasing Water, describing what the solution space for the Colorado River Basin’s water problems might look like: Even though urban water uses (for domestic, commercial, and industrial purposes) account for only a minor share of total water use in most water-stressed places, urban water …
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