One of the reasons I’m more optimistic than many about our ability in the western United States to cope with our looming water shortages is the evidence of our ability, when we’re really faced with shortage, to adapt to using far less. (That was the core argument behind my piece last year for Stanford’s Lane …
Is the age of big concrete – the dams to store western water and the canals and pipes to move it – really over? Are the projects now underway – perhaps the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s “third straw” into Lake Mead – the last we’ll ever see built? (I’m working on a piece that in part …
While I was away last week, the House passed HR1837, the California Water’s Fer Fightin’ Over Act of 2012 (pdf). The vote was largely along party lines, with only one Republican voting against the bill. Who was that lone R dissenter? Justin Amash, a 31-year-old Michigan legislator ranked by the Club for Growth as the …
Continue reading ‘That lone Republican vote against HR1837’ »
Two of Inkstain’s bedrock principles involve 1) correcting errors of fact quickly, and 2) re-running, as often as possible, the “best pork buns in town Hetch Hetchy” picture I took in San Francisco’s Chinatown last year. This one’s a twofer. In the aforementioned “Hetch Hetchy – Best Pork Bun in Town” post, I incorrectly argued …
Samuel Rhoads set out from Yuma to collect specimens from the Lower Colorado for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia on Feb. 4, 1905. Witmer Stone, who later catalogued and wrote about Rhoads’ collection, said this: The conditions that prevailed during the expedition were peculiarly unfavorable to collecting of any sort, the rain, cold and …
Palm Springs really does have palms, and springs. Tucked in canyons on the east flank of Mt. San Jacinto, they’re lovely oases in the truest sense. Lissa and I sat for a while this afternoon next to a trickle of a stream, watching squads of western bluebirds work over the tiny dates hanging from the palms. …
Over at the Lane Center, my latest on the progression of our Colorado River showpack: In December, I paid a visit to Boulder Harbor on the west shore of Lake Mead to see the results for myself. Boulder Harbor is one of those places where the dropping reservoir is made tangible. Two years ago, its …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: on the implications of a low snowpack on the Colorado’ »
As the scratching of heads continues (“What exactly is Devin Nunes up to really?“) we have this explanation of his motiviation, from Michael Cannon: To create discord and strain relations. He is safe in his district, so he can do what he wants. He wants to fracture relations
I love the New York Times for many reasons. This line from their editorial about Hetch Hetchy, the Yosemite reservoir serving Sacramento, is one of them: Ninety-nine years ago, this newspaper argued against the construction of the dam. We lost, but the much bigger loss was nature’s. That’s owning your heritage.
There are three interlocking fundamental federal water policy/politics principles that are important to understanding current discussions over California congressman Devin Nunes’ legislation aimed at reshaping the distribution of water flowing through his state’s Central Valley. First, federal subsidy has long been necessary for the big water projects that make the West as we know it …