While we were all distracted by the chaos at Oroville Dam, the snowpack above Lake Powell on the Colorado River last week climbed above normal for the year. By this measure from the CBRFC, it’s at 57 percent above average for mid-February. It doesn’t usually peak until early April. Based on the latest round of …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River Basin snowpack suggests a good runoff year’ »
It is critically important that the new administration reach out to our partners in the Mexican government to seal a new deal on shared water shortages by the 2017 deadline. The agreement will help ensure that adequate water levels are maintained in Lake Mead, thereby protecting the interests of U.S. water users, as well as …
Rhea Graham, a savvy veteran of western water governance, made an interesting observation about my book over on Goodreads: One of the few thoughtful discussions of the Lower Colorado River international boundary, it unwittingly becomes context for the reset of USA-Mexico relations begun in 2017. I spend a good deal of time in Water is …
Continue reading ‘Some context on the Colorado River and the U.S.-Mexico reset’ »
A wet January added nearly 3 million acre feet to the Colorado River runoff forecast, with the Feb. 1 forecast update from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center sitting at 9.5 million acre feet for April through July. That is 34 percent above average. The snowpack currently sits at 56 percent above average. The dropoff …
At this critical time of year for Colorado River snowpack, things are looking very good. For the first time this year, the April-July runoff forecast has climbed above 10 million acre feet. The snowpack among the sites above Lake Powell where the federal government maintains real-time monitoring equipment is 57 percent above the long term …
update: here’s a link to the full text of the Secretarial order Page 1 of Jan. 18, 2017 Colorado River Interior Secretarial Order Contributed to DocumentCloud by John Fleck of Beyond the Water Wars • View document or read text The Obama administration’s senior western water leadership this afternoon announced a Colorado River water management …
Continue reading ‘Jewell announces bridge to completion of Colorado River deals’ »
This is a big deal: The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gathers water for 19 million people in the region, expects it can now begin storing water for future years. In recent years, it had been using up its water reserves. It’s just one bit of a thoroughly excellent piece on the state …
I’ll be doing an American Water Resources Association Webinar Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 1 pm EST, talking about my book.
On a personal level, 2016 has been pretty great. I published a book, Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West, which has been well received. When I was struggling three years ago to move from the general – “I want to write a book” – to the specific – “I …
Continue reading ‘Melons, lettuce, and other things about 2016’ »
There’s a “half full/half empty” joke in here somewhere. The reservoirs of the Colorado River Basin are 49 percent full/51 percent empty right now (data pdf). Despite another bad runoff year, that’s pretty much exactly where they were at the end of 2015. Let’s go with half full then, shall we? We’ve come within a couple …