Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Kirtland cleanup
State regulators are pushing the Air Force to do more, and more quickly, to cleanup spill aviation fuel that has fouled Albuquerque groundwater. My story.
Archive of posts filed under the New Mexico category.
The ag irrigation efficiency paradox
A visit to Santo Domingo Pueblo yesterday morning to look at irrigation efficiency work funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and others offered a nice demonstration of the paradox of ag water conservation. From my story (behind a Google survey wall, sorry): By using the pueblo’s irrigation supplies more efficiently, the project, funded by …
stuff I’ll talk about elsewhere on the radio
I’ll be on the radio Saturday at 9 a.m. with Katie Stone on KUNM’s Children’s Hour (one of the great Albuquerque media institutions) explaining Albuquerque’s aquifer. Streaming live on line or on your mobile device.
July rain: what a difference a month makes
I got what may be my all time favorite reader comment a couple of weeks back when I tried to explain that the summer rains New Mexico has been getting do not mean our drought is over: This article is miserablism at its absolute worst. How about looking at important progress in reservoirs like Conchas …
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ditch, farm, mountains, sky
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: farming cottonwoods
Here’s another look into the western water solution space – an agreement on the Lower Rio Grande under which willing farmers will have a chance to sell their water rights for use recreating lost riparian habitat (story behind survey wall for non-subscribers): To the list of the Lower Rio Grande’s famous crops, like Hatch’s chile …
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Rio Grande as plumbing
Doing daily journalism on the declining Rio Grande, I have frequent occasion to use this handy tool from the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the Bureau of Reclamation. It gives close-to-real time readings on all the main river and irrigation system gauges: It occurs to me that its crisp reductionism rather supports my recent …
Stuff I took pictures of elsewhere
An experiment in repeat photography on a dwindling Rio Grande.
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: irrigating the Rio Grande
From the morning paper, Day 1 (Day N?) of my Rio Grande death watch: JARALES – There’s a great line about New Mexico’s central river, often attributed to Will Rogers: “The Rio Grande is the only river I ever saw that needed irrigation.” Whether Rogers said it or not (and there is some question), it …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: in small-town drought, why the wells go dry
We’ve seen a lot of news media attention in New Mexico’s drought of 2013 to the little village of Magdalena, where the wells earlier this month went dry. Small towns are especially vulnerable in drought. But as I dug into the data the last few weeks, I realized that journalistically swooping down on the town …
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