Archive of entries posted by jfleck

After a high-flow spring, Albuquerque’s Rio Grande is about to drop in a hurry

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We’ve been having a great year on the Rio Grande through Albuquerque, with overbanking flows to delight the river nerds and mosquitos alike. But this is about to change. Beginning next week (June 26, 2023), the Army Corps of Engineers will begin dropping flows out of Cochiti Reservoir, the main stem dam upstream of town. …

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Schmidt et al: How we got here on the Colorado River Overview

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Jack Schmidt, Charles Yackulic, and Eric Kuhn have published an invaluable new overview of how we got into this mess on the Colorado River, and some of the things we need to think about to get out of it. Schmidt, John C., Charles B. Yackulic, and Eric Kuhn. “The Colorado River water crisis: Its origin …

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Deadpool Diaries: “Crisis on the Colorado River – From Short-Term Solutions to Long-Term Sustainability”?

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I learned stuff at last week’s Getches-Wilkinson Center Colorado River conference at the University of Colorado Law School. I learned: The bodacious snowpack means the chance of Lake Mead dropping below elevation 1,000 is zero. We still need to cut 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water use, at least. We still have no …

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Deadpool Diaries: Paying to fallow may not save as much water as we think

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Given that we’re about to spend a billion dollars to fallow land to reduce water use in the Colorado River Basin, it’s reasonable to ask how we can be sure we know how much water is actually being saved. The answer, according to new work by Katharine Wright and colleagues at Arizona State University, may …

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Deadpool Diaries: The Law of Shipwrecks

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That boat is totally fixable. – Inkstain reader Greg This raises a fascinating legal question: whose boat is it? 43 U.S. Code § 2101 The Congress finds that— (a) States have the responsibility for management of a broad range of living and nonliving resources in State waters and submerged lands; and (b) included in the …

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Historical Perspective on the Accounting for Evaporation and System Losses in the Lower Colorado River Basin

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Over the past year, the question of how to account for evaporation and system losses in the Lower Colorado River Basin has become a hot political and policy topic. With the recent Lower Basin water use reduction scheme, we seem to have set the question aside for now. But it’s not going away. My Science …

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Deadpool Diaries: June 1 Colorado River system status report

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Lake Mead ended May 2023 at elevation 1,054.28 feet above sea level. That’s up five feet in a month, at a time of year when the reservoir is usually dropping, so I guess yay? It’s also up 6 1/2 feet from last year, so I guess yay? But also worth noting: Mead is down 32 …

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Deadpool Diaries: The Case for a Shitty Deal

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I’ve had long conversations this week with smart friends grudgingly supporting of the Lower Basin deal to reduce Colorado River water use over the next few years. Their case for it is simple. Yes, it’s an awful deal in so many ways, but it does have the potential to generate some short term water use …

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Deadpool Diaries: “Nice river basin ya’ got there….”

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This feels like a shakedown. Nice river basin ya’ got there. Would be shame if somethin’ happened to it. For decades, Lower Colorado River water users have been taking more water than the river can provide, threatening their own communities’ futures. Unable to come up with a plan to live within their water means, they’re …

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