Does it matter whether the current southwestern US drought is caused by anthropogenic climate change? Or, to be slightly more precise, in what ways does it or does it not matter? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Let me know what you think in the comments below. The question arises anew in the context of the …
Continue reading ‘Climate Change and Southwest Drought – Is It Happening Now?’ »
From the morning paper, a look at money for the a Navajo Nation water project in the Indian water rights settlement bill the president signed last week: A century of federal investment in dams and canals was built to serve cities and farms — “a long tradition in water politics in which states receive federal …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Navajo Settlement’ »
From the morning paper (sub/ad req) a look at the rising costs (four to seven-fold) and long delays (being generous, nine years) facing a proposed plutonium lab at Los Alamos: Among the most vocal critics of the agency’s nuclear project management are a cadre of retired nuclear weapons experts. “This is mismanagement,” said Bob Peurifoy, …
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In which I spend my morning observing the construction of a tumbleweed snowman: (We also made a video. Story coming in tomorrow’s newspaper, too. We take this shit seriously, and did I mention I have the best job? Ever?)
Arizona’s on the hunt for new water, and it won’t be cheap. Tony Davis covered this week’s meeting of the folks working on the program with one of my all time favorite government acronyms – Project ADD Water (that’s Acquisition, Development and Delivery). It’s the planning effort among Central Arizona Project players to find new …
You folks have already seen most of this, but for readers of what we call “the print product”, I pulled together today some of my thoughts about the draining of Lake Mead and its implications for New Mexico. I did this (perhaps not coincidentally) as I’ve been pulling together some thoughts to speak tonight at …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: My Visit to Lake Mead’ »
From the morning paper, an invite to one of New Mexico’s treasures – the Bosque del Apache (sub/ad req): Come for the sandhill cranes and the grand clouds of snow geese. Stay for the coyote, or possibly the American pipit. The big gray cranes and waves of geese are the marquee attraction at the Bosque …
From the morning paper, a quick look at the New Mexico Court of Appeals decision on the state’s domestic well statute (sub/ad req): New Mexico’s law giving homeowners the right to drill their own water well is legal and does not unfairly harm other water users in violation of the state constitution, according to the …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The “Festering Issue” of NM Domestic Wells’ »
My education in economics included a lot of discussion of the importance of clarity in property rights regimes. You’ve got to know who owns what. New Mexico water law in this regard is a tangled mess. In large areas of the state, we lack formal adjudication of water rights. We do know some things about …
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There’s something endearingly goofy about hot air balloons. Which is what makes the Dark Lord, sort of puffed up and laying on his side in at dawn in an Albuquerque park, so charmingly counter-intuitive. It is the season of our city’s annual hot air ballon fiesta, nine days of a gobzillions (OK, hundreds, but literally …