When I started making noises about some sort of Colorado River project, one of the water wonks I know pointed me toward the delta, arguing it was a) central to understanding the Colorado, and b) widely ignored. The problem, in short, is that essentially no fresh water flows there any more. An ecosystem once sustained …
Dad watches birds Originally uploaded by Nora Heineman-Fleck. Photo courtesy Nora Heineman-Fleck, of me in the backyard geeking on a bird. As an aside, I was wearing my City Lights Bookstore t-shirt when Nora took this Saturday. Nora, by a coincidence, was also wearing hers. Probably just dumb luck, but I like the mystery of …
I forgot my usual Inkstain link last week to a piece I wrote for the newspaper about the strange world of rainwater harvesting law in New Mexico. David Zetland was on about this last September, asking about the legality of rainwater harvesting in various U.S. states. My short answer, in the comments, was, essentially “kinda …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere a While Ago: Rainwater Harvesting in NM’ »
My head’s been spinning trying to follow discussions over California’s pending water legislation. Emily Green has helpfully rounded it all up in one spot: “Potential cost? $12bn. Who will it affect? Every Californian who needs water.” George Johnson on Santa Fe’s water budget: “For all its aspirations to be different, Santa Fe is still guided …
JPL climate scientist Bill Patzert wrote a nice op ed in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune about weather, climate and fire that got me thinking about my old home turf of Southern California yesterday: What set us up for these fires? Rain has been scarce. A large-scale drought has strangled the American Southwest for almost …
I’d like to think the President of the United States has the best interests of America’s children in mind with this school address thing that has generated such a kerfuffle. But after reading the advance text, I’m not so sure: Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has …
Continue reading ‘Elephant Diaries: Career Advice From The President’ »
Giving my desk at work its Labor Day holiday shift cleaning (I’m the warm body in case news happens), I stumbled across a bit of history: the notebook from the day nine years ago when Wen Ho Lee made the first of a series of appearances federal court that ended his prosecution as the spy …
I spend a lot of time these days reading water news. When I read something good, I often blurt it out on my twitter feed, which is good for that sort of link sharing. But one of the problems with the disjointed nature of social media right now is the way different communities use different …
Somewhat surprisingly to me, Albuquerque’s water future has become an issue in our upcoming mayoral election. My Journal colleague Sean Olson, who used to cover the Water Utility Authority and now covers politics, interviewed the candidates for a piece in this morning’s paper: You can’t talk about Albuquerque’s future without talking about water, and the …
I’m puzzling over the real story of Oliver Meredith Wozencraft, the chap who was arguably the first person to imagine the large-scale irrigation of the deserts of the southwest with water from the Colorado River. Wozencraft was a physician who came west in 1849 in search of gold and stumbled instead (apparently quite literally) onto …