On old Route 66
update: As Lyle points out in the comments, this was actually a used car lot, not a payday loan place as I originally described it. Post corrected.
Archive of posts filed under the New Mexico category.
Feb. 1 Rio Grande forecast numbers – still bad
update Feb. 4: The official numbers are out, largely unchanged from the preliminary numbers: Otowi max: 107 percent mid: 63 percent min: 33 percent San Marcial max: 108 percent mid: 49 percent min: sorta zero (the models have a hard time with the bottom end of the range at San Marcial) previously: The NRCS preliminary …
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“I’ve been born and raised, still hauling water.”
In the Navajo Times, a piece about Darlene Arviso, the water lady. She drives a big truck around to homes on the eastern side of the reservation without running water, of which there are many: Armed with her cellphone and massive truck, Arviso heads out into the community to deliver water to families in need. …
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the problem with “drought”
The new monthly U.S. drought outlook, out this morning, has good news for New Mexico: But wait, I thought that idiot Fleck told us in Sunday’s paper that water managers were bracing for another dry year in New Mexico. What gives? This: The question of who might be hurt and who will avoid the pain …
In New Mexico, precip where it matters not
tl;dr Despite good rain in the cities of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley this year (especially at my house!), it’s the snowpack that matters for state water supply. And the snowpack is not good. Longer: My backyard rain barrels are full, and the latest storm has brought Albuquerque’s water year precipitation (since Oct. 1) to …
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ACLU steps into Gila Case
As near as I can tell, the American Civil Liberties Union has no particular stake in water policy. But the venerable champion of free speech is wading into the rancorous New Mexico debate over the possible diversion of water from the Gila River. Lauren Villagran writes (behind surveywall): The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday …
New Mexico water policy and the problems of a part-time legislature
A few years back, I put on my “water beat reporter” hat and went to Santa Fe for the spring legislative session to track some bills that I found interesting. The newspaper has a team of skilled legislative specialists who I’ve always been able to lean on, but it was fun to bring my water …
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Aldo Leopold’s birthday
In honor of Aldo Leopold’s birthday, some jfleck abqjournal nostalgia with this old favorite from 2009, in which I tracked down a bird in the University of New Mexico’s research collection that Leopold “collected” back in 1919: Years ago, my parents gave me “Aldo Leopold’s Wilderness,” a slim volume of Leopold’s early writings. In it …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: another dry year on the Rio Grande?
The January forecast is out. It is too early to panic, but not to early to have this concern duly noted: With a bad snowpack so far, even a wet spring may not be enough to forestall the fifth consecutive year of below-average runoff on the Rio Grande, according to forecaster Angus Goodbody with the …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: watershed health and governance models
This looks like a story about forest health, fire risk, and restoration. And in a way, I guess, it is. But beyond the specifics of the challenges they’re trying to address, the underlying governance issues that the folks at the Rio Grande Water Fund are tackling are the fascinating part: What McCarthy did next sets …
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