Archive of posts filed under the Arizona category.

2015 puts Sierra Nevada-Colorado Basin linkage in stark relief

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If you care about Colorado River Basin water, it behooves you to pay attention to the snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada. It’s an entirely different watershed, but 2015 demonstrated how the interconnections in California’s plumbing have left the two inextricably linked. The tl;dr version of two interrelated points below: California’s drought has put pressure on the Colorado …

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Sierra Madre, CA, introduces Colorado River water, winds up with “the Tucson problem”

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Water is just water, right? What happened when Sierra Madre, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles, switched from local groundwater to imported Colorado River water is a reminder that, well, no: In 2013, Sierra Madre was forced to begin importing water from the Metropolitan Water District. That led to a new problem. The water source …

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The decline of Arizona cotton

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Arizona cotton acreage this year is the lowest it has been in nearly a century. Cotton is incredibly important in the evolution of western water policy, in Arizona in particular and therefore in the Colorado River Basin in general. In Arizona, it was one of the “Three C’s” that dominated the state’s economy – cattle, …

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On this date in water history: Arizona governor, state senator, fisticuffs over the Colorado River

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87 years ago today in Colorado River water management history, water apparently was for fightin’ over:   POLICE CALLED TO STOP BATTLE IN STATE HOUSE Affair Outcome of Argument Between Governor and Senator on River LIVELY MELEE HAS MANY PARTICIPANTS Gov. Hunt Declares Blow Received from Opponent Was “Purely Accidental” PHOENIX, Ariz., Nov. 26 – …

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A plea for more attention to water use demand-side projections

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An excellent Laura Paskus story this weekend on a new climate water risk study by Justin Mankin at Lamont-Doherty and colleagues, includes some really important comments from Mankin on the implications of the work for water policy. The study helps clarify risks to water supply in the Rio Grande (and elsewhere, notably the Colorado River …

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Phoenix subsidence and groundwater pumping

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A new paper by Megan Miller and Manoochehr Shirzaei at Arizona State describing subsidence in the Phoenix area offers some interesting new data for thinking about the implications of groundwater management. Subsidence is bad, and groundwater pumping is what causes it. Having the ground surface drop is bad all around, cracking building foundations, messing up roads, and such. …

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Decoupling water use from growth: the New Mexico example

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Pulling together some New Mexico water use numbers today for one of my University of New Mexico colleagues, I was reminded of a cool paper from a few years back by Peter H. Gleick and Meena Palaniappan of the Pacific Institute that contained this striking graph: It’s two times series – U.S. gross domestic product and …

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Regulatory arbitrage and Arizona’s growing nuts

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“Regulatory arbitrage” is the business practice of shifting one’s operations to exploit differences in regulatory regimes. This often involves a geographical change, such as moving a factory to a place where environmental regulations are less stringent. That seems to be what’s going on in southeastern Arizona, where California nut farmers are moving into the San …

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Walton on native water rights in the Colorado River Basin

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Brett Walton has done us all a great service with a thorough look at the issues surrounding Native American water rights in the Colorado River Basin. Importantly, he’s looking at it not just as a problem, but as an example of what the solution space can look like. The stuff from Kathryn Sorensen, Phoenix’s water …

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