Clouds and Mountains
Clouds and mountains were dancing this morning. I think they’re in love.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
The alley behind Aldo Leopold’s house
There’s an alley off Albuquerque’s Central Avenue, old Route 66, between the Southwest Capital Bank and St. John’s Thrift Store. You can’t go down the alley on Google Street View. Google Street View mostly doesn’t go down alleys. Alleys mostly don’t have names. You have to go there for yourself. Down past the “Drug Free …
Sergio Mendes and the Consumer Surplus of Music Streaming
Last’s night’s DJ John Show in the HF living room traced the history of Mas Que Nada, the ‘60s pop hit by Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66. Its roots in my pantheon of beloved music stem from its moment – KFI, the mid-1960s pop radio that ran as the background soundtrack of my childhood home. …
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Tools for better environmental adaptation as we manage the Colorado River
I put up a slide for my University of New Mexico water resources graduate students during class yesterday afternoon with two pictures – the emerging canyons at the upper end of Lake Powell, and a smallmouth bass. When Lake Powell gets low, we get a) the remarkable emergence of Cataract Canyon, and b) warm water …
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Consumption and Waste of Water, circa 1895
Public opinion has always favored the free use of water. Brackett, Dexter. “Consumption and Waste of Water.” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 34, no. 2 (1895): 185-203. In 1848, the designers of Boston’s water works assumed a need of 28 gallons per capita per day (GPCD). By 1872, while searching for and …
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Arizona’s 50,000 acre-feet of Upper Basin water has always been destined for tribal use
Eric Kuhn, Rin Tara, John Fleck The pending Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement settles Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe claims to the Upper Colorado River Basin in Arizona. To do so, Arizona’s 50,000 AF entitlement of Upper Colorado River Basin water will be allocated. Although Arizona’s testimony during …
Quoting Tocqueville
If each citizen did not learn, in proportion as he individually becomes more feeble and consequently more incapable of preserving his freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow citizens for the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Of the Use Which the Americans …
Jack’s Graph is Better Than Mine
This version of the Colorado River graph, courtesy of Jack Schmidt, more clearly illustrates the narrative of the talk I’m giving later this week: Early 20th century pluvial, when we built the institutions Mid-century baseline, when we built all the dams and farms and cities Millennium drought, when we emptied the reservoirs
From the Sands to Thriller
I don’t remember how I stumbled onto Ernie Smith’s Tedium. All you need to know is that he wrote the definitive guide to why Butterfinger candy bars break so easily: I’m always drawn to the structural integrity of candy bars. On the surface, they are often stacked, solid, as thick as a smartphone. (It must …
The Colorado River Problem, In Brief
Putting together a slide deck for a talk next week, borrowing Brad Udall’s trick of a horizontal line for visualizing the mean during different time periods.