Some remarkable news today out of the regular meeting of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board: despite the nth* year of drought, the district’s farmers are likely to get a full irrigation season again this year, according to a report this afternoon from district hydrologist David Gensler. The forecast is for 60 percent runoff …
Looks like significant progress toward an Arizona-California deal to slow Lake Mead’s decline, according to a story from the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis: Arizona, California and Nevada negotiators are moving toward a major agreement triggering cuts in Colorado River water deliveries to Southern and Central Arizona to avert much more severe cuts in the …
Continue reading ‘More cuts, sooner, under Lower Colorado deal taking shape’ »
One of the most important findings of environmental economics in recent decades is what is called the “environmental Kuznets curve”, a finding that as a community’s affluence rises, environmental “bads” – think air and water pollution, for example – decline. Could what has happened in Flint, Michigan, be evidence that this phenomenon is bi-directional – …
Continue reading ‘Is Flint a reverse “environmental Kuznets curve”?’ »
While there is much water policy Sturm und Drang in California over the extent to which water conservation mandates should or should not be extended now that weather has provide some drought relief, the reality is that the rules may not matter: The state of California ordered San Juan to reduce water usage by 33% …
Drought is not synonymous with shortage. Drought occurs when there is a deficit in precipitation, streamflow, soil moisture or all of the above. Shortage occurs when we lack the policies, incentives and technologies to balance supply and demand in a variable and changing climate. That’s water wonk Dustin Garrick in a new piece urging a rethinking …
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Groundwater overdraft, especially at the pace and scale now underway in the southern part of California’s Central Valley, has substantial costs – in terms of lost water availability and ground subsidence. But the discussion of those costs often occurs in a vacuum, without a discussion of the very real costs incurred by fixing the problem. …
Continue reading ‘The costs of getting California’s Central Valley groundwater house in order’ »
The East Mesa Water Co., in its grant application to the roundtable, says the ditch has a service area of 740 acres. And it says the hay grown on that 740 acres is worth about $500,000 annually, assuming a yield of four tons per acre and a hay price of $170 a ton. The ditch …
Continue reading ‘The many values of Colorado River Basin irrigated agriculture’ »
Here’s another example of a New Mexico “hydrograph” – the rise and fall of flow on a river over time – driven by rules, not weather. The drop in river flow happens when the irrigation season begins in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. Here’s J.R. Logan in the Taos News: The Río Grande …
Continue reading ‘The institutional hydrograph: April on New Mexico’s Rio Grande’ »
After a good start this year, New Mexico’s snowpack cratered in February and March. The month just completed, in fact, was the driest March on record in New Mexico. February and March combined were the second warmest and second driest on record, a devastating combination for what had been shaping up to be a decent …
Continue reading ‘Resilience and water management on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande’ »
On paper, it looks like water use in Gainesville, Florida, is going down. But…. “We are seeing public supply water use decrease over time but population is going up,” Greco said. “So everyone is patting themselves on the back, people like myself, saying, ‘Oh, we are doing such a great job. We are conserving water.’” …
Continue reading ‘Are domestic wells hiding Florida water problem?’ »