Ok, the logjam isn’t cleared yet, but we can see how the clearing will happen. Also, it’s not really Rio Grande storage, it’s the Rio Chama. But it’s a tributary to the Rio Grande. Headline writer’s prerogative. The deal is that El Vado Reservoir on the Chama, where central New Mexico stores its irrigation water, …
The only lever we currently control is the demand lever. – Brad Udall, Stegner Colorado River Symposium, March 18, 2022 Colorado State University climate researcher Brad Udall poked again last week at a question he’s been thinking and speaking about for the past year – the knock-on effects of summer warming in the Colorado River …
Continue reading ‘Brad Udall on the Drying of the Colorado River Basin’ »
The most interesting news at this week’s University of Utah Stegner Symposium on the Colorado River Compact, past and future may be the news that we didn’t hear. It was an amazing gathering, bringing together pointy headed academics like me with most of the basin management leadership team from tribes, state and local agencies, and …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River Compact at 100; Lake Powell at 3,524.42’ »
I’d just turned my bike onto the old potash mine road out of Moab, down the Colorado River, this morning when a friend texted me a picture of a digital readout on a wall that I presume to be deep in the bowels of Glen Canyon Dam: WATER LEVEL 525 The “3” goes without saying, …
By Eric Kuhn and John Fleck The Colorado Commissions’ 8th Meeting Wednesday, March 15th, 1922, Phoenix, Arizona After a six-week break from the disappointing series of negotiating meetings that ended on January 31st in Washington, D.C., the commissioners from the seven U.S. Colorado River Basin states and the federal government reconvened for the group’s 8th …
tl;dr – We’ve got a bunch of really interesting interdisciplinary work underway at the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program. If you know someone finishing their undergraduate work or early in their career, interested in water work beyond the solely sciency/engineering paths, send them our way! longer It’s weird, but now that I’m no …
The members of the Cattle and Horse Protective association of New Mexico, composed of men who are naturally deeply interested in a copious rainfall, believe that the Salton sea has given New Mexico a better climate. At any rate they want the matter investigated before Uncle Sam dykes up the Colorado river permanently. – Albuquerque …
Continue reading ‘When they thought the Salton Sea would bring New Mexico rain’ »
I woke up super early yesterday, couldn’t get back to sleep. To calm my spinning brain, I layered on some warm clothes and my dayglo construction worker safety vest, grabbed the bike lights off of their charger, and went for a ride. The moon was full, or close to it, sinking into the western sky …
By Eric Kuhn and John Fleck As the Colorado River Compact’s negotiators got down to work a century ago, their lack of curiosity about how much water the river might be able to provide began to emerge. Colorado’s Delph Carpenter understood that he represented the interests of a headwaters state. Four major rivers, including the …
Eric Kuhn and John Fleck In complex multi-party negotiations like the Colorado River Compact process, it is rare that major progress or breakthroughs happen during one of general sessions. Instead, real progress is more often made during the more candid discussions between smaller groups of negotiators during breaks, after-dinner discussions, and occasionally sub-committees. Most of …