I’m fascinated by the geomorphic traces left by the rise and fall of Lake Mead – human scale (egret scale?) shoreline terraces. This is on the northern bank above Boulder Harbor. The bird, shown for scale (I don’t have a rock hammer, it’s a great egret, so quite large), hangs out there because of the …
One of the members of my brain trust was speculating idly the other day about how different the Colorado River dialogue might be if the hydro-geo-chemistry of the bathtub ring was different – if the dropping water didn’t leave a white mark, letting you see how much Lake Mead has dropped, letting people like me …
The latest edition of Inkstain’s infrequent* Ask Me a Colorado River Question feature comes via Paolo Bacigalupi, and it wasn’t quite phrased as a question, but I’m hoping to resurrect the feature. I’ve always said “cap” for CAP and “snee-wah” for SNWA. But I have no idea why. Odd and embarrassing. @jfleck @waterwired @jonnypeace — Paolo …
Continue reading ‘AMACRQ: How do you pronounce “CAP” and “SNWA”?’ »
I took a lot of pictures on my recent trip. This is one of them.
With a dry February, the chances of a big snowpack and “bonus water” flow in 2015 that might begin to refill Lake Mead and Lake Powell are just about gone. April-July runoff into Lake Powell, the big reservoir in the Colorado River’s “Upper Basin”, is forecast to be 71 percent of average, according to the …
Continue reading ‘April-July Colorado River runoff: 71 percent’ »
It is testimony to a lousy January and most of February that the spectacular snowstorm I drove home into over the weekend left the key watersheds that provide water to the Rio Grande and Colorado River still behind average for the year. The 9 inches of snow at my house was the most since December …
Continue reading ‘West’s snowpack improves, still not great’ »
The folks at Colorado Mesa University have sent ’round their call for abstracts (pdf) for this fall’s Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum: (Disclosure: I’m on the forum planning advisory committee.)
Matt Jenkins, the best journalist we’ve got covering water in the western United States, has an insightful cover story in the latest High Country News on Pat Mulroy, the recently retired head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. (Not on line yet – subscribe!) Mulroy is known for being brash and pugnacious, but Matt gets …
Brandon Loomis at the Arizona Republic, with an O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism through the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University, is trying to help us with this: Will Arizona and the Southwest continue to lead the nation in growth as the Colorado River dries? The first round of stories, with Republic photographer …
Continue reading ‘Arizona Republic tackling the Colorado River’ »
BOULDER CITY, NEV. – I was standing at a pullout on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam late this afternoon, taking pictures of the big empty, when a Japanese family got out of their car and walked up to the edge. One of the men pointed down at the big empty, then made a broad …
Continue reading ‘Equilibrium in the Colorado River Basin’ »