From the newly released archive of British Movietone newsreels, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes in October 1938 hits the button to open the gates on Imperial Dam, diverting the first Colorado River water into the All-American Canal and on its way to irrigate the farms of the Imperial Valley: The newsreel makes …
Continue reading ‘Imperial Valley, 1938: “a million parched acres awaiting for irrigation”’ »
New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission yesterday formally approved the creation of a “New Mexico Central Arizona Project Entity,” a governance gizmo needed to move forward with a proposal to divert Colorado River tributary water from the Gila River in New Mexico: Interstate Stream Commission members have approved a resolution designating a 14-member unit to design …
Continue reading ‘Gila River water governance gizmo built. Sort of.’ »
University of California researchers have a novel idea: what if we dump more water on alfalfa and use that to recharge aquifers? Over a six-week period in February, March and April, Dahlke oversaw a test in Siskiyou County in which 140 acre-feet of water were applied to 10 acres of alfalfa. That’s well over twice …
Aquifer replenishment works. Sort of. And depending on what you mean by “works”. That’s the message in a new paper ($$$-walled) from Brian Thomas and Jay Famiglietti at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking at groundwater levels in California’s Coachella Valley. Coachella is the northwestern extension of the Salton trough, edging the Salton Sea and spreading …
Continue reading ‘Coachella groundwater management: it’s complicated’ »
I especially like number three: [View the story “Advice for reporters new to the drought beat” on Storify] More of Brian’s thoughts on western water here.
A couple of blocks from my Albuquerque home is Del Sol Park, but everyone in the neighborhood calls it “Twin Parks”, because of the short street that divides it in two. On one side of that street, a nondescript concrete pad marks the spot where the U.S. Geological Survey measures the depth to groundwater beneath …
William Yardley writes in the Los Angeles Times about the water rights and water fears in Yuma, Arizona: If you eat a green salad between Thanksgiving and April, whether in Minnesota, Montreal or Modesto, odds are good that some of it was grown in or around Yuma. The summer freshness on all of those winter …
Continue reading ‘Yuma: Colorado River produce powerhouse’ »
I would like to point out that the first six months of 2015, which roughly coincides with the time since I quite writing about drought for the Albuquerque Journal, have seen the wettest statewide average precipitation since the epic year of 1941: You’re welcome, and you have my deepest apologies for not doing this sooner.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s latest 24-month study, out this afternoon (pdf), shows continued improvement on the Colorado River system’s big reservoirs as a result of the hella rainy spring and summer, and therefore a continued reduction in the risk of a Lower Basin shortage declaration. The number to watch is a Lake Mead elevation of …
A new California water/drought news site with former Sacramento Bee water beat reporter Matt Weiser as its managing editor is self-recommending. Here’s matt at Water Deeply on El Niño: Current predictions for the winter ahead suggest El Niño will be a “borderline-strong” event, Null said. It’s true, a strong El Niño, as measured by temperature change …
Continue reading ‘Matt Weiser leading new California drought news platform’ »