Deadpool Diaries: The chance of deadpool declines

First the bad news from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s mid-February forecast – this year’s runoff into Flaming Gorge, which is at record low thanks to Drought Response Operations Agreement releases to prop up Lake Powell, is forecast to be below average this year, at 86 percent of average. At some point we’ve gotta …

Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The chance of deadpool declines’ »

Tax Breaks and Water Conservation Disincentives in New Mexico

As we try to adapt to climate change, understanding how our changing hydrology funnels through legal filters will be crucial. That’s why the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center funded this terrific piece of work by UNM Water Resources Program student Annalise Porter: New Mexico’s Greenbelt Law: Disincentivizing Water Conservation Through Agricultural Tax Breaks, just …

Continue reading ‘Tax Breaks and Water Conservation Disincentives in New Mexico’ »

Deadpool Diaries: Ignore this post about the latest Colorado River runoff forecast

The Feb.1 numbers from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center look good – Lake Powell inflow 1.4 million acre feet above the median. We’ve got a lot of winter left, so definitely too early to make big plans to, for example, cut Colorado River water use deeply to avoid deadpool or, alternatively, decide that we …

Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: Ignore this post about the latest Colorado River runoff forecast’ »

Deadpool Diaries: The numbers in the states’ two proposals

Getting ready for an interview this morning with Mark Brodie at KJZZ (waving at my Phoenix friends!) I put together a table to make it easier to compare the six-state proposal submitted Monday to reduce Lower Colorado River Basin water use, and the California proposal submitted yesterday (Tues. 1/31/23). Perhaps worth sharing here? “Elevation” is …

Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The numbers in the states’ two proposals’ »

Deadpool Diaries: Can the Colorado River community walk, chew gum, and recite Homer’s Odyssey at the same time?

While we eagerly await whatever it is that might happen this week as the Colorado River basin states struggle to come up with a short term plan to use less water, the Bureau of Reclamation is inviting y’all to a webinar this afternoon (Monday Jan. 30 2023, details here) to begin thinking about a long …

Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: Can the Colorado River community walk, chew gum, and recite Homer’s Odyssey at the same time?’ »

Deadpool Diaries: Trapped, again, in a world we never made

As we get spun up for the second time in six months about a capricious notion of a “deadline” to fix the Colorado River, I’m reminded of the tagline from my favorite teenage superhero comic, Marvel’s Howard the Duck: Trapped in a world he never made. Once again, we are trapped in a narrative driven …

Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: Trapped, again, in a world we never made’ »

the rise and fall of “the flood menace”

Doing reading for the new book on early 1920s Albuquerque, as business leaders pursued what would become the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, I see the regular return of a phrase I’d come to see frequently my reading of Colorado River history in the same time period: the flood menace Here’s the Albuquerque Journal, reporting …

Continue reading ‘the rise and fall of “the flood menace”’ »

Dead Pool Diaries: Jack Schmidt on the hydrologic dance of operating Glen Canyon Dam at extremely low levels

An exchange on Twitter about the definition of “dead pool” sent me back to Jack Schmidt et al’s extremely useful (and now extremely relevant) 2016 analysis of what would be required to empty Lake Powell and move all the water down to Lake Mead. It’s the thing that disabused me of my simplistic notion that …

Continue reading ‘Dead Pool Diaries: Jack Schmidt on the hydrologic dance of operating Glen Canyon Dam at extremely low levels’ »