I write about minnows in the Rio Grande, and smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Richard White writes about salmon in the Columbia. In all three cases, we’re discussing species-focused environmental efforts – to “save” the silvery minnow in the Rio Grande, or salmon and the delta smelt in California, or salmon in …
So I’m all, like “view from nowhere” in this piece in this morning’s newspaper. I’m genuinely agnostic on the question of the fate of the silvery minnow, an endangered fish found only on the stretch of the Rio Grande that flows through Albuquerque and points slightly north and south. But I think we need to …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: “Emerson, Nixon and the silvery minnow”’ »
another Not On My Employer’s Production Server experiment View Larger Map
Recalling one of Inkstain’s two mottos*, I’m experimenting here with fire maps. This is an attempt at the perimeter/heat map for the Thompson Ridge fire in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, as of last night’s IR overflight, GIS data courtesy National Interagency Fire Center. The “view larger map” link allows you to do what …
In the last five years, I’ve somewhat haphazardly accumulated what’s turning into a pretty good time series of data on the ecology of my backyard. Or, more specifically, the birds therein. Since 2008, when I caught the eBird bug, I’ve submitted 483 lists for the yard. Number 484, collected this evening, is a puzzle. Sometimes …
Continue reading ‘In which your backyard naturalist blames nighthawks and swallows on drought’ »
In conservations with reporters over the last week, Mike Connor of the US Bureau of Reclamation has mentioned an agency analysis showing a substantial chance of a Colorado River lower basin shortage declaration happening by 2016. This would occur if Lake Mead’s surface elevation drops below 1075 feet above sea level. Here’s my story, explaining …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Colorado River shortage possible by 2016’ »
It’s complicated. That’s what I realized this morning as I engaged in the now-nearly-mandatory journalistic self-promotion exercise – tweeting my work. On one of the local water mailing lists, I was recently taken to task for feeding drought paranoia rather than pulling together comprehensive analyses. It’s a fair cop. I’ll try to keep it in …
Continue reading ‘stuff I wrote elsewhere: junior groundwater pumping and the “futile call”’ »
I spent the morning in an Albuquerque court listening to a fascinating legal argument about water rights. (Update: story from the am newspaper) The real issue, involving the way central New Mexico’s largest irrigation district allocates water, remains undecided – this morning’s ruling was issued based on procedural issues rather than the substance at hand. …
After three recent reporting trips to southern New Mexico, I can’t quite get my head around this: It’s the Rio Grande. The entire stretch through southern New Mexico has been completely dry since last summer, save for a few places where groundwater seeps, either hydrothermal stuff or leakage from upstream dams, wet the channel. …
Ever since I first heard about “atmospheric rivers” from Cliff Dahm, the biologist who until recently headed science efforts for the Delta Stewardship Council, I’ve been asking every scientist who I heard talk about them whether they can make it all the way to New Mexico. AR’s are these amazing storms that blast California like a …