Drought’s over! (not)
At 0.38 inch (0.97 cm), January 2012 was the second consecutive month at my house with above average precipitation. Here’s a map of New Mexico right now: I live in that brown bit in the middle.
Archive of posts filed under the water category.
Rate hikes and public infrastructure
One of democracy’s great shortcomings, on display these days especially in California, is that we want the government to provide the stuff that we want, but we’d just as soon not pay for it: Local officials say they need the money to upgrade outdated water-treatment facilities, sewer lines and water mains. In some cases, improvements …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: wastewater reuse
My search for folks working the solution space alights on the growing enthusiasm in New Mexico for wastewater reuse: In other states, especially water-short Arizona and Southern California, cleaning up sewage and reusing it in new and creative ways is becoming common. And in less obvious ways, by returning sewage effluent to New Mexico’s rivers, …
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Colorado River models: wrong but useful
Climate scientist Tamsin Edwards triggered a fascinating discussion when she chose the famous George Box quote – “all models are wrong, but some are useful” – as the name for her new blog. In a delightful exchange on Twitter (which I followed in real time and which Edwards quotes extensively in the blog post linked …
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Water: we’re good at building stuff
Beginning with the 1808 Gallatin Report and extending through the twentieth century, it seems that whenever water policy commissions recommended water developments, such as canals, dams, irrigation projects, and other infrastructure, the recommendations were usually heeded, though sometimes many years after the fact. In contrast, the recommendations that did not involve concrete and cash—such as …
How much water is there in the Colorado, and who needs what?
As we await the release of the next release from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, a story by Chris Woodka nicely captures the tension as basin states try to influence the process by telling the Bureau what their long terms needs are: “I think the question is: ‘What is …
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Arizona’s cost of moving water could be about to go up
The coal-Central Arizona Project link always seemed a bit of a Rube Goldberg policy apparatus to me. Its Goldbergness seems about to unravel. Felicia Fonseca at the AP reports today on the potential costs of a retrofit to the Navajo Generating Station, up the hill from Glen Canyon Dam. The plant is part of a …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: first steps for Navajo-Gallup pipeline
From the morning paper, the US Bureau of Reclamation has taken a big step toward construction of the Navajo-Gallup Pipeline, which is a big deal around these parts: Jason John, head of the [Navajo] nation’s Water Management Branch, called the request for bids on the pipeline “a huge milestone” in bringing water supplies to the …
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Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Elephant Butte
Elephant Butte Dam was one of the first big concrete dam’s in America. It currently doesn’t have much water behind it. My column: An enthusiastic crowd wandered the top of Elephant Butte Dam on Jan. 7, celebrating, with good reason, the structure’s role in New Mexico history. But it must have been hard to ignore …
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The Jevons Paradox and greywater reuse
Hey lazyweb – anybody know if someone’s looked rigorously at the question of greywater use in the context of a Jevons-like paradox? Putting together some notes for a talk this weekend to the Xeriscape Garden Club of Albuquerque (Sat. 10 a.m. at the Garden Center if you’re in town), I’ve been thinking anew about the question …