Water is photogenic, even at a sewage treatment plant. This is from a tour this afternoon of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s Southside Wastewater Reclamation Plant with a couple of University of New Mexico faculty colleagues and a bunch of students, including the graduate students in the Water Resources Program, where I’m an …
I had a lovely afternoon yesterday walking alongside the Bear Canyon Arroyo in Albuquerque’s northeast heights, talking with fellow water nerds Katherine Yuhas and Amy Ewing, and watching water flow in New Mexico’s first operational aquifer storage and recovery project (behind a Google surveywall): Nearly 3,000 gallons a minute of water began spurting from a …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: ASR in New Mexico’ »
About a decade ago, New Mexico state Rep. Mimi Stewart introduced legislation to collect a “water resource fee” on all water use in the state – $2 per acre foot for ag, $20 per acre foot for municipal and most other water users. (details in a 2003 talk by Steward here – pdf) The idea …
A lovely fall day in the Rio Grande Valley, on Albuquerque’s west side. The green field in the lower left of this picture is alfalfa. The scraggly brown stuff in the middle and right foreground is a part of the same field left fallow this year. The cottonwoods, God love ’em, suck up water no …
Continue reading ‘Here’s what ag water conservation might look like’ »
Peter Culp, Robert Glennon and Gary Libecap have published an excellent new analysis of the potential for water markets to help us dig out of the western United States’ water mess: Water trading can facilitate the reallocation of water to meet the demands of changing economies and growing populations. It can play a vital role …
Continue reading ‘So how are we going to build these western water markets?’ »
Lissa and I caught the tail end of fall colors on a drive in the mountains east of Albuquerque today. I wonder why these oak leaves are waiting until the last minute? Phenology.
I spent a thoroughly fascinating couple of days last week at a workshop organized by the University of New Mexico’s Utton Center (legal wonks thinking about water institutions) on resilience in New Mexico water management. It was a lot of fun, made all the more so by the fact that I was invited Thursday evening …
Continue reading ‘Change, stasis and (or?) resilience in New Mexico water policy’ »
In central New Mexico, the salt cedar beetle seems here to stay, enforcing the Law of Unintended Consequences: Introduced in the 19th century to protect railroad bridge abutments, praised for its ability to protect riverbanks from erosion, vilified for alleged water-sucking ways while simultaneously defended as wildlife habitat, the story of the Eurasian tamarisk – …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: an inordinate fondness for beetles’ »
What makes the first tree decide, “OK, now’s the time to turn.”
From the morning paper, a column about the importance of putting all the data on the table for a public discussion as we try to make collective decisions about our water future. (This is about the Gila River in New Mexico). The argument here is technical, and I don’t expect you to be able to …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: on public discussion in water politics, Gila edition.’ »