Archive of posts filed under the water category.

In America, we pump water out of the ground to put it in our rivers

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From Atlanta, another example of a concept we’re seeing increasingly here in the western United States – groundwater augmentation of dwindling river supplies: Georgia’s efforts to quench metro Atlanta’s thirst include a $1 billion proposal to pump water from one aquifer to another and then release it into the Flint River in times of drought. …

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irritable?

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Typo found in my notes: “irritable” where I meant to type “irrigable“. Looking at century-old estimates of possible agricultural land in the desert southwest. Notable mistake.

Note to self: invest in water

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From Rakteem Katakey and Manish Modi at Bloomberg: Shares of water companies are beating those of gold and oil producers as governments from China to India boost spending on basic infrastructure to avert shortages threatening economic growth and political stability.

Groundwater: cooperating in Kansas

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Brett Walton’s got another good story about what happens when communities creatively confront coming water shortages and take control over their own adaptation. This one’s out of Kansas, where folks in the Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District are on the cusp of agreeing amongst themselves to a 20 percent groundwater pumping curtailment, shared, to stretch out …

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Why “when the Ogallala runs out” isn’t the right way to think about this

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At dinner the other night, one of the people at the table commented about the risk we face when the Ogallala Aquifer, beneath the great plains, runs out, which he’d heard would happen in 20 years. Without taking action now to begin regrowing the native grasses needed to hold the plains in place, he’d heard, …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: in the midst of drought, signs of water cooperation

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It almost felt like a setup when Steve Harris asked me to talk at a conference about how “water is for cooperating over.” I make a meager but steady living these days writing about water conflict. And yet…. [B]efore I got to Ghost Ranch on Friday afternoon, I took the turnoff to Abiquiu Reservoir. In …

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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: The “futile call” – a water rights priority dilemma

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Drought exposes the fissures in water policy. In the abstract, you can talk about where the problems look like they might lie, and the measures that look like they’re in place to ensure adaptability and sustainability. Drought tests. This week’s test is happening down on the Pecos, a relatively small river that flows out of …

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