Archive of posts filed under the water category.

Bonus water likely for Lake Mead in 2015, but it’ll just keep dropping anyway

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The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s key August forecast, out today (pdf),projects that there will be enough water in the Colorado River system next year to release a bonus pulse of 770,000 acre feet of water from Lake Powell down to lake Mead above and beyond the legal requirements of the Colorado River Compact. But even with …

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USBR: Gila diversion costs exceed benefits

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On the scale of Colorado River water diversions yet unbuilt, the possibility of taking water out of the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico is small stuff – 14,000 acre feet per year, or maybe less if the water’s simply not there. But the current debate in New Mexico illustrates a common refrain as western …

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Annals of Indian water: “hot, scorching sands”

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Most of the land in these reservations is and always has been arid. If the water necessary to sustain life is to be had, it must come from the Colorado River or its tributaries. It can be said without overstatement that when the Indians were put on these reservations they were not considered to be …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: forest health = watershed health

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From last Sunday’s newspaper, a solutions-oriented piece on an effort to scale up forest and watershed restoration in the mountains around me: Trees being cut last week on Forest Service land near the Sandia Crest Road can be used as firewood, but there is not enough money to be made from cutting the small timber …

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Total storage behind Hoover, Glen Canyon Dams

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While all eyes have been on Lake Mead’s bathtub ring, Lake Powell is forecast to rise by nearly 1.4 million acre feet by the end of September. But Mead’s 2 million acre foot drop will more than offset the increase, leaving us with the lowest end-of-year total storage in the two reservoirs combined since 1967, …

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Tucson considering potable reuse

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It’s always interesting to see who, among western municipal water agencies, is considering paying top dollar for the next acre foot of water. Today’s episode comes from Tucson, where Tony Davis explains discussions of turning wastewater into drinking water. The usual “yuck factor” discussion of course is engaged, but the really interesting part to me …

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Michael Campana on stocks, flows, and Colorado River Basin groundwater research

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Michael Campana offers some cautions about over-interpreting what the Castle et al. paper on the loss of Colorado River Basin groundwater is telling us. It’s a question of stocks versus flows. The GRACE measurements that have gotten such extensive attention can tells us the latter, but not the former: Why is such a number – …

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