Simply put, no environmental law has had as much impact on western rivers–or created as much controversy–as section 7 of the ESA. – Reed Benson I’m on record as arguing that the Endangered Species Act is a terrible water management tool, while simultaneously being not terribly effective as an environmental tool. But you manage water …
Continue reading ‘Endangered species and the question of federal discretion’ »
Driving up through the Imperial Valley in March, I chanced upon this example of the fading hopes of the town of Brawley. In his maddeningly intriguing book Imperial, William Vollman briefly slips out of the obtuse into this rare moment of clarity: When I began to study the history of the period, my mind remained …
Continue reading ‘Vollman on the economics of Imperial Valley farming’ »
But man has in measure changed the desert conditions by storing the waste waters of the mountains and reclaiming the valleys by irrigation. His success has been phenomenal. Out of the wilderness there have sprung farms, houses, towns, cities with their wealth and luxury. But the cultivated conditions are maintained only at the price of …
One of the fundamental propositions of date culture is that the palm requires a large supply of water for irrigation. This rule is apparently subject to some striking exceptions and future experiments will probably change our ideas on the subject still more, though they can hardly shake the fact that the palm is a water …
The AP’s Jason Dearen has an update on California communities at risk of running out of water: In February, the California Department of Public Health listed 17 mostly rural water systems as having less than two months water supply in storage. But in recent weeks that number has fallen to three. In February, as media …
Continue reading ‘An update on California towns running out of water. Or not.’ »
In Sacramento, you no longer need fear getting a citation for letting your lawn go brown. What’s next – water meters?
I took a break today from the excitement of following a newly rejuvenated Colorado River south, across the border into Mexico, where it rarely flows, and followed “the river” west instead. Forty-nine river miles upstream from the “Southern International Boundary” – essentially the bridge at San Luis Rio Colorado – a structure known as Imperial …
As California struggles against the problems posed by its current drought, there has been a great deal of attention paid to the lack of groundwater regulation. Melody Gutierrez has a great example today, from Paso Robles: How scant has the crucial underground water supply become around the San Luis Obispo County city? Sue Luft can …
Continue reading ‘Why is Paso Robles failing to self-regulate groundwater?’ »
I’ve often written about the ways in which our rivers in the western United States have become like plumbing (and here, here, and especially here). But one of the most interesting things to me about metaphors is when you push them to too hard. You can learn a lot at the point where the metaphor breaks …
Continue reading ‘When the “plumbing” metaphor breaks down’ »
To folks in many parts of the arid western United States, the notion that some California communities don’t meter residential and business water sales seems crazy. It is. This may be, by some measures, a record drought in California. But even without it, Californians have known they have serious water stresses. That it has taken …