I learned stuff at last week’s Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado River conference at the University of Colorado Law School. I learned: The bodacious snowpack means the chance of Lake Mead dropping below elevation 1,000 is zero. We still need to cut 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water use, at least. We still have no …
By Eric Kuhn and John Fleck When the Colorado River Compact Commission’s members returned to negotiations on the morning of Nov. 14 , 1922, they were presented with three important questions – one which survived as language in the final compact and two which did not, but all three of which remain important to the …
Thanks to continued high flows, this is now the wettest year on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande since 1995. My measurement point is the San Felipe gauge on the Rio Grande in north-central New Mexico. The measure is total flow to date this year, compared to total flows at this point in all previous years …
Continue reading ‘The biggest year since 1995 on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande’ »
Increasing Upper Colorado River Basin water use by just 11.5 percent would double the risk that the Upper Basin fails to have enough water to meet its obligations under the Colorado River Compact, according to a new modeling study to be rolled out in a big meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado, next week. The study …
ROGERS SPRING – Rogers Spring is a strange apparition in the desert, 400 gallons per minute burbling out of the side of a mountain and down through an oasis of palm trees before the water peters out into the creosote of the Mojave Desert. Driving up out of Kingman last Sunday, on our way to …
tl;dr There won’t be a grand bargain to reduce Colorado River water use before next month’s inauguration. But that doesn’t mean the grand bargain is dead. In fact, it is inevitable. longer…. LAS VEGAS – When Jeff Kightlinger said during a public session yesterday at the Colorado River Water Users Association that a long-awaited deal to …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River deal – not there yet, but close, and probably inevitable’ »
One of my journalistic tricks has always to pick my moments for grim weather stories – watch the forecast and write when it is at its worst. Because tomorrow the forecast will be different, and I’ll loose my window to write the “It could be the driest/wettest/hottest coldest since X” story. I am not proud, …
Continue reading ‘Correction: It might rain in Albuquerque again after all’ »
Peter Gleick in the Sacramento Bee: As California swelters and burns through the fourth year of the worst drought in 1,200 years, nonpartisan and bipartisan efforts have been increasingly effective. A multibillion-dollar bond measure passed by voters last year is providing funds for drought relief and new supply and conservation programs. Water utilities are expanding …
Continue reading ‘From Peter Gleick, an optimistic take on California drought response’ »
The Bougainvillea is justly classed among the most showy of our climbers and when planted beside a veranda or when allowed to climb on a tall tree or building gives gorgeous effects. – Gardening in California: Landscape and Flower, by John McLaren, 1914