William Yardley writes in the Los Angeles Times about the water rights and water fears in Yuma, Arizona: If you eat a green salad between Thanksgiving and April, whether in Minnesota, Montreal or Modesto, odds are good that some of it was grown in or around Yuma. The summer freshness on all of those winter …
Continue reading ‘Yuma: Colorado River produce powerhouse’ »
The Bureau of Reclamation’s latest 24-month study, out this afternoon (pdf), shows continued improvement on the Colorado River system’s big reservoirs as a result of the hella rainy spring and summer, and therefore a continued reduction in the risk of a Lower Basin shortage declaration. The number to watch is a Lake Mead elevation of …
We need to create a #WestWaterSyllabus. Mark Hertsgaard at the Daily Beast got a lot of traction this weekend with a piece suggesting this: If You Only Read One Book About the Water Crisis: ‘Cadillac Desert’. If we’re going to have a #WestWaterSyllabus, there’s no question Cadillac Desert has to be on it, but making it the …
I’d like to take issue with some recent comments by Dan Beard and Mike Connor, two former commissioners of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, about the agency’s future. (Audience sees closeup of Fleck crawling out on tree limb. Camera zooms back to show that it is the only tree for miles around, with no buildings …
There are seven states in the U.S. and two more in Mexico that depend on the Colorado River’s water. Here, from Sandra Dibble, is a reminder that when shortage descends, it is not just Arizona (as I have been guilty of saying) that takes the first hit: In Mexico, the first impact of cutbacks on …
Continue reading ‘Tijuana: A reminder that *nine* states depend on the Colorado River’ »
Brett Walton has done us all a great service with a thorough look at the issues surrounding Native American water rights in the Colorado River Basin. Importantly, he’s looking at it not just as a problem, but as an example of what the solution space can look like. The stuff from Kathryn Sorensen, Phoenix’s water …
Continue reading ‘Walton on native water rights in the Colorado River Basin’ »
I’ve had my head down the last ten days reading and writing about 1940s and ’50s-era Los Angeles water management, and I look up to see that Lake Mead last week dropped below elevation 1,075, a level freighted with meaning. But what meaning, exactly? Drew Beckwith at Western Resource Advocates, in Caitlin McGlade’s story, wins for …
Continue reading ‘Some thoughts on the bathtub ring and Lake Mead’s historic drop below 1,075’ »
In this morning’s Arizona Star, Tucson journalist Tony Davis asks, “Is California trying to take our water?” In journalism, there’s a joke known as “Betteridge’s Law“: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” As Tony’s story strongly suggests, the notion making the rounds these days in some Arizona political …
On May 1, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center projected 3 million acre feet of runoff into Lake Powell from Aril 1 through the end of July. This was bad. Then it started raining. On June 1, the forecast was increased to 5 million acre feet. As of late last week, the estimate actual inflow …