What happens in Vegas in this case is apparently livestreamed
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.
Archive of posts filed under the Colorado River category.
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Colorado River shortage possible by 2016
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 …
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Pat Mulroy doesn’t think much of the Salton Sea
Via Henry Brean, Pat Mulroy shares her views of the Imperial Irrigation District’s efforts to funnel water into the Salton Sea: Mulroy is definitely worried about Lake Mead, which supplies about 90 percent of the Las Vegas Valley’s drinking water. But she also voiced broader concerns about river water being used to prop up a …
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Total Mead/Powell storage headed for lowest level since Powell first filled
Ever the journalist in search of gloomy extremes, I just noticed that total storage in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest reservoirs used to manage flows on the Colorado River, is currently forecast (USBR pdf here) to end the current water year at its lowest level since 1968, when Powell, the uppermost reservoir …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: San Juan-Chama supply at risk from climate change
Concerned the current drought will end? No worries, climate change has your back: Climate change is likely to render a key part of the water supply for Santa Fe and Albuquerque increasingly unreliable in coming decades, according to a new analysis by federal scientists. The San Juan-Chama project, which imports water from the mountains of …
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Folks, we’ve got a drought going on
Bill Hasencamp at the Metropolitan Water District (I think it was Bill) asked a question today on the Colorada Basin River Forecast Center monthly briefing call that led to an email exchange that led to this, from the work blog: the forecast for spring inflow into Lake Powell, on the Colorado River, is the lowest …
River Beat: The “Severe Sustained Drought” study
I recently (happily) stumbled across a web version of the full 1995 publication of the Colorado River “Severe Sustained Drought” study, a comprehensive “what if” exercise done in the 1980s and early 1990s. From the forward:: The Severe Sustained Drought Study contemplates a much more dire water supply scenario than that which has occurred in the …
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River beat: the emptying of Lake Powell
In late 2010 and early 2011, when I was plotting out the narrative arc for my Colorado River book, I began collecting what I imagined was the detailed storytelling material to describe the decline of the river’s great reservoirs. I’d been out to Lake Mead to document the day it dropped to record level. And …
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landmark Arizona-Nevada water deal coming to an end
The agreement between the Southern Nevada Water Authority (Las Vegas) and the Arizona Water Banking Authority, under which Arizona banked water for Nevada, has always seemed to me like a harbinger of the future in the Colorado River Basin – mutually beneficial sharing across state borders. Via Juliet McKenna and Michele Robertson, it now appears …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Navajo water rights
From this morning’s newspaper, a deep dive into the issues surrounding the Navajo Nation’s struggle to secure water rights in northwestern New Mexico: It was 1948. Fred Wilson, New Mexico’s representative to the interstate group working to divide up the waters of the Upper Colorado River Basin, was pleading. “The state of New Mexico wants …
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