As we watch Californians floundering over drought, or sometimes not floundering, it’s worth revisiting Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons. In it, Ostrom tells the story of communities in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, coming together to manage their groundwater at a time when a race to the bottom was underway that, absent …
Continue reading ‘Losing the groundwater pumping race to the bottom: your choice’ »
Here at Inkstain, we’ve long believed that our drought and water coverage has suffered from a lack of Lady Gaga-related items. Today, thanks to the LA Times, we can correct this shortcoming. The story, fittingly enough, involves Hearst Castle and what is apparently a leaking swimming pool: [P]ark officials and the singer came up with …
California is entering its fourth drought in as many decades. Yet even now, some communities lack water meters to track how much water people are using and to charge them accordingly. Many of those households don’t even receive monthly water bills. They pay for water through yearly assessments attached to their property taxes, which may …
Continue reading ‘It’s not like California hasn’t had the time to get in front of this problem’ »
Best line about water management I ever wrote: Wet years have a way of covering up a multitude of water management sins. Drought exposes them for all to see. It also helps to expose those sins, apparently, if you have satellites. Here’s Jay Famiglietti, talking about what the GRACE satellites show about groundwater depletion in …
Continue reading ‘When there’s a drought, you pump groundwater, until you can’t’ »
I do not understand this. Not being rhetorical or coy. I really do not understand this. I’ve observed before that Yuma and Imperial counties, the two farm regions that have benefitted from enormous allocations of Colorado River water and the support of the federal government that goes with it, have some of the highest unemployment …
Continue reading ‘Puzzling over water and agricultural economics’ »
California, listen to me. (Grabs home state firmly by the shoulders, stares into California’s face intensely.) You can do this. It’s going to be OK. I know, I know. “Zero” sounds bad. But you go into a drought with the water supply and water system you have, not the one you might want or wish …
Continue reading ‘Breathe, California. Keep it together. You can do this.’ »
When New Mexico was being entertained to newspaper and television coverage last year of water trucks rolling to the handful of communities that, in the midst of drought, had run out, I did a piece in the paper trying to get my arms around the folks he hadn’t run out of water. What were they …
Continue reading ‘In a drought, who runs out of water, and who pays?’ »
As California grapples with drought, it’s a good time to revisit Milly et al.’s 2008 Science paper Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management? I’m not statistician enough to answer the question posed by the post’s title, but it’s at least worth considering, as part of the state’s policy responses to this drought on multiple time scales (both …
Continue reading ‘Has California’s probability density function changed?’ »
California’s remarkable, looming drought conditions are a test, and via OtPR we’re seeing some clues as to who will pass: Southern California prepared for this and has a sufficient buffer that it doesn’t need to ration this year. And how did Southern California prepare? In part by being audacious enough and rich enough, but also …
At a water conference here in Albuquerque last week, one of my water mentors Bill Hume (former editorial page editor at the newspaper, later water advisor to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson) made this observation (this is from Bill’s written text, which he kindly shared after the talk and gave permission to me to use): …