I first noticed it while I was out in the mountains of northern New Mexico back in the mid-1990s with Karl Karlstrom, a University of New Mexico geologist. I had tagged along on a summer field camp mapping exercise for a feature I was doing, and spent a good part of the day shadowing Karl …
In his richly detailed The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley, Philip Garone explains a bit about the origin of wildlife refuges that I never knew: During the early decades of the twentieth century, much of the Sacramento Valley was converted to profitable rice production. However, because the valley’s natural …
Continue reading ‘The economic origins of wildlife refuges’ »
I’m thinkin’ you’ll want to head out to your favorite local bookstore and buy Bill deBuys’ A Great Aridness. It’s full of stuff like this, on the dry winter of 2001-02, when a bear came out of hibernation early because it was so warm and ransacked deBuys’ yard in search of something to eat: That …
Because it’s hard to resist the word “megadrought” – or, frankly, the concept: Tree rings from the headwaters of the Rio Grande show a 50-year drought from 122 to 172 AD, suggesting that “megadroughts” may be a recurring feature of the region’s climate, according to new research by a University of Arizona team. Scientists have …
Thrown on driveways this morning, my effort to explain why I think the endangered species act process, as it relates to the silver minnow on the Rio Grande, is broken: If you believe those who argue we are overusing water in the Middle Rio Grande Valley and headed for a crash (and there’s good data …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: the endangered species act process brokenness’ »
Those pesky tree ring scientists are at it again, spoiling a perfectly good party. Stephen Gray and colleagues have taken a dig into runoff over the last 1,000 years on three major Colorado River tributaries, adding a new level of granular detail to something that already seemed apparent: Runoff during the 20th century, when we …
Faster Internet: (I don’t really hate Colorado. I’m just enjoying playing with Data Explorer.)
It’s not enough that Mesa Verde is on their side of the border. (We all know it really belongs, for all practical purposes, in New Mexico.) Now I discover, playing with Google Data Explorer, that Colorado just passed New Mexico in natural gas production. Man! I thought that was the one thing we were good …
Continue reading ‘Another reason for New Mexicans to resent Colorado’ »
River forecaster Tom Pagano, late of Portland, Ore., and Australia, is on the road working on a book about river forecasting, so naturally he’s ended up in Thailand. In a post today, he talks about a language dilemma forecasters face: A phrase like the “worst case scenario” is a double-edged sword. This is the kind …
Just when you think the great comedy act that is California water politics has exhausted itself, another white-faced, red-bulb-nosed, big footed character climbs out of the Golden State’s Great Clown Car. Comes now the Honorable Devin Nunes, he of the muscular, fiercely independent southern San Joaquin Valley, suggesting that the Department of Interior up the …
Continue reading ‘The rent on Hetch Hetchy is not high enough’ »