At the end of the beneficent water year of 1983, Lake Mead, the giant reservoir behind Hoover Dam that manages water for the benefit of Nevada, Arizona and California, held 25.7 million acre feet of water. At the end of water year 2010, according to the latest forecast, there will be less water than that …
David Zetland calls the cost of desalination the “backstop price” for water. Once the cost of other sources rises sufficiently, coastal residents will just build desal plants because it’s cheaper. While the fungibility is not complete (i.e. we don’t all live on coasts), water trades could allow people who live inland to play too. This …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Huntington Beach, CA, Poseidon Desal’ »
Given the remarkable role of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in western U.S. water history, it’s at least of symbolic importance that the church is among those who have filed protests against Las Vegas, Nevada’s proposal to build a pipeline to pump water from the Snake Valley to the growing gambling …
The June 1 Colorado Basin forecasts are out, and, as expected, there’s been no miracle. The inflow into Lake Powell looks pretty much exactly like it did a month ago, minus the chance of a miraculous late snow rescue or the flip side chance of some sort of terrible collapse: The blue bar is average, …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: 2010 snow season all over save the melting’ »
I had a hugely lucky moment this morning while I was riding my bike down by the river. The bike trail parallels one of the riverside drains, small canals that flank the Rio Grande through the Albuquerque reach. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an enormous bird, lunging at something in the …
Continue reading ‘Endangered Species, Endangered Ecosystems’ »
From this morning’s newspaper, a visit with John Horning to the railroad bridge at San Marcial (sub/ad req.), one of the choke points that prevents high flows on the Middle Rio Grande through central New Mexico: The railroad bridge, and similar spots where too much water could damage property, prevent the high spring flows that …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: the bridge at San Marcial’ »
The surface of Lake Mead is at 1094.30 feet above sea level, the lowest June 1 reading since 1937, when it was first being filled. All I can say is it could be worse. That’s six inches higher than the forecast in the most recent 24-Month Study, the planning document used by the U.S. Bureau …
Kudos to the University of San Diego’s Watchdog Institute for producing, and to the Imperial Valley Press for running, an excellent look at what’s at stake in the upcoming Imperial Irrigation District election. IID, the irrigation agency formed in 1911 to take over the interests of commercial water developers on the California side of the …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: “This makes ‘Chinatown’ look like high school.”’ »
The JAWRA blog had a post Friday on something that I’ve found maddeningly difficult to explain to newspaper readers: the cases where water conservation efforts don’t really save the water one intuitively thinks they do: Lining a canal, for example, may seem like “saving” water, but not if the leakage is replenishing a stressed aquifer. …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: When Saving Water is Not What It Seems’ »