The interplay between human water use and natural systems has always been a ratchet, and when the environmental conversation began in earnest in this country, the ratchet was already cranked down tight. By the time, for example, that we began having a conversation about preservation of environmental values on the Lower Colorado River, Hoover Dam …
Continue reading ‘“The environment has always gotten the short end of the stick.”’ »
In freedom-lovin’, drought hatin’ Texas, it takes state legislation to allow homeowners to rip out their lawns: While many Texans are cutting back on their water use by switching to drought-friendly landscaping, some may find an obstacle in their way: Homeowners Associations (HOAs). A new bill in the state legislature would change that.
My post last week on the Bellagio fountain and the fact that it got its water from wells originally drilled to water an old golf course drew questions. Today, we have answers. Jeffrey Prest asks: “What was the name of the old golf course?” Doug Bennett at the Southern Nevada Water Authority shared this old postcard of …
Continue reading ‘More on where the Bellagio fountain gets its water’ »
I’ve been a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists for a number of years, but every year when my renewal notice comes up I wrestle anew with the membership and the label it entails.* I’m a journalist who covers topics that are sometimes labeled “environmental”, but I’m not sure how to define the subject …
Continue reading ‘A half-hearted defense of the New York Times decision to kill the green blog’ »
From the morning paper, the latest in the struggle to figure out how much water the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow needs: According to an analysis by the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, the river has only once since the 1990s, in 2005, had enough water to meet the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “conservation objective” …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere – Anthropocene diaries: how much water for the minnow?’ »
The agreement between the Southern Nevada Water Authority (Las Vegas) and the Arizona Water Banking Authority, under which Arizona banked water for Nevada, has always seemed to me like a harbinger of the future in the Colorado River Basin – mutually beneficial sharing across state borders. Via Juliet McKenna and Michele Robertson, it now appears …
Continue reading ‘landmark Arizona-Nevada water deal coming to an end’ »
oops, update, forgot link Journal photographer Robert Rosales and I recently visited Maxwell, NM, which I describe (I think safely, though how does one know for sure?) as having “arguably the most serious drought-driven municipal water supply problem in the state of New Mexico.” From the story: Asked about the burden she bears in trying …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Real water, real people, Maxwell NM edition’ »
I’ve been getting this wrong. The water in the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas does not come from recycled sewage: The Bellagio fountains are mostly using well water that exists beneath the Bellagio landscape. That well water was used previously to maintain a golf course that previously existed there. The beauty of that is the …
Continue reading ‘Where the Bellagio Fountain’s water comes from’ »
[A]n informed and properly motivated risk communicator would proceed deliberately and cautiously. In particular, because efforts to quiet public fears about vaccines will predictably create some level of exactly that fear, such a communicator will not engage in a high-profile, sustained campaign to “reassure” the general public that vaccines are safe without reason to believe …
In a Greek forest, tree rings telling a familiar story – a history of surface fire, but a trend toward much more destructive blazes: the size of the area burned as well as the type of fire seem to have changed, with the 2007 event being the most extended crown fire encountered so far. Our …