Archive of posts filed under the water category.

Odds now favor a Lower Colorado River Basin shortage declaration in 2018

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The latest U.S. Bureau of Reclamation two-year Colorado River operational forecast, released last week, projects that Lake Mead will end December 2017 at elevation 1,074.2 feet above sea level, about 10 inches below the level that would trigger a first ever shortage declaration on the Lower Colorado River. Here’s the legal mumbo-jumbo: In years when …

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Colorado Basin snowpack lagging, forecast for a wet spring

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The snowpack this morning in the Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell (source: CBRFC) measures at 90 percent of average for this date, which is a bit nerve wracking with the basin’s reservoirs only half full (source: USBR pdf). The latest forecast runs from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the folks who run the …

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Adorable dogs protect our waterways from evil quagga mussels

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From H2oradio: When he’s doing his search pattern if he detects the odor that he’s trained to find, which is invasive mussels, he’ll sit down. Then as a handler, I’ll ask him to pinpoint exactly where he found it so he’ll point to it with his nose and then I’ll verify and I’ll look and …

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Has the Peripheral Delta Tunnel Canal Thingie paralyzed California water?

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OtPR has a super insightful observation about three decades of California water policy: The Peripheral Canal was voted down in 1982.  My sense is that the possibility of the Peripheral Canal has largely paralyzed California water policy since then (with the possible exception of IRWM).  If the Peripheral Canal had been entirely off the table, the regions …

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Albuquerque’s water use dropped another 3 percent in 2015

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The great decoupling between Albuquerque’s growth and its water use, with total use down another 3 percent in 2015, continuing a trend that over two decades has led to a 24 percent drop in water use, even as population has grown 25 percent. I don’t have population numbers yet that I need to do the …

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More California state money for the Salton Sea

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California Gov. Jerry Brown has requested $80 in his new budget for dust mitigation and habitat restoration at the Salton Sea, Jesse Marx and Sammy Roth report: That’s less than the $150 million local officials wanted, but still far more than the state has ever allocated for restoration projects at the dying lake. The money …

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Note to self: invest my next $31.8 million in Palo Verde real estate

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All the cool kids seem to be buying up real estate in the Palo Verde Irrigation District. First it was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which has upped its stake in the Colorado River farming valley to 22,000 acres. Now comes news that Almarai, a dairy company, bought 1,790 acres to grow food …

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Low-flush at the Home Depot: bending the water use curve down

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Every toilet currently in stock at my local Home Depot has the EPA WaterSense label, even the cheapest ones, meaning they uses 1.28 gallons per flush or less. This is a big part of why we see water use – on a per capita basis, but also in some cases on an absolute basis – …

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In Iraq, a problem like the Sacramento Delta, except with actual war

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In this week’s Science, Andrew Lawler reports from Basra (paywalled) on problems strikingly similar to the risks in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as upstream water use shuts down a delta river discharge, allowing saltwater intrusion: The Persian Gulf is creeping relentlessly up rivers and canals shrunken by water diversions upstream and by years of drought. …

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