In retrospect, the red taco truck represents the moment it all changed. It was parked along Central, old Route 66, on Albuquerque’s west side. My friend Scot and I, out for our Sunday bike ride, had been debating the wisdom of our usual bike ride brunch – tacos from one of our local market food …
From the comments, DG elaborates on the task of stream gaging And I can see our intrepid hydrotech out on a walkway at the ‘gage’ (thanks for that), laptop in hand. He’s cabled up to a Data Logger dumping the collected data that had accumulated since his last visit to the site some 4 to …
Continue reading ‘Stream gaging in the time of pandemic, Episode II’ »
For the duration of the pandemic, I will spell it “gage” in honor of the fearless stream gager still out measuring.
Jeff Kightlinger, who as head of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California since February 2006 has played a major role in Colorado River governance, announced today that he’ll be retiring at the end of the year.
Jian Wang and David E. Rosenberg at Utah State have put together an incredibly helpful compilation of past projections of Upper Colorado River Basin consumptive use, as compared to what then actually happened: When averaged over the long term, each scenario of future consumptive use over-estimated the observed consumptive use. Herein lies the space for …
Continue reading ‘We keep projecting that water use will go up. We keep mostly being wrong.’ »
[T]he anticommons refers to situations where there are numerous overlapping rights holders (or what might also be seen as numerous policy advocacy coalitions) each with some power to veto or block system or operation change. The tragedy emerges when the composite effect of such power prevents significant change in the system. – Jones, Benjamin A., …
Continue reading ‘Robert Moses, the Colorado River, and the tragedy of the anticommons’ »
OK, “strategy” is not exactly the right word here, but we take our water conservation where we can find it, eh? Luke Runyon took a nice dive into the water supply implications of the West’s wave of coal plant retirements. Because coal plants use water. Here’s my coauthor Eric Kuhn on the implications: “As a …
Continue reading ‘Retiring coal plants as a Colorado River Basin demand management strategy’ »
All the places New Mexicans get their water via winter snowpack – headwaters of Rio Grande, Colorado River, and the Pecos – are forecast to see expanding or persisting drought through the spring.
update: It’s apparently at 6 p.m., not 6:30, thanks to alert reader! My coauthor, Eric Kuhn, will be joining a bunch of other Colorado River smart people tomorrow (Thurs. Feb. 20, 2020) in Moab for an event organized by Utah State’s Center for Colorado River Studies: February 20, 2020 — The Future of Lake Powell Forum …
A friend sent me an illuminating table that does a nice job of adding perspective to something I’ve written about several times here – California’s stunning reduction in its use of Colorado River water. Data in thousands of acre feet.