Archive of posts filed under the water category.

“intentionally created unused apportionment”: gobbledygook for the greater good

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There’s a particularly important passage in Matt Jenkins’ new piece on former Las Vegas water manager Pat Mulroy’s leadership on Colorado Basin issues (behind paywall for now, subscribe!) where he describes an example of a convoluted deal to bank Nevada water in an Arizona aquifer: It was … the first federally sanctioned deal for a …

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Strategies for Middle Rio Grande water, March 21

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My friends at the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly are gathering Sat., March 21, to discuss strategies for managing water in the face of climate change in the central New Mexico reach of the river: While there is a Regional Water Plan for the three county-area (Sandoval, Bernalillo and Valencia), it is ten years old. …

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Lake Mead “bathtub ring”

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One of the members of my brain trust was speculating idly the other day about how different the Colorado River dialogue might be if the hydro-geo-chemistry of the bathtub ring was different – if the dropping water didn’t leave a white mark, letting you see how much Lake Mead has dropped, letting people like me …

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Rio Grande forecast improves, but that’s not saying much

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update, Thursday, 3/5: Final March 1 forecast numbers are in, unchanged for those in the preliminary quoted below. previously: It says something about the drought on New Mexico’s Rio Grande in recent years that a forecast of 67 percent of average runoff into Elephant Butte Reservoir is good news. That’s the mid-point of the preliminary …

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How low can municipal water conservation go?

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From Gary Woodard’s work – in Arizona… an annual drop in per-household demand of more than 2 percent between 2000 and 2013 across Maricopa and Pima counties. This trend is expected to extend through 2020, as we continue to replace appliances, fixtures, and landscape plants with new, more water-efficient ones; construct new, more water-efficient homes; and participate in water …

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April-July Colorado River runoff: 71 percent

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With a dry February, the chances of a big snowpack and “bonus water” flow in 2015 that might begin to refill Lake Mead and Lake Powell are just about gone. April-July runoff into Lake Powell, the big reservoir in the Colorado River’s “Upper Basin”, is forecast to be 71 percent of average, according to the …

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West’s snowpack improves, still not great

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It is testimony to a lousy January and most of February that the spectacular snowstorm I drove home into over the weekend left the key watersheds that provide water to the Rio Grande and Colorado River still behind average for the year. The 9 inches of snow at my house was the most since December …

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Matt Jenkins on Pat Mulroy

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Matt Jenkins, the best journalist we’ve got covering water in the western United States, has an insightful cover story in the latest High Country News on Pat Mulroy, the recently retired head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. (Not on line yet – subscribe!) Mulroy is known for being brash and pugnacious, but Matt gets …

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