Some remarkable news today out of the regular meeting of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board: despite the nth* year of drought, the district’s farmers are likely to get a full irrigation season again this year, according to a report this afternoon from district hydrologist David Gensler. The forecast is for 60 percent runoff …
Here’s another example of a New Mexico “hydrograph” – the rise and fall of flow on a river over time – driven by rules, not weather. The drop in river flow happens when the irrigation season begins in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. Here’s J.R. Logan in the Taos News: The Río Grande …
Continue reading ‘The institutional hydrograph: April on New Mexico’s Rio Grande’ »
After a good start this year, New Mexico’s snowpack cratered in February and March. The month just completed, in fact, was the driest March on record in New Mexico. February and March combined were the second warmest and second driest on record, a devastating combination for what had been shaping up to be a decent …
Continue reading ‘Resilience and water management on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande’ »
Arthur Rothstein arrived in the Dust Bowl in April of 1936. He was 21 years old, the son of Jewish immigrants, born and raised in New York City. Fresh from Columbia University, Rothstein had been the first photographer hired by Roy Stryker, his former professor, at the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that, from …
Continue reading ‘Throwback Thursday: Making adobe brick. Bosque Farms, New Mexico’ »
My former Albuquerque Journal colleague Roberto Rosales has this magical ability to be at the right place at the right time:
Correction (update?): As of Friday, March 25, 2016, it’s now not likely to rain in March after all. Correction (update?): It might rain after all! In 1934, the official Albuquerque weather station received 0.04 inches of rain in February and 0.01 in March. This year, we received 0.05 in February. So far, we’ve gotten …
Continue reading ‘One of the driest February-March’s in Albuquerque history’ »
The March 1 forecast for the Rio Grande in New Mexico suggests we are heading into another dry year on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, with a median forecast of 80 percent of the 1981-2010 average flowing into Elephant Butte Reservoir. (source pdf) That is close enough to average that there is a lot …
Continue reading ‘A forecast for another dry year on the Rio Grande’ »
I’m giving a talk next week at the CLE Law of the River conference in Las Vegas about what I think is one of the two most important trends in western water management. The first, which we hear a lot about, is the pressure posed by climate change and drought. The second, which I don’t think …
Continue reading ‘Albuquerque at 127 gallons per person per day – how low can cities go?’ »
The great decoupling between Albuquerque’s growth and its water use, with total use down another 3 percent in 2015, continuing a trend that over two decades has led to a 24 percent drop in water use, even as population has grown 25 percent. I don’t have population numbers yet that I need to do the …
Continue reading ‘Albuquerque’s water use dropped another 3 percent in 2015’ »
There’s a fun Twitter meme called “Throwback Thursday”, abbreviated #tbt. It looks something like this: