In his book Border Oasis, Evan Ward tells the story of the transborder conflict between the United States and Mexico over salinity in the Colorado River. “Unfortunately,” Ward writes, “sometimes when one region solves its salinity problems, it creates new salinity problems for people downriver.” The conflict Ward describes began in 1961 when farmers on …

Continue reading ‘“running water which is salty”’ »

I was reminded at a talk last night that farmers in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District in southern New Mexico got less than 10 percent of a full irrigation allotment last year. I say that by way of a preface to noting Juliet McKenna’s observation that there’s a 50-50 chance of a formal shortage declaration in …

Continue reading ‘Shortage on the Colorado River’ »

I suppose it’s a sign of the times on the Colorado River that a January forecast of 95 percent of average flow into Lake Powell counts as good news. Since green on the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center map runs from 90 to 110 percent, we get green. It’s only a little bit below average! …

Continue reading ‘For now, some breathing room on the Colorado River’ »

From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Yuma, Ariz., and El Centro, Calif., had the highest unemployment rates in October, 31.9 percent and 25.2 percent, respectively. These folks are getting a lot of Colorado River water. There’s seasonality to the resulting ag work economies, but really, this is a graph of economic suckage:  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s new Consumptive Uses and Losses Report (pdf), consumptive use of Colorado River water in the states of the upper basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and a sliver of Arizona) reached 4.281 million acre feet in 2011, the highest on record. The previous high was 4.245 million acre …

Continue reading ‘Record Upper Colorado River Basin water use in 2011’ »

On this holiday, we can give thanks that the snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin is more than twice as big as last year at this time. It’s actually (#dontjinx) above average:  

In Scottsdale, AZ, there’s a business called Desert Cadillac. It sells cars, apparently without irony.

tl;dr – In 1960, U.S. Supreme Court Special Master Simon Rifkind made a fundamental mistake in calculating how much water was then available in the Colorado River Basin, and how much might be available in the future. The court, in its ruling in the case of Arizona v. California, accepted Rifkind’s math. The consequence is …

Continue reading ‘Simon Rifkind’s great mistake and the shortfall on the Colorado River’ »