The suddenly ubiquitous Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River supply-demand graph showed up today in a helpful Bruce Finley story in today’s Denver Post about the conversation in Colorado regarding the disconnect between shrinking Colorado River supply and growing Colorado River demand: Colorado River water consumed yearly for agriculture and by the 30 million Westerners who …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: The Conversation About Limits’ »
This observation from the first draft of next year’s U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River Annual Operating Plan should come as no surprise: Inflow to Lake Powell has been below average in nine of the past eleven years (2000-2010). Although slightly above average inflows occurred in 2005 and 2008, drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin persist. …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Up to Driest 11 years on the Colorado’ »
David Appell triggered an interesting discussion over at his blog about comparing the Gulf oil mess to other ecological disasters, presaging a nice piece by Justin Gillis exploring a lot of the same issues. As I mentioned over at David’s, this raises what has long been for me a discomfort about the ecological insults we …
update: After looking again at the news story that triggered this, I’m now not so sure when the Georgia debate happened – maybe years ago? So maybe, other than thematically, this post makes little news sense. original: Here in the West, moving large quantities of uphill or sometimes out of its basin of origin completely …
update: Eli had a nice post on this topic last week. In the newspaper this week, I took a whack at what I think is one of the fundamental public misunderstandings about the nature of science. I like to call it “the textbook problem”, but one might also characterize it as “the science journalism problem.” …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Problem With Science Journalism’ »
Yesterday I found a dollar bill on the floor in the Journal newsroom. I picked it up and tacked it up on a little bulletin board in the middle of the newsroom. It’s still there today. People keep pointing at it and talking about it, but no one has taken it. It reminds me of my favorite economist joke. …
From the pages of the Albuquerque Journal (sub/ad req), a look at the growing concerns regarding a deal between the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission and Intel over water rights needed to cover Intel’s pumping: A proposed agreement to use excess Rio Grande water to meet computer chip-maker Intel’s long-term water rights needs faces growing …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Intel-NM Water Deal’ »
Seen on the bike today: A new beaver dam taking shape in the riverside drain, just south of the Interstate 40 bridge. A pair of bicycle cops pulling over a cyclist on the riverside trail. (If you ride the trail on the weekends, you know Singing Guy. Wears headphones, sings very loudly and very badly. …
At the end of the beneficent water year of 1983, Lake Mead, the giant reservoir behind Hoover Dam that manages water for the benefit of Nevada, Arizona and California, held 25.7 million acre feet of water. At the end of water year 2010, according to the latest forecast, there will be less water than that …
David Zetland calls the cost of desalination the “backstop price” for water. Once the cost of other sources rises sufficiently, coastal residents will just build desal plants because it’s cheaper. While the fungibility is not complete (i.e. we don’t all live on coasts), water trades could allow people who live inland to play too. This …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Huntington Beach, CA, Poseidon Desal’ »