Archive of entries posted by jfleck

Irrigable lands? Rescue for a floundering Reclamation Service? January 28th, 1922, A Hundred Years Ago at Compact Negotiations

Posted by on

Eric Kuhn and John Fleck In complex multi-party negotiations like the Colorado River Compact process, it is rare that major progress or breakthroughs happen during one of general sessions.  Instead, real progress is more often made during the more candid discussions between smaller groups of negotiators during breaks, after-dinner discussions, and occasionally sub-committees. Most of …

Continue reading ‘Irrigable lands? Rescue for a floundering Reclamation Service? January 28th, 1922, A Hundred Years Ago at Compact Negotiations’ »

Desalination, Arizona, and magical thinking

Posted by on

Tony Davis had a great story in the Daily Star over the weekend on the allure of desalination of ocean water as Arizona struggles with shrinking Colorado River supplies. Tony’s excellent work on this question susses out the problems: ocean desal is costly, like really costly ocean desal is energy intensive, like really energy intensive …

Continue reading ‘Desalination, Arizona, and magical thinking’ »

A century ago, Colorado River Compact negotiations begin

Posted by on

By Eric Kuhn and John Fleck Herbert Hoover’s words a century ago were chosen with care. Might it be possible, he wondered, for the state officials gathered around him that day “to agree upon a compact between the seven states of the Colorado Basin, providing for an equitable division of the water supply of the …

Continue reading ‘A century ago, Colorado River Compact negotiations begin’ »

Back in the days when the Salton Sea was rising

Posted by on

A friend shared this, from the Sandia Lab News, circa 1955: New Dyke Will Give Salton Sea Test Base Protection Against Rapidly Rising Water The steadily rising water level of the Salton Sea in southern California is presenting a problem for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in seeking to safeguard test facilities operated by Sandia …

Continue reading ‘Back in the days when the Salton Sea was rising’ »

Is it too early to be optimistic about this year’s Rio Grande flow?

Posted by on

Yes. But that’s not stopping me! The Jan. 1 forecasts, courtesy of Angus Goodbody of the NRCS, for flows at Otowi (the head of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley) and San Marcial (the tail) are for “normal” flows, where “normal” is defined now by the median of flows from 1991-2020. The reason it’s definitely …

Continue reading ‘Is it too early to be optimistic about this year’s Rio Grande flow?’ »

Why I ride

Posted by on

In September 2019, my friend Scot and I did one of our more memorable “what happens if we turn here” bicycle rides. In our endless search for what I call “longcuts” – the safest route, rather than the shortest – we followed a concrete flood control channel called the North Pino Arroyo up through Albuquerque’s …

Continue reading ‘Why I ride’ »

New from Anne Castle and myself – a moment of both peril and opportunity on the Colorado River

Posted by on

In the wake of a Colorado River Water Users Association meeting that was by turns exuberant (We got to see one another for the first time since the Before Times!) and stark (The reservoirs are nearly empty!), Anne Castle and I have a new paper out this week in a special issue of the journal …

Continue reading ‘New from Anne Castle and myself – a moment of both peril and opportunity on the Colorado River’ »