A couple of new papers exploring California’s drought triggered what I thought this morning was some overly simplistic back and forth on the twitters about whether climate change is to blame. I think that’s the wrong question. The first paper, which I wrote about last week, was the Griffin/Anchukaitis paleo look at the thing. They …
Continue reading ‘Tweeting lessons from a California drought’ »
From the beginning, it was clear that solving Southern California’s water problems would require “the best talent of the country”: That’s Walter Mendenhall, from a series of U.S. Geological Survey papers published in 1905 inventorying the groundwater resources of the greater Los Angeles Basin’s groundwater resources (before we thought of it as “the greater Los …
Continue reading ‘Southern California water: “the best talent of the country”’ »
Defining drought is a tricky business, but I think Daniel Griffin and Kevin Anchukaitis have come up with a reasonable one – three years of persistent low soil moisture. By that measure, the drought in Central and Southern California is…. Well, I’ll let them tell it (pdf): We demonstrate that while 3-year periods of persistent below-average …
Continue reading ‘In California, the worst drought in a really long time’ »
Sacramento holds by far the largest body of unmetered water connections in California – about 62,000. These customers are allowed to consume all the water they want and pay only a flat monthly rate of about $41 for an average home. With a few exceptions, all other California communities are entirely served by water meters …
Continue reading ‘Sacramento, gettin’ serious about water’ »
The Imperial Irrigation District earlier this month threw down a significant marker in the ongoing struggle to deal back overuse of Colorado River water with a petition to the California State Water Resources Control Board demanding action on restoration of the Salton Sea. The sea’s decline is one of the knock-on effects of efforts to …
Continue reading ‘IID to state of California on Salton Sea restoration: “But you guys promised!”’ »
Al Jazeera Counties, mostly in the more rural northern parts of California, are reporting a surge in thefts and illegal diversions of water from wells and streams. The prime suspects are illegal marijuana farmers desperate for water before the fall harvest, which would explain the surge in water thievery over the summer.
About a decade ago, New Mexico state Rep. Mimi Stewart introduced legislation to collect a “water resource fee” on all water use in the state – $2 per acre foot for ag, $20 per acre foot for municipal and most other water users. (details in a 2003 talk by Steward here – pdf) The idea …
It’s often argued, and generally true, that municipal water use is less vulnerable to drought because cities can afford to pay more for water than farmers. But as U.C. Davis water researcher Amanda Fencl points out, the arrow of adaptive capacity doesn’t always point in that direction. Affluent cities, yes, but often not rural communities: …
Continue reading ‘Adaptive capacity to the California drought’ »
Bettina Boxall on the Westlands Water District: [T]he nation’s largest irrigation district is in the wrong place.
Peter Culp, Robert Glennon and Gary Libecap have published an excellent new analysis of the potential for water markets to help us dig out of the western United States’ water mess: Water trading can facilitate the reallocation of water to meet the demands of changing economies and growing populations. It can play a vital role …
Continue reading ‘So how are we going to build these western water markets?’ »