Archive of entries posted on January 2010

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Northern NM Water Deal Advances

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From today’s newspaper, the U.S. House has approved legislation ratifying the settlement of two longstanding northern New Mexico water rights cases (sub/ad req.): The U.S. House of Representatives approved two northern New Mexico water agreements Thursday, a step toward allocating the region’s water rights and providing nearly $300 million in federal funding for water projects …

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Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Storms, the Snowpack

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From the work blog, a quick look at how the Storms of the Decade have been playing out in terms of western snowpack. In short: it’s raining like hell where all the people live, but the upper Colorado Basin, which feeds Lake Powell, has been pretty much left out with the exception of a blast …

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Is Venezuela Having a Demand-Side Drought?

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The current situation in Venezuela, with drought leading to a shortage of hydropower, is a great example of a problem with the word “drought.” A reminder of Kelly Redmond’s handy definition: Most concepts of drought involve a water balance. This implies that both supply and demand must be considered, as well as the question of …

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A Dry Few Months

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Here in the southwestern United States, we’re gearing up for a big blast of El Nino weather, with some areas in California expecting a pounding. But as we desert dwellers dig through closets looking for our underused umbrellas, it’s worth remembering how dry it’s been. That’s percent of normal precip since Oct. 1, courtesy NOAA:

Chances of Extra Water for Mead Diminish

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The folks at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have crunched the numbers on how the latest 2010 Colorado River runoff forecast will affect the river’s major storage reservoirs, and the news is not good for Lake Mead. At this point, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, there is just a one in five chance that …

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Arizona Could See Colorado Shortage by 2012

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Tony Davis reports in this morning’s Arizona Daily Star that the Central Arizona Project could see a shortage in its Colorado River allocation by 2012: For decades, most water experts have expected the Central Arizona Project to eventually run short, as population growth outstripped the supply of the Colorado River that long ago was over-allocated …

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Water in the Desert: January Quiet

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Tramway (Not So) Wetlands Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. January’s a time of quiet and anticipation. What water there is in our rivers is mostly what they call “base flow”, which is really just the surface manifestation of groundwater leaking into the river channel. Or they’re just dry. The runoff to come is frozen in the …

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