The March forecast out today (pdf) for this year’s operations on the Colorado River is looking very good for the chances of extra water to be shipped downstream to help top off the dwindling supplies in Lake Mead. The magic word here is “equalization”, which means that under the river’s operating rules, there is sufficient …
From this morning’s paper, a visit to Work Case 82B (sub/ad req) at the University of New Mexico’s Museum of Southwestern Biology, where they keep that which has gone extinct: The Carolina parakeet on the top shelf of Work Case 82B, green with a dingy red head, looks little different from the other 30,000 stuffed …
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In a thread last month, Francis offered this as one explanation for the prominence of lawyers in western US water policy discussions: The states are co-equal sovereigns, and the feds have not invoked federal supremacy. It applies elsewhere. In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, the state will go to court next week to argue for …
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Daniel Treisman: Among the countries for which I have data, the most robust correlates of fearfulness relate to countries’ religious traditions. Fear tends to be higher in countries where more people believe in Hell and where fewer believe in Heaven.
Chris Corbin argues that flood irrigation isn’t the bogeyman it’s frequently made out to be. Some footnotes Chris and I came up in a twitter conversation: Ward and Pulido-Velazquez, PNAS, Water conservation in irrigation can increase water use Huffaker, WRR, Conservation potential of agricultural water conservation subsidies Pfeiffer and Lin, The Effect of Irrigation Technology on Groundwater Use This …
I just finished and very much enjoyed Tyler’s Cowen’s The Great Stagnation (my first ebook too!). Cowen’s argument, for those not familiar with it, is that the stagnation of the U.S. economy is not the result of anything we’ve done wrong, but rather the fact that we managed the impressive rate of growth over the …
We will know in a little more than a month whether Lake Mead will get a flush of “bonus water” this year, and if so how much, thanks to the better-than-average snow pack in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Right now, things look good. Current snow levels, as measured by the network of federally funded …
Let me preface this by saying I am fond of lawyers. We kid because we love! Please don’t sue! I had a bright light epiphany yesterday when talking to a smart water policy friend who works both in the United States and internationally. He was hosting a group of Australians here learning about Colorado River …
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Reorganizing photo archives as I move to a new computer, I came across this, from a fall 2009 trip to Phoenix. Tempe Town Lake, in the words of its boosters… embodies a unique vision for the future of the Valley. Town Lake is a regional and national destination, welcoming millions each year. Recognized as a top …
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is reported to have said in a talk this morning (Thurs. 2/24) in Washington D.C. that he believes the ongoing drought on the Colorado River could be the spark to shift conservative political opinion on climate change. From the Las Vegas Sun: In comments he delivered at a symposium hosted …
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