When I posted a couple of weeks back on the fact that land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is subsiding faster than sea level is rising, a smart reader asked privately, “Yeah, so what’s the point?” My reader’s observation was, in essence, that it doesn’t really matter much in terms of policy response whether the …
With Texas emerging from its record drought, it’s a good time to size up how the state’s water systems have responded. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reports that just two small community water systems, Spicewood Beach and Florence – a total population of less than 3,000 people – are in danger of running out …
Suggested storylines welcome.
The residents of Lubbock use more cocaine on the weekend. How do we know this? Science! Influent to the Lubbock (Texas) Water Reclamation Plant was sampled twice a week to assess weekly variations in estimates of cocaine consumption over a 5-month period. BE was extracted from influent wastewater samples using solid phase extraction and analyzed …
Barry Nelson had an insightful post today comparing and contrasting the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta systems. There are important similarities – crashing (or crashed) ecosystems and water supplies for human systems that are stretched beyond the point of sustainability. But the institutional frameworks for addressing those problems and the prospect of …
Continue reading ‘The Sacramento Delta and the Colorado River – a comparison’ »
The June forecast on the Colorado River is almost an academic exercise at this point. What we’ve got is what we’ve got. But it’s nevertheless notable that the folks at the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center only needed one color this month for their map:
With the Whitewater-Baldy fire pushing 260,000 acres (New Mexico’s largest by a wide margin), I spent some time talking with the forest-climate community about climate change, forest health and the role of natural variability in creating the conditions for the southwest’s recent megafires: Global warming is playing a role in the conditions in the Gila …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: climate change and megafires’ »
The risk from sea level rise to California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system is frequently discussed. As sea level rises, the argument goes, the risk of failing levees increases. With a substantial share of California’s farmland and population depending on water supplies that flow through the delta, failed levees is an enormous risk. Levee failures, as …
Continue reading ‘Sacramento Delta sinking faster than sea level is rising’ »
Let us stipulate that my home weather records are subject to what Tversky and Kahneman would likely call “the law of small numbers“. Which is to say that, when I tell you May is the driest month of the year around here, you should suspect my statistical reasoning. That said, it is factually correct to …
Consistent with Friday’s dismal US jobs report, the latest Inkstain CSFC Index, my key indicator of local economic health, does not look good. On the morning bike ride, I swung by the local Walmart Superstore and counted just two big storage containers out back.