The headline message in the first iteration of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado Basin supply-demand study is “9 percent”: Under the Downscaled GCM Projected scenario, the mean natural flow as measured at Lees Ferry over the next 50 years is projected to decrease by approximately 9 percent, along with a projected increase in both drought …
I’m headed up to Boulder this week for the University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center’s “Navigating the Future of the Colorado River” conference (more from John McChesney here), then off from there to Sacramento and the Bay Area (with the kind support and assistance of Stanford’s Lane Center) to learn more about California’s water …
John McChesney has posted a great interview with Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, about future directions for Colorado River management. She’s the most vocal proponent for mechanisms that might allow sharing of shortages among water users across the Colorado River basin, rather than a strict prior appropriation approach where junior users …
Continue reading ‘Mulroy: We don’t need to tear up the compact’ »
One of the strangest western water projects of recent years is the Drop 2 Reservoir on the All-American Canal. Here’s the problem. Irrigators in southeastern California, mostly in the Imperial Valley, get their water from the Colorado River. It sits in storage behind Lake Mead, and when they need it, they put in a request …
Rob Davis at Voice of San Diego has an excellent explainer this week on his community’s dependence on Colorado River water, and the central problem of what happens if Lake Mead gets really low: If the Colorado consistently comes up short, no one knows who will cut consumption to keep Lake Mead from running dry. …
I’ve triggered some puzzlement among California water folks as I call around trying to understand the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in preparation for my trip out there next month. Why does a New Mexican care? Other than the fact that it’s fascinating, of course. I mean what water wonk wouldn’t be fascinated by California’s water problems. …
Continue reading ‘Why Some NM Schlub Cares About the Sacramento Delta’ »
There’s a myth that has firmly taken hold of a busted La Niña forecast on the Colorado River this year. It shows up this morning in a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial. No. This issue came up last September, as we were heading into the La Niña season. It was a common misapprehension back then, and …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: The Myth of a Busted La Niña Forecast’ »
The latest USBR monthly Colorado River is out, and just wow. From Shaun McKinnon: In its latest 24-month report, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation added almost 1 million acre-feet to the estimated amount of water that will be released from Lake Powell downstream into Mead, the wetter forecast possible because of near-record snowpack on the …
Continue reading ‘River beat: what a difference a month makes’ »
We won’t have solid numbers updating the Colorado River runoff situation until later this week, but Henry Brean has an early read on the situation, reporting that Lake Mead is now expected to rise 30 feet between now and the end of the water year.
Rob Davis at Voice of San Diego has a nice overview of the proposal being considered to build a desalination plant on the coast of Baja, near Tijuana, to provide water for U.S. and Mexican users: Together with the Mexican government, the agencies supplying San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson are studying …
Continue reading ‘Is Desal Really Only an Option at the Margins?’ »