Imagine One of the World’s Largest Cities, Without Running Water

Daniel Hernandez, on Mexico City: Reserves of the city’s largely imported water supplies from the Cutzamala plant are at their lowest in years. Hoping to prevent a larger disaster, for three days a month, the municipal water utility has decided to run the city’s supply at 50% its normal flow. March 14 was the first …

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Navajo Water Bill Passes

Everybody’s calling the big omnibus public lands bill that passed the House yesterday a wilderness bill, but we water wonks know better, right: Legislation to settle a long-standing dispute over the Navajo Nation’s rights to water from the San Juan River won final congressional approval Wednesday. The legislation acknowledges the Navajo Nation’s right to 600,000 …

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Elephant Diaries: How Important is Andy Revkin’s Blog?

Last Sunday night, I read an excellent New York Times story via the Web about Steven Chu’s introduction to the ways of Washington. I cover the Department of Energy at my day job, and the DOE is a major employer in New Mexico, so I made a note of the story to include a link …

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Transboundary Issues: Where Are All the Water Wars?

Wendy Barnaby has an excellent piece in last week’s Nature (free for now, behind the paywall soon) challenging the conventional wisdom that wars of scarce water supplies are a likely result of the collision between population growth, aridity and climate change. Barnaby had set out to write a book about water wars. But the more …

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Elephant Diaries: Connecting the Dots on the George Will Affair

There is a line to be drawn, it seems to me, connecting the events of the George Will affair and my elephant diaries (the series of posts in which I try to sort out the past and future of my industry). In short summary, the affair illustrates both the way new information ecosystems have developed …

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It Ain’t Rainin’ Down In Texas

Richard Seager plays his traditional role of scaring the crap out of Westerners: What is permanent drought? It’s pretty much just like it sounds. When I ask (with serious journalistic intonation, I might add) how long a permanent drought would last, he answers simply: “It would just become the new climate.” Duh. (h/t Laura Paskus) …

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