Archive of posts filed under the water category.

The warm, dry spring pushing Colorado River reservoir forecast levels down

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This month’s US Bureau of Reclamation reservoir forecast model runs show the implications of the warm, dry spring, with a drop of 620,000 acre feet and six feet in elevation in the estimated end-of-year storage in Lake Powell, the major reservoir in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Here’s my long term forecast graph, updated with …

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Poverty, income inequality, and US water infrastructure

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Brett Walton wrote a smart piece about the relationship between poverty, income inequality, and decaying US water infrastructure: Affordable water requires an all-in effort that cuts across the political spectrum, a mix of redirected spending priorities, tax policy, social programs, and engineering assessments at the local, state, and federal levels. The urgency, experts assert, will …

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Technology is easy, but it’s water policy that matters

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Brett Walton had a piece last week that suggested an appropriate damper for the US water community’s enthusiasm for the Obama administration’s recent Big Water Push: The budget request drew praise from water experts, who, even with the small sum, were happy to see more recognition from the country’s leadership. But those same voices note …

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New evidence that a warming climate is already reducing Colorado River flows

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Connie Woodhouse at the University of Arizona and colleagues have a new paper presenting the most direct link yet between a greenhouse-warmed climate and reduced flows in the Colorado River. Modeling has for many years projected such an effect in the future, but the new Woodhouse et al. paper (Increasing influence of air temperature on …

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A forecast for another dry year on the Rio Grande

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The March 1 forecast for the Rio Grande in New Mexico suggests we are heading into another dry year on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, with a median forecast of 80 percent of the 1981-2010 average flowing into Elephant Butte Reservoir. (source pdf) That is close enough to average that there is a lot …

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Does Pasadena, Calif., need more water?

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Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, is in the hunt for more water: A recycled water project started in 1993 moved forward Monday night as the Pasadena City Council approved the environmental review of a plan to funnel water from Glendale. The $50 million project could take 20 years to complete, with a pipeline running …

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Will Utah take more water from the Colorado River Basin?

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Sarah Tory at High Country News has a nice summary of one of those classic western water issues worth watching – the Lake Powell Pipeline proposal: The project would pump 86,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Powell 140 miles across the desert through a 69-inch buried pipe and then 2,000 feet up and over the …

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