Something remarkable is happening this year in the Lower Colorado River Basin that provides both a glimmer of hope about what durable basin solutions might look like, and also a clear demonstration of the obstacles still standing in their way. Nevada’s Colorado River water use is on track to be the lowest it’s been since …
When I first got serious many years ago about the project of writing (in the newspaper at the time) about New Mexico water, I went looking for the numbers. How much do we have? Who uses what? It’s a task that became central to my work. Eric Kuhn and I spent three years writing an …
Continue reading ‘On the shortcomings of the way we measure water “use”’ »
August 8 is more than a little late for Albuquerque’s first solid monsoon rains to break our weirdly hot flash drought, but we’ll take it. Typical monsoon onset here is early July, plus or minus a week-ish. At the risk of overstating because of a lack of precision, Aug. 8 is record late. I was …
Continue reading ‘Breaking Albuquerque’s flash drought: Biggest monsoon storm in a decade’ »
Area water managers were informed this morning that the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority will shut down its diversion of water from the Rio Grande for use in the municipal drinking water system, switching over to groundwater pumping to meet municipal needs. The reason is low flows in the river. Albuquerque is constrained by …
The Rio Grande, already dry in the San Acacia reach south of Socorro, has begun drying in the Isleta reach south of Albuquerque. And with a record hot dry summer, we could see it dry in Albuquerque again this year, as it did last year for the first time in 40 years. Via Dani Prokop: …
Continue reading ‘Rio Grande through Albuquerque could dry again this year’ »
Breaking out of my old “water policy writer” habits is hard. The bridges of Albuquerque are helping. Counting and Measuring Prepping for an appearance on this Friday’s New Mexico In Focus on NMPBS, I’ve spent a bunch of time the last few days digging through agricultural water use data. (Spoiler alert: Ag water use has …
Continue reading ‘Ribbons of Green: what we mean by “water policy”’ »
The fancy new Barelas Bridge, built in 1910 across the Rio Grande on what was then the southern edge of Albuquerque, was a big deal. The Albuquerque Museum photo archive (some on line here, more that I’ve begun studying at the museum for possible use in the new book) has a bunch of pictures of …
My mental map as I ride my bike across Albuquerque’s Rio Grande Valley floor has grown increasingly complex in the last six months as we’ve added layer upon layer of historic maps to the research for our forthcoming book Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of a Modern American City. Yesterday morning, …
When last we visited, Lake Mead sat at elevation 1,054.28 feet above sea level. It’s now at 1,058.34, which is up ~13 feet from when I took the above photo last December. I hope they moved those chairs. The good news is the current forecast calling for the combined storage of Lake Mead and Lake …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: mid-July Colorado River status report’ »
A guest post by Friend of Inkstain Jason Robison, the Carl M. Williams Professor of Law & Social Responsibility at the University of Wyoming College of Law and chair of the Colorado River Research Group By Jason Robison A few weeks ago, on June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) handed down its much-awaited decision …
Continue reading ‘Arizona v. Navajo Nation: What SCOTUS Didn’t Do Along the Colorado River’ »