Archive of posts filed under the Colorado River category.

Emerging Values and Institutional Reform on the Colorado River

Posted by on

Lorelei Cloud and John Berggren had a really important piece on Colorado River governance in the Colorado Sun last month that has not received sufficient attention. The challenge, they argue, is the lack of the institutional framework we need to address evolving societal values around the river’s management in a changing world. Cloud is Vice-Chairman …

Continue reading ‘Emerging Values and Institutional Reform on the Colorado River’ »

The search for enduring solutions on the Colorado River

Posted by on

Kathryn Sorensen & Sarah Porter, Kyl Center for Water Policy, Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Arizona State University; John Fleck, Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law Colorado River Basin governance is increasingly struggling with a deep question in water management: When we reduce our use of water, who gets the …

Continue reading ‘The search for enduring solutions on the Colorado River’ »

Hoover Dam and the social nature of infrastructure

Posted by on

A water nerd friend and I made a pilgrimage yesterday evening to Hoover Dam, spanning the Colorado River on the Arizona-Nevada border. We’d had dinner at one of the restaurants on the docks at Hemenway Harbor, and driven up to the old abandoned boat ramp at Boulder Harbor, two Lake Mead landmarks for me, places …

Continue reading ‘Hoover Dam and the social nature of infrastructure’ »

The 2024 Runoff Season Comes to an End – How Did We Do?

Posted by on

By Jack Schmidt, Utah State University Center for Colorado River Studies How did we do in the continuing effort to recover reservoir storage? How much reservoir storage accumulated from this year’s snowpack, and how does that accumulation compare to other years? In Summary: Total basin-wide reservoir storage is an appropriate metric to describe the status …

Continue reading ‘The 2024 Runoff Season Comes to an End – How Did We Do?’ »

Colorado River 2023 Water Use: An Optimistic Narrative

Posted by on

Preparing for A Thing I’m doing next week, I updated the Crazy Fleck Spreadsheet this morning of data from Reclamation’s annual Lower Basin decree accounting reports. Amid all the angst and rhetoric, it is easy to miss the salient fact made clear by this graph: Lower Basin water users have reduced their take on the …

Continue reading ‘Colorado River 2023 Water Use: An Optimistic Narrative’ »

A reminder to be careful how you think about “wasted” water

Posted by on

A team out of Wyoming, including my Colorado River Research Group colleague Kristiana Hansen, has a new paper that reminds us that we need to be careful about how we thinking about conserving water that is being “wasted.” Their case study is an area on the New Fork in Wyoming, a tributary of the Green, …

Continue reading ‘A reminder to be careful how you think about “wasted” water’ »

Important update on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Boulder City lawn

Posted by on

In my book Water is for Fighting Over, I delighted in this cheap shot at the Bureau of Reclamation’s Boulder City office – … a grandiose white building atop a hill … surrounded by an expanse of lawn that is embarrassing in a desert city that averages less than six inches of rain a year. …

Continue reading ‘Important update on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Boulder City lawn’ »

Hustling to get Imperial Irrigation District water reduction tools in place

Posted by on

Janet Wilson had a super helpful piece this week in the Desert Sun about steps being taken (in a hurry) to get the institutional widgets in place to meet Lower Basin commitments to reduce water use under a deal hashed out in spring 2023 to head of Colorado River NEPA litigation. If all goes as …

Continue reading ‘Hustling to get Imperial Irrigation District water reduction tools in place’ »

Texas v. New Mexico ruling creates interesting questions for Arizona v. Colorado on the Colorado River

Posted by on

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday in a lawsuit between Texas and New Mexico over Rio Grande water reframes discussions in Colorado River Basin, where the threat of a similar Supreme Court action looms. Texas and New Mexico schemed a water-sharing agreement to settle the thing, but the Department of Interior intervened to say “Nope” …

Continue reading ‘Texas v. New Mexico ruling creates interesting questions for Arizona v. Colorado on the Colorado River’ »