I loved this boldly written line in Bettina Boxall’s Los Angeles Times story last Sunday on the question of who will pay, and how much, for a proposed multi-billion dollar pair of water supply tunnels beneath the Sacramento Delta: Much of California agriculture is accustomed to vast amounts of cheap, federally subsidized water in the …
Continue reading ‘Federally subsidized California farm water’ »
Arrayed on the left-hand hillside of the Alabama Hills were the large letters LP spelled out in white-washed rocks that stood for Lone Pine. Driving through the town, you can still see the letters, which are refurbished by locals in a ritual familiar to many communities in the Western states. Ansel Adams was so disturbed …
Writing in Science four years ago, the late Elinor Ostrom outlined a number of characteristics of necessary for sustainable development and use of what’s called in the literature “social-ecological systems”. These are complexes of humans and resources where the success of each depends on the interplay with the other, like forests and fisheries and, for …
Continue reading ‘California groundwater: bring on the social scientists’ »
There are no silver bullets for dealing with the west’s water problems. There is instead, as several speakers said last week at a workshop I attended, “bronze buckshot”. The Metropolitan Water District board yesterday handed out 16 grants to local Southern California water agencies that looked very much like what this metaphor implies – lots …
Southern California, if I may quote myself, didn’t have enough water to support a city, “so they built three great rivers.” Not one or two. Three aqueducts to carry water to “the southland”, as we called it in my youth. The audacity of that act is captured in this map I stumbled across today, from …
Continue reading ‘The audacity of building rivers: Parker Dam and the Colorado River Aqueduct’ »
From Juliet McKenna, another example of the lengths to which southwestern municipalities will go to adapt to shrinking water supply: LA’s plan calls for building one of the country’s largest groundwater treatment systems at one of its largest Superfund sites. Groundwater in the San Fernando basin has elevated levels of chromium, perchlorate, nitrates, and trichloroethylene …
Continue reading ‘Before we abandon LA because of water shortages, we’ll do this’ »
Smart Jay Lund piece on the shortcomings of old-school environmentalism in the new world: Classical environmentalism is mostly about stopping new harmful human influences, not reversing the harmful effects of past changes or shaping a more environmentally friendly future. Environmentalism has not substantially reversed the widespread urban and agricultural destruction of wetlands or freed rivers …
Continue reading ‘Lund on a call for a new environmentalism’ »
One of my gazillion water book ideas was “The Last Concrete”. It was going to be about the end of big water infrastructure in the West. Except there’s no way to know when the last one happens, because there are a bunch of lingering projects that probably won’t ever get built, but that don’t ever …
As we speak, there’s this screamin’ deal on ebay: This well known resort area is located in Southern California at the western end of Imperial County. Popular activities at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area include boating, water-skiing, fishing, jet-skiing, hiking, birdwatching, and sailboarding. It is estimated that over 1 million visitors spend time at …
The NOAA Automated Atmospheric River Detection system has picked up a storm with some potential in the Pacific, which at this point (five days out) seems to be pointed at California: That’s the forecast image for Monday morning. According to Michael Dettinger, who was fielding my questions this afternoon on Twitter, AR storms are very …
Continue reading ‘A California “atmospheric river” storm, in June?’ »