Lissa and I were sitting this afternoon in Pat Hurley Park, up on the west mesa (best view in Albuquerque, check it out) when we heard the rumble of Harleys. A couple of dozen bikes, a full biker wedding. And, being an outlaw gang – Bandidos, whose regalia included New Mexico “bottom rockers” (see Jeff …
I was trying to get a shot of our neighborhood roadrunner this morning as it hopped down into Lissa’s garden, a sort of “living Garden Gnome” shot. But I realized as I looked through the results that the garden itself, Lissa’s great work of living art, overwhelms the bird, however cool the roadrunner might be.
Albuquerque yesterday (Oct. 15) began pumping groundwater from an aquifer in the city’s northeast heights, the first time aquifer storage and recovery in New Mexico has reached the “recovery” phase. New Mexico is late to this party – states around us have been doing this for years. But it’s a huge milestone in water management …
Continue reading ‘Albuquerque recovering stored groundwater, historic first for New Mexico’ »
New Mexico journalist (and friend of Inkstain) Laura Paskus today launched a year-long look at climate change in New Mexico. From the opening installment: As the region continues to warm, snowpack will continue to decrease, the snow line will move higher in elevation and farther north, and winter snows will start later and end earlier …
I’ll be yammering on about “New Mexico’s Rio Grande: Fate of a 21st Century River“, Oct. 31, 10 a.m., at the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor’s Center. We tried to schedule it for a time when the sandhill cranes had arrived. You’ve already heard me, but the OSVC is one of the best places in town …
Continue reading ‘I’ll be speaking in Albuquerque Oct. 31 about the fate of the Rio Grande’ »
Some thoughts after today’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on federal western California New Mexico etc. drought legislation…. On Congressional process We currently have two “California drought bills” – H.R. 2898 developed by California House Republicans and S. 1894. They are very different. As a matter of process, the details of the difference don’t …
Continue reading ‘Thoughts on federal drought legislation circa October 2015’ »
Today’s federal drought monitor for New Mexico passed an important milestone. For the first time since November 2010, more than half the state is completely free of any drought or “abnormally dry” designation:
Water year 2014-15 is ending with low flows again on the Rio Grande through central New Mexico. (We’ve only had one year since 2000 with above-average flows.) Lissa and I walked out to the Rio Grande in Bernalillo County’s far South Valley this afternoon. The water was low. Low is normal for this time of …
Continue reading ‘A quiet end to the water year on the Rio Grande’ »
Does the looming El Niño mean we can expect a big year on the Rio Grande? Not necessarily. The scatter in the data is huge, but hidden in the data is a bit of a nudge in the direction of wet: That’s native flow at Otowi, the key Rio Grande measurement point north of Albuquerque. There’s …
Preparing for a lecture for next week for the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program class I’m co-teaching, I’m having the students read this piece by my drought guru Kelly Redmond: Most concepts of drought involve a water balance. This implies that both supply and demand must be considered, as well as the question …
Continue reading ‘In California, clarifying what we mean by “drought”’ »