Water in the desert: Sybil’s fountain
Our friend Sybil has a particularly nice backyard fountain.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
The Salt/Verde, climate change and Upper Basin Envy
tl;dr – Heads up, Arizona. Less water headed your way! longer version – Stuck out here in the Rio Grande Basin, I’ve long suffered Colorado River Basin Envy Syndrome. The Colorado is the sexy river, which means it gets all the cool science. I dream of an analysis this rich of uncertainties in my river’s …
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Colorado River Pulse Flow On the Move Again
After stalling out for a couple of weeks, the Colorado River Delta Minute 319 pulse flow is back on the move. According to the latest map and missive from the science team, an earthen dam below the downstream-most habitat restoration site was removed, and the pulse has received an added stimulus from the Kilometer 27 …
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Irrigation and hope for New Mexico’s future
Teddy Roosevelt, speaking in Santa Fe, NM, May 5, 1903, during his grand western tour: I build no small hope upon the aid that under the wise law of Congress will ultimately be extended to this as to other States and Territories in the way of governmental aid to irrigation. Irrigation is of course to …
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Groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer
Here’s a nice visualization from the USGS of groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer: h/t Sharlene Leurig
Bougainvillea
The Bougainvillea is justly classed among the most showy of our climbers and when planted beside a veranda or when allowed to climb on a tall tree or building gives gorgeous effects. – Gardening in California: Landscape and Flower, by John McLaren, 1914
more stuff I wrote elsewhere: NM Env. Dept. dings Air Force over groundwater cleanup (or lack thereof)
Also from this morning’s paper, a tougher stance from the New Mexico Environment Department on progress (or lack thereof) in cleaning up a massive groundwater mess beneath Kirtland Air Force Base and adjacent Albuquerque neighborhoods: The letter provided to the Journal is an expression of increasing Environment Department frustration with the cleanup progress. A month …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Embudo and the history of measuring water
From this morning’s paper, a visit to Embudo, where stream U.S. stream flow measurement began: In the world of U.S. water management, this narrow strip where the river funnels between high bluffs is historic. Powell, most famous as the first person to survey the Grand Canyon, had realized that the ambitions of the continent’s European …
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How the media gets drought coverage wrong
The perception of many residents that the drought gravely threatened their pocketbook and way of life was more often than not an exaggeration. Such irrational reactions were in part driven by the media’s coverage of the drought. Water, usually taken for granted and ignored, became their lead story as the drought continued. Video from helicopters …
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Beavers in the Colorado River Delta
When Daniel Trembley MacDougal of the New York Botanical Garden rode a flood pulse through the Colorado River Delta in 1905, he found a puzzling landscape – one of the most arid regions of North America sliced through by “swampy jungles”. At a time when beaver was being trapped into oblivion elsewhere, it was a …