Climate Change and rhetoric on the Colorado River

I could see the reporters at last week’s Colorado River Water Users Association meeting chafing at the rhetoric we were hearing regarding climate change. In my strange new role (kind of a reporter, I am writing another book,  and kind of not – I have this crazy university gig) I was invited into the news …

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Tribal Water and the Colorado River: thoughts on the recent CRWUA meeting

By Eric Kuhn One of the central themes of last week’s Colorado River Water Users Association annual meeting was the was the role of the basin’s Native American Tribes in the many decisions that will guide and manage water use on the Colorado River over the next several decades (for example, the post-2026 Guidelines). CRWUA …

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The Value of Water in Alternative Uses

As has become my December tradition, I’m in a Las Vegas hotel room preparing for this year’s meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association/finishing up grading my University of New Mexico Water Resources students’ final papers for the just-finished semester. This year’s class – our introductory course for graduate students in our Masters of …

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Litigation to settle our Colorado River disagreements is a terrible idea

Preparing for a panel I’ll be moderating at next week’s Colorado River Water Users Association meeting on the next steps in negotiating river management rules, I went back to a similar panel held last summer at the University of Colorado’s Getches-Wilkinson Center. (the session starts at around 3:23:00 here) John Entsminger of the Southern Nevada …

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California’s use of Colorado River water this year on track to be the lowest since at least 1950

California’s use of Colorado River water this year is on track to be the lowest since at least 1949. (the latest forecast numbers are here) My data on the early years is sketchy, but thanks to the folks at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, who recently shared an excellent dataset they assembled some …

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On New Mexico’s Rio Grande, the biggest year since 1995

We’re closing out 2019 with big flows on the Rio Grande through Albuquerque – at least big for this time of year. Flow at the Albuquerque gauge Friday topped 2,000 cubic feet per second, setting a record for Nov. 29 at a gauge that goes back to the mid-1960s. A couple hundred of those cubic …

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Kuhn-Fleck webinar Jan. 22 to talk “Science be Dammed”

Eric and I will be doing a Webinar Jan. 22, sponsored by the American Water Resources Association: In their new book Science Be Dammed, Eric Kuhn and John Fleck explain how even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made …

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