At the risk of a “dog bits man” blog post, yet another analysis has concluded that droughts in the southwestern United States are likely to be worse, and rivers drier, as a result of rising greenhouse gases. This time, it’s the Verde in Arizona, part of the watershed that feeds the greater Phoenix area: Results …
Continue reading ‘Another look at increasing aridity under climate change in the West’ »
One of the problems with droughts is that, eventually, they end. That is by definition, because “drought” is the dry part of the range of variability for a given place. When you’re in one, the marginal value of water (and therefore marginal cost you’re willing to pay) is high. When you come out of it? …
Continue reading ‘Coping with drought – a question of marginal costs’ »
The typical “out with the old” etc. celebrations don’t have much resonance as New Mexico stares down a new water year. From the morning paper: New Mexico faces three problems in the new water year. The first problem is the winter forecast itself. There were signs of an El Niño forming, a climate pattern driven …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Happy New Water Year!’ »
From the Wall Street Journal (full piece $$$-walled): In 2012, the drought-stricken Western United States will ship more than 50 billion gallons of water to China. This water will leave the country embedded in alfalfa—most of it grown in California—and is destined to feed Chinese cows. ht DG
There’s a truism in water politics and policy in the western United States that “water flows uphill to money”. But is it correct? I ran across it most recently in an excellent editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune regarding the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s proposal to build a pipeline to rural Nevada, along the Utah …
Continue reading ‘Does water really flow uphill toward money?’ »
Increasingly, around the United States I see more and more of this sort of story, in which agencies view sewage as an asset: Kenner is seeking state and federal permits to build a 2-mile-long pipeline carrying 17 million gallons of treated sewage a day* into the LaBranche Wetlands. The goal is twofold: Help restore the …
Re my recent discussion of the of the concept of “beneficial use” in western water law, a friend attending a water conservation conference noted he’d run across the concept of “beneficial reduction”. What, in legal terms, might that look like?
Here in the Southwestern United States, we loves us some hot, hot El Niño action. Warm up that equatorial Pacific, and before you know it, ZAM, we’re being pelted with snowflakes and having to shovel our driveways with those wussy regular shovels desert dwellers use. (True story: I actually have a real snow shovel. Lissa …
Continue reading ‘How’s that whole “El Niño” thing workin’ out for ya?’ »
First, my apologies to Michael Campana, for whom my recent disquisition on hookers and blow on the Lower Colorado seems to have caused some inadvertent difficulties. I expect my Texas neighbors are the forgiving sort and will welcome you back. It would be unfortunate, given their recent difficulties with the whole running-out-of-water thing, if they …
Continue reading ‘Hookers and blow on the Lower Colorado – boring wonky back story’ »
An intriguing paper from some folks at UT Austin, looking at the isotopic composition of water in Austin-area streams. Turns out that the natural source water in the area has very different strontium ratios from the imported municipal water brought in from their Colorado River: In the more urbanized watersheds, Sr-isotope mass balance indicates that …
Continue reading ‘That Austin streamwater ain’t comin’ from nature’ »