Mark Lubbell at UC Davis makes the case for abandoning the Mark Twain “whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s for fightin’ over” quote, and not just because Twain didn’t say it: Unfortunately, perpetuating water wars and the language of conflict will never solve California’s water problems. Water wars are equivalent to the “tragedy” aspect of managing common-pool …
John Bass has been pushing an excellent question about the direction of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan: Why isn’t the “fortress Delta” solution the most cost effective way of pursuing the co-equal goals question. John’s come to this line of thinking based on a cost-benefit argument: Couldn’t armoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta levees achieve the …
Continue reading ‘As Southern California eyes the Delta, a question of cost’ »
Well that was fun while it lasted, eh? Looks like it’s back to draining reservoirs on the Colorado! 2011, a big sloppy wet kiss of a water year, pumped up total storage in the reservoirs behind Glen Canyon and Hoover dams by some 5 million acre feet. But the first forecast of the year suggests …
Continue reading ‘2012: back to draining the Colorado River’s reservoirs?’ »
When I was writing this, the working title was “optimism”. It’s a piece for Stanford’s Lane Center, based on work I’ve been doing on Colorado River Water management. It was spawned by a conversation last summer with Jon Christensen, the Lane Center’s executive director. I was talking about my optimism about our problem-solving ability, and …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: What seven states can agree to do’ »
It would be easy to look at this Arizona Republic story as another example of the profligate water wastefulness that will ultimately doom Phoenix: Valley homeowners’ excess citrus fruit, often picked by volunteer gleaners, can’t be shipped across state lines this year after a fungal disease known as sweet orange scab was found in some …
Continue reading ‘This is what happens when you have more water than you need’ »
In water policy terms, this is one of the most important stories I’ve done in a while: The steady dripping into Carl Axness’ cistern is the sound of next spring’s water supply. The snow melting from his Rio Rancho roof is the bounty of December’s storms. For the better part of four years, that roof …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: rainwater harvesting, the bounding scenario’ »
A year ago, I puzzled over the implications of the collapse of the southwest housing business for our long term water future. We’ve got another year of data, and no real sign that the southwestern growth engine in Phoenix and Las Vegas, the two cities closest to the edge of the water cliff, are coming …
Continue reading ‘Housing and water: a year later, are we closer to an answer?’ »
Let me suggest a positive narrative to the story of Texas’ great drought of 2011. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality today released its latest list of communities whose water supplies are threatened as a result of the driest year on record. Topping the list is tiny Groesbeck, between Dallas and Houston, where a line …
There’s a tradition in newspaper journalism of the heartwarming front page story on Christmas morn. Here’s mine: If you could look straight down 538 feet beneath the La Cueva High School neighborhood in Albuquerque’s far Northeast Heights, you would see water returning to the metro area’s depleted aquifer. The water table in the area had …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: a water wonk’s Christmas greeting’ »
Elizabeth Varin had an interesting story this morning about the latest Imperial Irrigation District discussions about the Quantification Settlement Agreement*, the Byzantine** water deal that provided a path for California to go on a Colorado River diet (reducing its use to its legally allotted 4.4 million acre feet per year). The deal has two key …