It’s early days yet in terms of a forecast for 2009-10 flow on the Colorado River. Because it depends on the amount of snow that falls on the Colorado Basin’s mountains, there is great uncertainty this early in the year. But the map below can give us some hint about the probabilities: What you can …
When I was a little kid, I thought John Wesley Powell was the coolest, the one-armed adventurer daring the unknown as he ran the rapids of the Grand Canyon – the “Great Unknown” – for the first time. Standing on the Grand Canyon’s south rim, I would stare down at those little glimpses you get …
Given the sturm und drang over Lake Mead’s dropping levels and their implications for the water future of Las Vegas, the preliminary numbers in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 2010 Annual Operating Plan are worthy of note. The latest posted version of the plan is marked “final draft”, but I’m told it’s essentially complete, and …
Continue reading ‘Will Mead Get an Extra Shot Of Water in 2010?’ »
Pasadena, CA, blogger Wayne Lusvardi, who sometimes writes about that city’s water problems, had a post recently suggesting that global warming might lead to increased flows in the Colorado River. This would, of course, be excellent news for Pasadena and others who use Colorado River water (thought it does conflict with some of the literature …
Continue reading ‘Could Global Warming Be Good for Colorado River Flows?’ »
Henry Brean observes that Hoover Dam’s ability to generate electricity is down 20 percent with low lake levels, a reminder of the tight integration of water and power questions along the Colorado River. The history of the big dams on the Colorado River, and the question of who gets their water, is inextricably linked with questions …
A couple of months ago, Coco raised a great question when I was riffing about the amusing implications of shipping lettuce from the Imperial Valley to Albuquerque so I could feed it to ants: Not enough water to grow lettuce in the Middle Rio Grande? Maybe someday. Depends. Someday, not enough cheap oil for schlepping …
Continue reading ‘In the long emergency, how far will we ship our lettuce?’ »
The Book Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. So here’s the book. Box arrived today. I’d wrestled with its words and pictures separately, seen the proofs, but there’s something about holding it in my hands…. Available for pre-order on Amazon (click the link in the right-hand rail) if you’ve got middle-school aged kids in your orbit who …
A lack of precision in the way I worded a post last week on reservoir levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead seems to have led to some confusion. I was writing about the rising levels in Lake Powell as Lake Mead was dropping, and suggested this was the result of a management decision rather …
Continue reading ‘A Clarification on the Mead-Powell Data’ »
Here’s a question for the western water wonks in the audience. During a time of unprecedented population growth in the west, we just went through the driest 10-year stretch on the Colorado since record-keeping began. And no one had their water turned off. What does this say about the systems we have in place to …
Continue reading ‘On the Colorado, Are We Doing Better Than I Thought?’ »
With the 2009 “water year” just completed, it’s time to take stock. The decade just completed, 2000-2009, is the driest 10-year period in the Colorado River Basin in the record, according to preliminary data in the latest draft of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Annual Operating Plan, a compendium of past data on the …