Elevated from the comments, observations from former Reclamation manager Doug Blatchford: WHEN I joined the Reclamation team in 2005 as the River Operation Manager on the Colorado River, part of my duties was to prepare a business plan to direct future business decisions based on the operations budget and services required (like delivering water to …
Continue reading ‘Wrecking Ball Report: At Reclamation, a view from the inside’ »
We’re starting to see dimly the outlines of what it means for the federal government to no longer be a reliable partner in western water management. Here’s Annie Snider and Camille Von Kaenel on what’s happening in California’s Reclamation operations: DOGE’s cuts are already hurting Reclamation’s ability to move water through a sprawling system of …
Continue reading ‘Wrecking ball report, California water edition’ »
The mere search for confirmation of one’s prior beliefs is a timid and unambitious kind of science; the unexpected observation and the unlikely explanation are the most interesting. – Alan Randall
I got a text message yesterday afternoon about this, which is nuts: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Albuquerque District announced today that an unintended water release from Cochiti Dam may increase flood risk on the Rio Grande in the river channel, riverbanks, and floodway. The cause of the unintended water release was a procedural error …
BERNARDO, NEW MEXICO – The juniper pollen has cranked up early this year, and the irrigators with groundwater pumps (legal or not, it’s hard to know) are firing them up, but the most telling sign of spring was the kettling sandhill cranes this morning. The term comes from the boiling water in a kettle, as …
Pooling our resources to discover new truths about the universe so that we can all have better lives, to strike back against disease, suffering, poverty, and violence, to reduce ignorance for the benefit of all—that’s literally the most badass thing we do. – Adam Mastroianni
With the new administration’s shithousery team now pounding on NOAA’s door, a useful resource from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund: Emails sent to and from scientists are increasingly subject to scrutiny through a variety of means, including aggressive open records requests, subpoenas, and even hacking. The prevalence of social media, blogs, and other digital …
Continue reading ‘A legal guide for climate scientists to safeguard their on line communications’ »
There’s a tactic in football (what we Americans refer to as “soccer”) called “shithousery.” It’s a style of norm-breaking behavior – constant stoppages, niggling fouls, feigning injury – that completely disrupts the flow of the game. It can involve bending or breaking rules, and one of its main goals is to disorient the opponent, piss …
Continue reading ‘Shithousery and California’s Success Reservoir’ »
Unincorporated margins, interior islands void of activity, oversights, these areas are simply un-inhabited, un-safe, un-productive. In short, they are foreign to the urban system, mentally exterior in the physical interior of the city, its negative image, as much a critique as a possible alternative. -Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió, “Terrain Vague” In his essay “Terrain Vague,” …
No particular reason, but I had some time yesterday and asked a young tech friend for help dusting off my Signal account, which I hadn’t used in a while. Should you also be interested – again, no particular reason, just feeling geeky on a late winter day – here’s some info to help you on …