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’ »
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).
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 …
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 …
Continue reading ‘The Endangered Species Act as a water management tool – case for the defense’ »
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 …
Continue reading ‘A bit of history – when US Colorado River water users feared Mexico’ »
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 …
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 …
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