Yesterday was the 78th anniversary of the first electric generator go into full operation at Boulder Dam. EDN has the story: Electricity from the dam’s powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a 50-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power …
It’s generally more complicated than I think: A member of the Inkstain brain trust points out two catches in my “why can’t Phoenix just leave its unused apportionment in Lake Mead” post last week. The first has to do with Arizona’s application of the doctrine of prior appropriation with respect to its allocation of Colorado …
Continue reading ‘Priority administration and Arizona’s Colorado River allotment’ »
Peter Culp, Robert Glennon and Gary Libecap have published an excellent new analysis of the potential for water markets to help us dig out of the western United States’ water mess: Water trading can facilitate the reallocation of water to meet the demands of changing economies and growing populations. It can play a vital role …
Continue reading ‘So how are we going to build these western water markets?’ »
Here’s a good example of why fixing the west’s water problems is going to be so difficult. Phoenix wants to do something really simple. It currently has more Colorado River water than it needs, and it would like to just leave its unused apportionment in Lake Mead. This seems like a no-brainer – Phoenix gets …
Continue reading ‘Phoenix, Lake Mead and “the anticommons”’ »
It is no surprise that Lake Mead ended the “water year” Sept. 30 at the lowest level it’s been since the government began filling it in the 1930s. Perhaps more importantly, combined storage in the two big reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, ended the water year at its lowest level since 1968, when they …
tl;dr The new Colorado River conservation program may not conserve a whole lot of water. But growing the “civic community” needed to solve the basin’s water problems may be far more important. Longer Version: The Colorado River Pilot System Water Conservation Program crept forward last week, in the process demonstrating an endearing quirk of Colorado …
Continue reading ‘The newest Colorado River management widget: the “System Conservation Program”’ »
In the latest episode of “whos’ not running out of water in California?” we join Ian James for a visit to the Coachella Valley: [V]ast amounts of water are still flowing as usual to the farms of the Coachella Valley, soaking into the soil to produce lemons and tangelos, grapes, and vegetables from carrots to …
Continue reading ‘Coachella: More California drought resilience’ »
In my world, the 1976 tree ring analysis of the Colorado River’s long term flow done by Charles Stockton and Gordon Jacoby stands as one of the great works of policy-relevant science. But by the time I came on the scene, “Stockton and Jacoby”* (pdf) was just a marker, a signpost along our path to …
Continue reading ‘Gordon Jacoby and the Colorado River: “predicting hydrologic bankruptcy”’ »
There’s a long and important history behind Arizona’s enthusiasm for water supply augmentation. The short arm-wave version is Arizona’s belief that part of the Central Arizona Project’s grand bargain was that the Superhot State would accept a junior priority for its CAP water in return for a commitment to water supply augmentation at some unspecified …
Continue reading ‘In Arizona, talk of water supply augmentation’ »
Water managers in the Upper Colorado River Basin are beginning to roll out details of their contingency planning aimed at preventing Lake Powell from dropping to troublingly low levels. Among the key steps being discussed, according to a presentation Monday by New Mexico’s Kevin Flanagan to his state’s Interstate Stream Commission (more over on my …
Continue reading ‘Contingency planning in the Upper Colorado River Basin’ »