Preparing a talk I’m giving next week about Minute 319, the Colorado River environmental pulse flow and its broader implications for western water management, I ran across this new piece by environmental journalist Cesar Angulo about the mixed feelings in Mexico about the effort: According to Arroyo Gonzalez, these reforestation projects have a very positive …

Continue reading ‘South of the border, tension about highest and best use of Colorado River water’ »

Michael Wines of the New York Times joins the discussion as Arizona officials continue to push their new message about the risk of shortage on the lower Colorado: Although experts have been aware for years that shortages would eventually occur, the analysis represents a marked turnabout in officials’ thinking. “We’re dealing with a very serious …

Continue reading ‘Arizona goes all in on its Lower Colorado risk move’ »

One more great tidbit from Tony Davis’s story today about Arizona’s water woes: Tucson Water customers have sharply scaled back water use. Total use sank to 1989 levels last year despite continued population growth, Wilson said.

tl;dr The idea of conserving water before enforcing shortages in the Colorado River Lower Basin, rejected by water managers less than seven years ago, seems now to be all but a given, though much remains to be worked out. longer: Tony Davis has an excellent story in this morning’s Arizona Star on what looks from …

Continue reading ‘Arizona’s cry for Colorado River help: is “conservation before shortage” now a given?’ »

Ian James at The Desert Sun has a great Sunday paper deep dive into the stress climate change is placing on Lower Colorado River Basin water, including this observation from John Entsminger, Las Vegas’s new water chief, on the money needed to pursue the solution space: Entsminger, whose Las Vegas water agency is backing the …

Continue reading ‘Paying for resilience’ »

Last night, I shared Part I of an interesting discussion by Arizona water managers of the risk facing Lake Mead and Lower Colorado River Basin water users in Nevada, Arizona and California: Absent some big wet years or management intervention, Lake Mead could drop to levels in the next five to eight years that would …

Continue reading ‘What it will take to fix Lake Mead – the Arizona suggestion’ »

update: see also Part II, discussing Arizona’s suggestion regarding what it might take to fix this problem Absent some big wet years or management intervention, Lake Mead could drop to levels in the next five to eight years that would make it nearly unusable – especially for power generation and water for Las Vegas, but …

Continue reading ‘Arizona water managers warn Lake Mead could be sorta unusable in five to eight years’ »