update: With the latest hourly reading, the elevation of Lake Mead has dropped to 1,081.84 feet above sea level, the lowest it has been since the reservoir was being filled in the 1930s: Previously: Last night at midnight, the surface elevation of Lake Mead dropped to 1,081.89 feet above sea level, half an inch above …

Continue reading ‘Lake Mead at 1,081.89 feet above sea level and dropping: Is this unprecedented?’ »

I’m not sure “Utah shouldn’t build that pipeline because California might need our water” sounds like a winning political argument, at least if you’re having the argument in Utah. I’m not saying it’s not accurate. Overdevelopment of Upper Colorado River Basin water right now clearly poses a risk of colliding with the Upper Basin’s obligation …

Continue reading ‘Utah and California, sharing a watershed’ »

Let’s revisit regulated deficit irrigation and the analysis Mike Cohen did last year of the problems and opportunities associated with forage crops in the Colorado River Basin, shall we? Golf and the Bellagio Fountain are easy targets. But if you’re not talking about alfalfa, you’re not being serious. Here’s Cohen et al.: Irrigated pasture and …

Continue reading ‘The Colorado’s problems: if you’re not talking about alfalfa, you’re not being serious’ »

Four years ago, I stood on Hoover Dam staring down at the receding water line as Lake Mead set what was, at the time, a record low: If you blow this picture up enough, you can probably see pixels of rock that have not been exposed since the 1930s. Or maybe not. The surface elevation …

Continue reading ‘Lake Mead’s coming record low’ »

Here’s The Nature Conservancy’s Brian Richter, in his new book Chasing Water, describing what the solution space for the Colorado River Basin’s water problems might look like:   Even though urban water uses (for domestic, commercial, and industrial purposes) account for only a minor share of total water use in most water-stressed places, urban water …

Continue reading ‘Why it’s not about the Bellagio Fountain redux – a peek into the solution space’ »

I love this picture. E.C. LaRue was a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist who in 1916 assembled the first attempt at a rigorous scientific survey of the water resources of the Colorado River Basin. Water Supply Paper No. 395 will never be mistaken for great literature. LaRue was one of America’s early technocrats, intellectual ancestors of …

Continue reading ‘Colorado River history pic Sunday: If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ »