Simply put, no environmental law has had as much impact on western rivers–or created as much controversy–as section 7 of the ESA. – Reed Benson I’m on record as arguing that the Endangered Species Act is a terrible water management tool, while simultaneously being not terribly effective as an environmental tool. But you manage water …
Continue reading ‘Endangered species and the question of federal discretion’ »
When last we met, I showed you the San Juan River looking like the only water for miles (and not much water at that) as it flows across the Ute Mountain Ute Nation near Four Corners. Today, after miles of driving around the high country of the Four Corners region (vacation road trip) I have …
Continue reading ‘Water in the Desert, San Juan River edition II’ »
My search for water in the desert took Lissa and I this afternoon up US 160 from Teec Nos Pos in Arizona’s far northeastern corner, past the Four Corners Monument and into Colorado, where the highway crosses the San Juan River. Teec Nos Pos has a weather station that averages 8.09 inches (20.55 cm) of …
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Lissa and I stopped this morning at Mesa Verde’s “Mummy Lake”, more recently renamed “Far View Reservoir,” on account of apparently there was never any mummy. Now we learn, thanks to science, that there was probably never a reservoir or lake, either: The structure at Mesa Verde National Park known historically as Mummy Lake and …
Continue reading ‘“Mummy Lake” – we always want it to be about water’ »
Driving up through the Imperial Valley in March, I chanced upon this example of the fading hopes of the town of Brawley. In his maddeningly intriguing book Imperial, William Vollman briefly slips out of the obtuse into this rare moment of clarity: When I began to study the history of the period, my mind remained …
Continue reading ‘Vollman on the economics of Imperial Valley farming’ »
I’ve tried lots of different things to try to communicate the inherent uncertainties (at all time scales) in the forecast business. Here’s another stab at the problem: I feel a little like a cheap carnival barker foretelling you this, but FYI, it looks like El Niño is coming. New Mexico water managers, grappling with their …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: El Niño and the carnival barker’ »
The total combined storage in Lake Mead and Lake Powell at the end of September (the close of the “water year”) will be the lowest since 1968, when Powell was first being filled, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Reclamation “24-Month Study” (pdf). The current forecast calls for Lake Mead’s elevation to be 1,077.93 …
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But man has in measure changed the desert conditions by storing the waste waters of the mountains and reclaiming the valleys by irrigation. His success has been phenomenal. Out of the wilderness there have sprung farms, houses, towns, cities with their wealth and luxury. But the cultivated conditions are maintained only at the price of …
This guy paddled past today as I was standing with friends on the bank of the Rio Grande, watching the high flows of this week’s environmental pulse flow through central New Mexico. If you look closely, you can see a bicycle in the front of his canoe. As he rode by, he explained that when …