From yesterday’s newspaper, a reminder that not all the area within the boundaries of this year’s big New Mexico forest fires is burned to an ugly, indecipherable ecological cinder (sub/ad req): There is good reason to visit the moonscape, and to talk about what happens next to the ecosystem there — the subject of a …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: It didn’t all burn like that’ »
Once this resource was provided*, those who failed to pay for it (such as me, drifting through Albuquerque’s Old Town plaza at the end of a long Saturday bike ride) could not be excluded from enjoying its benefits. In addition, my consumption of the resource (sitting in the shade listening to the music) did not, …
Continue reading ‘My education in economics: Public Goods’ »
For the current water year, Oct. 1, 2010, through the end of August, I’ve had 4.39 inches (11.15 cm) of rain at my house in Albuquerque’s near northeast heights. That’s 51 percent of the mean going back to the 1999-2000 water year. Just one of the months, December, was above my long term mean, and …
ABQJournal video edition of the weekend post-fire flood flow explainer, with the remarkable Kerry Jones video of the torrent in Cochiti Canyon: (Thanks to Troy Simpson, Richard Pipes and Kerry Jones)
The results of a couple of trips north last week into the flood zone in the canyons below the watersheds burned by the Las Conchas fire (sub/ad req): In Cochiti Canyon, a New Mexico Environment Department team estimated the Aug. 21 flow that caused the first round of damage at Dixon’s at 12,000 cubic feet …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: on the power of moving water’ »
A river is not just in one place. It extends in time up and down its watershed. Last night, Daniel Porter at the Albuquerque National Weather Service office sent out an alert of possible flooding on Peralta Canyon, which enters the Rio Grande about 40 miles north of Albuquerque. Its watershed was burned in the …
Continue reading ‘Water in the desert: blackwater edition’ »
New Mexico’s in the midst of a tense and interesting discussion about the Rio Grande silvery minnow, the Endangered Species Act and managing the Rio Grande. I’ve got a post up over at the work blog going meta on the underlying issues – why I think ESA discussions have become our proxy discussions for big …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: water policy and the endangered species act’ »
Richard White’s history of the extension of railroads across the western United States (Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America – great read) has fascinating excerpts from the 1870 diary of H.K. Thomas, the Union Pacific stationmaster in Laramie, Wyoming. The normal fires of summer in the mountains are mentioned twice – “covering …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Why my state is burning down’ »
New Mexico’s forests are seriously messed up. Here’s a video teaser for my Sunday newspaper story: Update: Sorry, didn’t realize the embedded video made noise without asking. If you want to see it, go here.
I tried my best while I was out riding this morning to get a picture that shows the strange discomfort flowing past in the Rio Grande and the irrigation ditches that flank the river as it passes through town. Need words to help – the water at this spot, on one of the ditches in …