The state’s first protracted drought occurred in 1868 and lingered on until 1872 or 1873. The west side of the San Joaquin Valley suffered most. There the wheat crop was a total loss in 1870 and 1871, and by the fall of the latter year the parched valley had turned to dust…. [B]anks foreclosed on …
Ian James at The Desert Sun has a great Sunday paper deep dive into the stress climate change is placing on Lower Colorado River Basin water, including this observation from John Entsminger, Las Vegas’s new water chief, on the money needed to pursue the solution space: Entsminger, whose Las Vegas water agency is backing the …
Is this what water conservation looks like? I’m not sure who got to decide that 10 inches of precipitation a year (25 cm) or less defines a “desert”, but by that standard my neighborhood barely slips under the line. In the 15 years that I’ve been collecting data, I’ve averaged 9.78 inches, and data from …
Continue reading ‘Water in the desert, dying urban tree edition’ »
Berkeley agricultural economist E. Phillip Leveen seems to have been* the person who coined the term “iron triangle” to describe the political structure behind large scale 20th century water development in the western United Staes. The “triangle” is an attempt to describe the relationship between federal water agencies, members of key congressional committees responsible for …
Continue reading ‘Is the “iron triangle” in western water management still a relevant concept?’ »
Last night, I shared Part I of an interesting discussion by Arizona water managers of the risk facing Lake Mead and Lower Colorado River Basin water users in Nevada, Arizona and California: Absent some big wet years or management intervention, Lake Mead could drop to levels in the next five to eight years that would …
Continue reading ‘What it will take to fix Lake Mead – the Arizona suggestion’ »
From the morning newspaper, a column about the assumption embedded in Albuquerque’s water utility budget – that Albuquerque water conservation has hit bottom: [T]he Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s latest spending plan bets you’ve finally hit the conservation wall, projecting that from the current 134 gallons per person per day, you’ll go up to …
update: see also Part II, discussing Arizona’s suggestion regarding what it might take to fix this problem Absent some big wet years or management intervention, Lake Mead could drop to levels in the next five to eight years that would make it nearly unusable – especially for power generation and water for Las Vegas, but …
In 2012 cattle, calves and dairy made up 78.6 percent of New Mexico’s farm receipts. Hay to feed them was the next-largest component of the state’s ag economy at 4.3 percent. Pecans were next at 2.7 percent, and our famous chile made up 1.6 percent of farm receipts. Source: USDA ERS In the background, you …
It seems like a no brainer. Stop wasting that water! Put it to good use! But when we’re talking about things like lining irrigation canals (see for exmample the All-American Canal saga, pdf here) or cleaning up and re-using sewage, it’s critical to ask the question: If we don’t do this, where will that water …
Continue reading ‘The L.A. River – when “wasted” water isn’t wasted’ »
Phoenix is following a pattern I’ve frequently noted here – water conservation is, at least for now, outpacing population growth: Research by Phoenix’s Water Service Department shows 1.5 million people lived in Phoenix in 2013, and about 375,000 homeowners had city water accounts. In 1998, about 1.2 million called Phoenix home, and 301,475 had water …