When the Colorado River Compact was negotiated in 1922 to divide the river’s flow among the seven western U.S. states that span its basin, the representatives of the upper basin states were driven by the realization that they weren’t using much water at the time, but some day they would want to. Under western U.S. …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: The View From the Head of the Stream’ »
From the morning newspaper (sub/ad req), a look at water flowing through the woods: Michael Porter made an auspicious discovery one morning this week in the waterlogged Rio Grande woods — silvery minnows. For a week, high flows have brought water into newly created habitat on the river’s west side, south of Central, and the …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: More Water in the Desert than Usual’ »
If you’re in Albuquerque, it’s a great weekend to go out and see your river. The Rio Grande is flowing at nearly 6,000 cubic feet per second through the city right now (Saturday evening, 5/22), courtesy of a spike flow to help Rio Grande silvery minnow spawning. The high flows allow water to get out …
Continue reading ‘Water in the Desert: High Flows on the Rio Grande’ »
Reading the late 19th and early 20th century literature of the Colorado Desert, one could be forgiven for thinking there was a certain inevitability of the massive irrigation works that so changed the Salton Sink (renamed with characteristic enthusiasm as “Imperial Valley”.) It still seems inevitable. It was the time of manifest destiny, of “reclamation”. …
Continue reading ‘Not Everyone Thought Irrigating the Salton Sink was a good idea’ »
Greetings from the not-so-wilds of Taos, New Mexico, where I picked up this morning’s Albuquerque Journal to find this (sub/ad req), on the surprising discovery of PCBs in the Rio Grande just downstream from the main Albuquerque storm water outfall: If the nuclear weapons lab were responsible, dealing with this problem would be simpler. Attentive …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: PCBs in the Rio Grande’ »
A couple of stories recently caught my eye, in which “drought” is blamed for what is largely an issue of water overconsumption. The first was a City News story on San Diego water supply. The reporter said this: California and the Colorado River basin have been in a years-long drought, which has forced reductions in …
NASA’s Landsat 7 captured this remarkable image of Lake Powell’s decline, as seen from space:
From this morning’s paper, an update on the Kirtland Air Force Base jet fuel spill (sub/ad req.): State regulators on Friday denied the Air Force a requested 45-day extension on a deadline to turn in plans to deal with a jet fuel spill threatening Albuquerque groundwater. “Urgent action needs to be taken to address this …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Kirtland Fuel Spill Update’ »
I had breakfast this morning with a bunch of California expats. It’s a weird label. We don’t normally think of ourselves that way. But I’ve been feeling nostalgic about the land of my birth lately. Not sure why, but it probably has something to do with seeing palm trees, citrus groves and bougainvillea last month …
I guess the best you can say about the updated forecast for Colorado River flows for the rest of the 2010 water year is that it could have been worse. A wet April in the northern reaches of the Colorado River basin has pushed the Lake Powell inflow forecast, out today from the Kevin Werner …