My new life at university
This did not happen at my old job:
This did not happen at my old job:
When Bob Berrens invited me three years ago to join him in teaching a class on contemporary issues in water management in the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program, I was hesitant. I was pretty busy – working full time at the Albuquerque Journal, trying to write a book. But heck, it seemed like …
Continue reading ‘I’m the new director of the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program’ »
Laura Paskus writes: Almost 50 years ago, on June 14, 1967, four couples fired off a telegram from Las Cruces to Sen. Henry Jackson, a Democrat from Washington. Called “Scoop” by his pals, Jackson chaired the Senate committee looking at a bill to authorize the Central Arizona Project, a system of dams, canals and aqueducts …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s long history of not building dams on the Gila’ »
With just a quarter of an inch of rain (0.63 cm) since July 1, this is the driest start to a monsoon season in Albuquerque since 1993, (source) and it’s been hot – 3 degrees F above average, according to the National Weather Service. The result, Laura Paskus reports, is a drying Rio Grande: The river …
Continue reading ‘Driest monsoon start in Albuquerque since 1993 and a drying Rio Grande’ »
Albuquerque friends, here’s a chance to help a group of University of New Mexico colleagues on research important to our water future:
Repartimientos de agua is how community acequia systems operate in times of water scarcity. Custom originally arose out of conflict and the ongoing elastic process of negotiation and reconciliationitself, of meeting year after year to divide the water according to agreements forged in crisis long ago. Acequieros believe that water scarcity should be shared equitably …
Continue reading ‘Repartimientos de agua: New Mexico’s tradition of water sharing’ »
My friend Scot Key offered me double the rate they pay here at Inkstain (this is a joke, we are bloggers, we do it for “exposure”) so I’ve got a new post up over at his Better Burque. We mostly ride bikes and complain about how much this or that sucks, especially poorly designed and executed …
Continue reading ‘A new home for some stuff I write now and then’ »
The dewpoint yesterday (Tues. June 28, 2016) passed a sort of vaguely science-based but somewhat arbitrary threshold for the start of the monsoon in Albuquerque – three consecutive days above 47F (8.3C): They’re partying in Tucson, too: It's official! The monsoon is here https://t.co/Aq14D9L3Aj via @tucsonstar — mike_crimmins (@mike_crimmins) June 28, 2016
We now have an answer to the question of where the money will come from for a billion dollar diversion to take water from the Gila River, a Colorado River tributary in southwestern New Mexico. Nowhere. Laura Paskus has the scoop on this week’s decision by the project’s governing body to abandon the Cadillac versions …
Continue reading ‘Gila River diversion being significantly downscaled’ »
This is one of my favorite weather times of year in Albuquerque, the moment of anticipation when our monsoon looms. As monsoons go, it’s a pretty modest affair, and I’d frequently get crap from Albuquerque Journal readers objecting to the term – it’s not a real monsoon, someone who’s been to south Asia would frequently …