Can You See Me Now? Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Hundreds of cyclists, taking over Central (old Route 66) through Albuquerque Sunday for the “Can You See Us Now” ride in honor of those who have died on bicycles, and those who would rather not.
From today’s newspaper, the story of a private property owner and a loose-knit coalition of folks around her working to preserve and restore one of the most remarkable stretches of Rio Grande riparian wildlands in the middle Rio Grande (sub. or ad req): A gate that used to keep cattle in now keeps them out …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Pecos Sunflower Edition’ »
Water folk: I’ve got a chance to interview Mike Connor, head of the Bureau of Reclamation, on Friday. Suggested questions?
Occasionally for lunch I slip away from the office, grab a sandwich from one of the places across the street, and head over to a little flood control pond about a mile from my office to check out the birds. The sandwiches are messy, and inevitably little bits of lettuce spill out on the ground …
I confess that my literary life list does not include Dune, Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic. But perhaps it should. For a show at the University of Toronto, architect Andrew Kudless has drawn on Herbert to design a dystopian future urban world in which we southwesterners dig down, building underground to preserve our water: Sietch Nevada …
When I started making noises about some sort of Colorado River project, one of the water wonks I know pointed me toward the delta, arguing it was a) central to understanding the Colorado, and b) widely ignored. The problem, in short, is that essentially no fresh water flows there any more. An ecosystem once sustained …
Dad watches birds Originally uploaded by Nora Heineman-Fleck. Photo courtesy Nora Heineman-Fleck, of me in the backyard geeking on a bird. As an aside, I was wearing my City Lights Bookstore t-shirt when Nora took this Saturday. Nora, by a coincidence, was also wearing hers. Probably just dumb luck, but I like the mystery of …
I forgot my usual Inkstain link last week to a piece I wrote for the newspaper about the strange world of rainwater harvesting law in New Mexico. David Zetland was on about this last September, asking about the legality of rainwater harvesting in various U.S. states. My short answer, in the comments, was, essentially “kinda …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere a While Ago: Rainwater Harvesting in NM’ »
My head’s been spinning trying to follow discussions over California’s pending water legislation. Emily Green has helpfully rounded it all up in one spot: “Potential cost? $12bn. Who will it affect? Every Californian who needs water.” George Johnson on Santa Fe’s water budget: “For all its aspirations to be different, Santa Fe is still guided …
JPL climate scientist Bill Patzert wrote a nice op ed in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune about weather, climate and fire that got me thinking about my old home turf of Southern California yesterday: What set us up for these fires? Rain has been scarce. A large-scale drought has strangled the American Southwest for almost …