Archive of entries posted by jfleck

Mike Taugher tells us what’s really going on with Sacramento Delta diversions

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A group with one set of interests in California water has tried to frame the discussion over how much water can be diverted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the classic “farmers vs. fish” framework. Others disagree. Traditional “view from nowhere” journalism quotes one from Column A and one from Column B and calls it …

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Irony defined: Barnett’s “Blue Revolution” at the office pond

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Irony defined: sitting in the shaded courtyard at work yesterday at lunch, next to a lovely fountain/pond flanked by lush lawn, reading the opening chapter of Cynthia Barnett’s Blue Revolution: Sacramento landscape architect Ronald Allison tells of a two-and-a-half-acre residential design in Granite Bay with a waterfall, a grotto, a cave, six fountains, a pool …

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The international implications of U.S. water subsidies

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While we all understand the market distortions caused in the United States by government subsidies for irrigation water, Michael Campana raises an interesting question about the international implications. Quoting a talk at the XIV World Water Congress by Paul Stanton Kibel of the Center on Urban Environmental Law (“CVP” is the Central Valley Project in …

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We’re in trouble when we’re arguing about the numbers

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John Bass made a great point in a recent comment thread at Delta National Park that highlights one of my frustrations about California water discussions: [I]f basic facts are contentious, then the problem isn’t facts. The comment was triggered by a point the California Farm Water Coalition’s Mike Wade made regarding an editorial that ran …

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A sign of drought I never thought of: hay theft

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The CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth had a report this week on what it characterizes as a growing hay theft problem: Yes, hay, is the new target for thieves. Round bales that used to sell for $20 are now topping $175. The night watchman at Master Made Feed in Grapevine has scared off a half …

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Climate change and California water: a bad situation likely to get worse

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If you think California’s water problems look bad now, just wait. That seems to be the message of a new study by a team from the USGS, Scripps, Berkeley and elsewhere who ran detailed simulations of climate change scenarios on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta/San Francisco Bay system. The project provides a useful exercise, not in …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: my latest nuclear weapon automotive metaphor

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The use of automobile metaphors in descriptions of nuclear weapon technology is somewhere between comedy and cliche. Here’s my latest entry (sub/ad req): You could think of the B61 as the Volkswagen bug of the U.S. nuclear arsenal — reliable, adaptable and very, very old. I also said some other, more substantive things: The risk, …

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