When I first got serious many years ago about the project of writing (in the newspaper at the time) about New Mexico water, I went looking for the numbers. How much do we have? Who uses what? It’s a task that became central to my work. Eric Kuhn and I spent three years writing an …
Continue reading ‘On the shortcomings of the way we measure water “use”’ »
When last we visited, Lake Mead sat at elevation 1,054.28 feet above sea level. It’s now at 1,058.34, which is up ~13 feet from when I took the above photo last December. I hope they moved those chairs. The good news is the current forecast calling for the combined storage of Lake Mead and Lake …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: mid-July Colorado River status report’ »
A guest post by Friend of Inkstain Jason Robison, the Carl M. Williams Professor of Law & Social Responsibility at the University of Wyoming College of Law and chair of the Colorado River Research Group By Jason Robison A few weeks ago, on June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) handed down its much-awaited decision …
Continue reading ‘Arizona v. Navajo Nation: What SCOTUS Didn’t Do Along the Colorado River’ »
Jack Schmidt, Charles Yackulic, and Eric Kuhn have published an invaluable new overview of how we got into this mess on the Colorado River, and some of the things we need to think about to get out of it. Schmidt, John C., Charles B. Yackulic, and Eric Kuhn. “The Colorado River water crisis: Its origin …
Continue reading ‘Schmidt et al: How we got here on the Colorado River Overview’ »
Given that we’re about to spend a billion dollars to fallow land to reduce water use in the Colorado River Basin, it’s reasonable to ask how we can be sure we know how much water is actually being saved. The answer, according to new work by Katharine Wright and colleagues at Arizona State University, may …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: Paying to fallow may not save as much water as we think’ »
That boat is totally fixable. – Inkstain reader Greg This raises a fascinating legal question: whose boat is it? 43 U.S. Code § 2101 The Congress finds that— (a) States have the responsibility for management of a broad range of living and nonliving resources in State waters and submerged lands; and (b) included in the …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The Law of Shipwrecks’ »
Over the past year, the question of how to account for evaporation and system losses in the Lower Colorado River Basin has become a hot political and policy topic. With the recent Lower Basin water use reduction scheme, we seem to have set the question aside for now. But it’s not going away. My Science …
Lake Mead ended May 2023 at elevation 1,054.28 feet above sea level. That’s up five feet in a month, at a time of year when the reservoir is usually dropping, so I guess yay? It’s also up 6 1/2 feet from last year, so I guess yay? But also worth noting: Mead is down 32 …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: June 1 Colorado River system status report’ »
I’ve had long conversations this week with smart friends grudgingly supporting of the Lower Basin deal to reduce Colorado River water use over the next few years. Their case for it is simple. Yes, it’s an awful deal in so many ways, but it does have the potential to generate some short term water use …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The Case for a Shitty Deal’ »
This feels like a shakedown. Nice river basin ya’ got there. Would be shame if somethin’ happened to it. For decades, Lower Colorado River water users have been taking more water than the river can provide, threatening their own communities’ futures. Unable to come up with a plan to live within their water means, they’re …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: “Nice river basin ya’ got there….”’ »