It was pouring rain when I left the office this evening, so I took surface streets rather than the messy freeway. The concrete arroyo by my work was running high as I passed, so I started slowing and watching every time I went over one. They were raging and roiling and doing their best to …
The Value of Water in Alternative UsesOriginally uploaded by heinemanfleck. I recently scored a fascinating volume at the used bookstore: “The Value of Water in Alternative Uses, With Special Application to Water Use in the San Juan and Rio Grande Basins of New Mexico.” Published in 1962, it’s the result of a study of the …
I’m still on the steep lower slopes of the learning curve regarding the relationship between development and water, so I don’t have much to say about this except to say that it’s fascinating: Development of the 6,500-acre Quail Ranch is dead, at least for the time being. Sandia Properties has dropped plans to develop the …
More drought: Farmers have threatened to protest unless they receive more government help in coping with a prolonged drought that has destroyed millions of hectares (acres) of crops. The drought has cost Romania €1.5 billion (US$2 billion) in damages and has affected more than a third of the country’s arable land, an agriculture official said …
From my colleague Sean Olson, on the discovery of brackish water 3,770 feet (1,150 meters) beneath the New Mexico desert: The county started drilling an exploratory well in the Rio Puerco about a month ago on the educated hunch there was a large supply of brackish salt water deep within the surface. It was a …
Via Mike Campana, an interesting essay by Chris Milly about the problem climate change poses for the folks who build dams and such: I would argue, in fact, that changing climate is the new “default hypothesis,” rapidly displacing the assumption of stationarity upon which generations of hydrologists and engineers have built their careers—not to mention …
In the June 19 Eos, Vergana and colleagues itemize the impending costs to Andean communities as glaciers, their source of water for both consumption and electricity generation, disappears as a result of climate change: These consequences are akin to a climate tax imposed by energy-intensive societies on populations that have contributed little to the climate …
Mike Campana on the bottled water incident: I remember watching Albuquerque Mayor Martin “El Jefe” Chavez on his cable TV show a few years ago. He had bottled water on his desk. I emailed him, saying that sent the wrong message to viewers. He emailed back, saying that for what it was worth, the bottle …
It’s almost like I never left. When I abandoned California nearly two decades ago, they were fighting about the environmental effects of water diverted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta for the growing suburbs of Southern California. Still fighting: Warning that a recent boost in water exports is nudging the delta smelt closer to extinction, environmentalists …
When I write my “water in the desert” bits here or at work, I have this underlying image that motivates my thinking. It’s a childhood car camping vacation (one of many, the image is broad and generic). It is before the days of ubiquitous auto air conditioning. We’re driving across the beautiful deserts of the …