I’ll see your “peripheral thingie” and raise you a “punnel”
I’ve been using “peripheral thingie” to talk about a California Delta water conveyance but Jeff Mount has done me one better: “punnel” (a peripheral tunnel).
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Save water, rates go up, episode III
In which Carmichael, CA, residents find that upon using less water, their rates go up: If you’re worried about water bills and you use less water, you should get a lower bill, right? But that’s not happening in the Carmichael Water District. The district has announced it wants to raise water rates 18 percent starting …
The Endangered Species Act as a water management tool – case for the defense
Here and elsewhere, I’ve been arguing lately that the Endangered Species Act has become the de-facto water management tool of choice (necessity?) in the western United States, but that it has shortcomings as both an environmental policy instrument and a water policy instrument. My thinking on this has been formed in large part by the …
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A bit of history – when US Colorado River water users feared Mexico
There’s a tangent in Henry Brean’s Las Vegas Review-Journal story about desalination and Las Vegas this morning that provides a reminder of just how far we’ve come in the power structure surrounding the management of the Colorado River in the last century. The main thrust of the story is a discussion of the possibility of …
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Species by species, system by system
Dennis Wyatt, in the Manteca Bulletin, points to some intriguing language in the California Delta Protection Commission’s recent draft Economic Sustainability Plan (linked here) regarding my current hobby horse – the shortcomings of the Endangered Species Act as an environmental protection tool/water management tool: While a $12 billion investment in isolated conveyance may allow for …
Imperial Valley – What’s Plan B?
Tony Perry has a nice take-out in the Los Angeles Times this weekend outlining the state of play in discussions over the fate of the Quantification Settlement Agreement and the water deal contained therein between the Imperial Irrigation District and San Diego. It does a good job of highlighting the dilemma – San Diego has …
My desk
Test
On futurologists, water closets and jet packs
The Telegraph’s “science correspondent”, Richard Gray, wrote a story over the weekend about the wonders that await in the the bathrooms of our future. The details are unimportant – click if you are curious about your toileting future. What matters more is the methodology. Because it turns out to have been based on a “report”: …
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Q: What’s behind the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process?
A: The Endangered Species Act A useful question came up on the Twitter last week about California’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan that’s nicely answered by a state legislative analysis I read this afternoon. The BDCP is a key part of process underway now in California that seems to be headed toward creation of a Peripheral …
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On the nature of nature
We spent Saturday at the Bosque del Apache, a wildlife refuge south of Albuquerque. It’s early in the season for the well-known sandhill crane wintering grounds, but in addition to cranes we saw mobs of pintails, a cormorant, a family of grebes (I’m reasonably certain they were westerns, though they’re tough to tell at a …