The latest monthly Colorado River water management report from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (pdf) takes a major step toward the river’s first ever shortage declaration. We’ll know more in a month, but the preliminary estimates now show drops in the level of Lake Powell by the end of this year could trigger provisions of …
Continue reading ‘Creeping toward shortage on the Colorado River’ »
The folks at the University of Colorado’s Colorado River Governance Initiative have a clever idea to keep the Upper Basin states from getting screwed by climate change. Their new Upper Basin Voluntary Demand Cap white paper (pdf) offers a solution path for one of the stickiest problems in future Colorado Basin water management under climate change. In …
From the 1923 US Geological Survey’s Birdseye Expedition of the Grand Canyon. The full caption: Sheer walls in Marble Canyon. The rate at which this canyon burrows its way into the earth never fails to astonish the traveler entering it for the first time. Twenty miles below its head, the walls are 2,000 feet above …
Continue reading ‘Marble Canyon: burrowing into the Earth’ »
With “Chasing Water” and “Moving Water” taken, the current working title for my Colorado River book-in-progress is “The Great Mistake.” It doesn’t have enough action verbiness for the final cut, but it seems to nicely frame one of my central themes – that the folks who built the elaborate plumbing system in the Colorado River …
As we speak, there’s this screamin’ deal on ebay: This well known resort area is located in Southern California at the western end of Imperial County. Popular activities at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area include boating, water-skiing, fishing, jet-skiing, hiking, birdwatching, and sailboarding. It is estimated that over 1 million visitors spend time at …
From a June 13 appearance on KNPR in Las Vegas, NV, with Pat Mulroy and Robert Glennon: States have resorted to lawsuits, and even military action to protect water sources in the past. Lawsuits have a huge downside, and can cost municipalities access to water if they lose. “What we’ve seen going back to the …
Continue reading ‘In Colorado River water, sharing the shortages versus suing the bastards’ »
Lake Powell, the large Upper Colorado River Basin Reservoir sitting behind Glen Canyon Dam, ended May with a surface elevation of 3,599.44 feet above sea level, 3 feet higher than projected a month ago, thanks to greater-than-anticipated runoff during the month. Some of that’s just time-shifting – an early melt bringing water down sooner than …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: June numbers show slight improvement in Lake Powell’ »
update: Michael Cohen at the Pacific Institute emailed with a subtle clarification. If Lake Mead, as the USBR analysis reported below suggests, drops below elevation 1,075 feet above sea level during 2015, the actual shortage declaration on the lower Colorado would then apply to the following year’s water allocation. More specifically, during August the Bureau …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River shortage declaration possible by 2015/16’ »
So I’ll be the representing the journalist rabble in a discussion of the fate of the Colorado River tomorrow (Thurs. 6/12/2013) at 9 a.m. PDT on KNPR, public radio in Las Vegas, NV.
In conservations with reporters over the last week, Mike Connor of the US Bureau of Reclamation has mentioned an agency analysis showing a substantial chance of a Colorado River lower basin shortage declaration happening by 2016. This would occur if Lake Mead’s surface elevation drops below 1075 feet above sea level. Here’s my story, explaining …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Colorado River shortage possible by 2016’ »