Rebecca Hammer at the NRDC makes an interesting point regarding the relationship between last week’s census data dump and water supplies: [T]he greatest U.S. population growth is occurring precisely where water supplies are going to be the most vulnerable over the coming years. She’s talking about us in the arid western United States.
Shaun McKinnon reports this morning on a very interesting proposal under discussion in Arizona: Under a plan now being considered, water officials would pass up billions of gallons that they could take from the river in 2011, hoping to keep the drought-stricken reservoir full enough to avoid triggering automatic cutbacks. Any cutbacks could deny Arizona …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Conservation before shortage?’ »
Georgia averages 50 inches (127 cm) of rain a year. Arizona averages 13 (30 cm). Which is more likely to suffer water shortages? I’m fascinated by the non-trivial nature of the answer. The problems of both lakes Lanier and Mead have been well chronicled. At Lanier in 2007, we were within three months of Atlanta …
Continue reading ‘You don’t have to be dry to be water short’ »
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Mexican Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada signed an agreement today that, for the first time, allows long-term storage of Mexican Colorado River water in U.S. reservoirs. It’s an attempt to solve a short-term problem – the inability of Mexican users to take their full allotments …
If you’re a western water manager, the corners of your smile must be crinkled up in delight at the latest Quantitative Precipitation Forecast from the National Weather Service. That’s some mighty big bulls-eyes you see on the map over the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado River Basin. Going into this, the snow pack in the …
Most of my water journalism involves the supply side, but this week I indulged my fascination with the back end of the problem – moving it away from the places we don’t want it (sub/ad req): The southwest valley is one of three large areas in the Albuquerque metro area where government agencies working on …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: My Fascination With Flood Control’ »
I must admit that when I first heard the idea of a tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California to carry water from the Sacramento River to users to the south, I thought it wacky, on purely engineering grounds. With no evidence or expertise, I thought the whole idea was just batshit crazy. But …
The roadblock to solving western water problems: [T]he understandable tendency of state, local, and federal interests to defer painful concessions in water resource allocation. Indecision persists as long as there is no absolute requirement that problems be solved. Paul L. Bloom, Law of the River: A Critique of an Extraordinary Legal System, in New Courses …
Continue reading ‘Western Water – the Persistent Roadblock’ »
Does it matter whether the current southwestern US drought is caused by anthropogenic climate change? Or, to be slightly more precise, in what ways does it or does it not matter? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Let me know what you think in the comments below. The question arises anew in the context of the …
Continue reading ‘Climate Change and Southwest Drought – Is It Happening Now?’ »
From the morning paper, a look at money for the a Navajo Nation water project in the Indian water rights settlement bill the president signed last week: A century of federal investment in dams and canals was built to serve cities and farms — “a long tradition in water politics in which states receive federal …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Navajo Settlement’ »