I had a story in the morning paper on Albuquerque’s success in reducing per capita water consumption below 150 gallons per person per day, a 40 percent drop from 1994, when our odyssey from water profligacy began. Here’s the bit I slipped in that shows the regional importance: Albuquerque’s reduced usage is a demonstration that, …
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From the morning paper, the story of Lake Arthur, the pond in the middle of Estancia, a rural New Mexico town that won’t give up on its public water: The natural flow in the spring feeding Lake Arthur stopped long ago, said 51-year-old Daniel Chavez, Estancia public works director and proud native son. By the …
My favorite stop on our California desert vacation was the strange and wonderful little Moorten Botanical Garden “in the heart of Palm Springs”. Between the golf courses and the ill-advised decision to try to coax palm trees out of their desert oasis canyons (they take a lot of water – per capita use here is …
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 …
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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’ »