I don’t write about homelessness much here because I don’t know enough to feel like I have much useful to add to the words and work of those who do. But I do think about it a lot. I also think a lot about the challenges of collective choice and collective action. Which is at the …
Janet Wilson had a super helpful piece this week in the Desert Sun about steps being taken (in a hurry) to get the institutional widgets in place to meet Lower Basin commitments to reduce water use under a deal hashed out in spring 2023 to head of Colorado River NEPA litigation. If all goes as …
Continue reading ‘Hustling to get Imperial Irrigation District water reduction tools in place’ »
Central New Mexico’s Rio Grande water users are perched on the edge of a dangerous precipice because of our failure to deliver enough water to Elephant Butte Reservoir, according to a June 28, 2024, letter from the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. We’re currently 121,500 feet …
The graph uses day-long averages. The actual peak yesterday was over 3,000 cfs at the Central Avenue Bridge. Here’s what it looked like around noon:
This remarkable image by Roberto Rosales, my former Albuquerque Journal colleague now taking pictures for City Desk ABQ, captures a sharp reality of Albuquerque. We built our city in a flood plain, and in particular downtown beginning in the 1880s in a low area that was part Rio Grande flood path, and part swamp. That …
Continue reading ‘“sad havoc” – what happens when you build a city in a flood plain’ »
Soto Avenue in Albuquerque’s Old Town Neighborhood is more “alley” than “avenue”. It’s one of our bicycling work-arounds for the unrideable stretch of Central Avenue – old Route 66 – on the east side of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque. I ducked down Soto this morning at the tail end of a wandery bike ride. …
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday in a lawsuit between Texas and New Mexico over Rio Grande water reframes discussions in Colorado River Basin, where the threat of a similar Supreme Court action looms. Texas and New Mexico schemed a water-sharing agreement to settle the thing, but the Department of Interior intervened to say “Nope” …
I was on the service road out behind the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History when I got a text this morning about the Supreme Court decision. I pulled up Scotusblog on my phone, read the headline. “Oh shit,” I texted back. And then I put the phone away and went back to pedaling …
Given the apparently unproductive state-to-state negotiations over post-2026 management of the Colorado River, it’s worth examining, in our search for a path forward, some of the other proposals submitted to the Department of the Interior. (If you need some bedtime reading….) One of the most interesting comes from the Gila River Indian Community. (Their March …
Continue reading ‘Gila River Indian Community proposal for post-2026 Colorado River Management’ »
Update 6/17/2022: Update: Based on a conversation with a friend familiar with the plumbing in and around the Gila gage, caution is in order pending a USGS recalibration, which we’re hoping for soon. Measuring flows this low is hard! Thanks to a question from alert Inkstain reader S, I see that flows on the …
Continue reading ‘Lowest flows ever recorded on New Mexico’s Gila River’ »