Cutter Reservoir

Two friends in recent days have kindly asked about my well-being, noting that I haven’t posted anything on the blog since July 5. I’m fine, busy focused on the book Eric Kuhn and I are writing about the history of our hydrologic understanding of the Colorado River, and the interplay between science, politics, and policy. Eric’s amazing to work with, both because he’s the smartest person I know about the river, and also the nicest. We’re having a blast. But I only have one brain, and need all its writing cells focused on the book.

A lot on my mind that I would have been writing about had I not been so deep into the nuances of Water Supply Paper 556 and such like:

• camping as a child at Navajo National Monument, watching my father watercolor and sketch, thinking about how those very early experiences shaped the way I go about interacting with my world
• Cutter Reservoir, an amazing weird little bucket of water 10 miles down a dirt road in the high desert of northern New Mexico
• Lee’s Ferry, where there’s a new gauge on the Paria since the last time I was there, and where there’s a story to be told about measuring water
• the critical role of Colorado River water in the Rio Grande, where until our monsoon finally cranked up in recent weeks essentially all the water flowing through Albuquerque in the Rio Grande was imported San Juan-Chama water, how weird is that? I need to carve out some time to write about that.
• The difference between “policy” as set out by elected policymakers – the Albuquerque city council – and policy as actually carried out by traffic engineers (this will be for Better Burque as soon as I get the time)
• We had an amazing batch of students graduating this summer, working on
  • the governance struggles to bring water to western Navajo
  • governance on the Rio Chama
  • groundwater along the riparian strip through Albuquerque, and its relationship to river flow and cottonwood recruitment
  • citizen science in Nepal
  • public attitudes toward potable reuse of municipal wastewater

See you soon.

John