In the Navajo Times, a piece about Darlene Arviso, the water lady. She drives a big truck around to homes on the eastern side of the reservation without running water, of which there are many: Armed with her cellphone and massive truck, Arviso heads out into the community to deliver water to families in need. …
Continue reading ‘“I’ve been born and raised, still hauling water.”’ »
The new monthly U.S. drought outlook, out this morning, has good news for New Mexico: But wait, I thought that idiot Fleck told us in Sunday’s paper that water managers were bracing for another dry year in New Mexico. What gives? This: The question of who might be hurt and who will avoid the pain …
tl;dr Despite good rain in the cities of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley this year (especially at my house!), it’s the snowpack that matters for state water supply. And the snowpack is not good. Longer: My backyard rain barrels are full, and the latest storm has brought Albuquerque’s water year precipitation (since Oct. 1) to …
Continue reading ‘In New Mexico, precip where it matters not’ »
As near as I can tell, the American Civil Liberties Union has no particular stake in water policy. But the venerable champion of free speech is wading into the rancorous New Mexico debate over the possible diversion of water from the Gila River. Lauren Villagran writes (behind surveywall): The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday …
A few years back, I put on my “water beat reporter” hat and went to Santa Fe for the spring legislative session to track some bills that I found interesting. The newspaper has a team of skilled legislative specialists who I’ve always been able to lean on, but it was fun to bring my water …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico water policy and the problems of a part-time legislature’ »
In honor of Aldo Leopold’s birthday, some jfleck abqjournal nostalgia with this old favorite from 2009, in which I tracked down a bird in the University of New Mexico’s research collection that Leopold “collected” back in 1919: Years ago, my parents gave me “Aldo Leopold’s Wilderness,” a slim volume of Leopold’s early writings. In it …
The January forecast is out. It is too early to panic, but not to early to have this concern duly noted: With a bad snowpack so far, even a wet spring may not be enough to forestall the fifth consecutive year of below-average runoff on the Rio Grande, according to forecaster Angus Goodbody with the …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: another dry year on the Rio Grande?’ »
This looks like a story about forest health, fire risk, and restoration. And in a way, I guess, it is. But beyond the specifics of the challenges they’re trying to address, the underlying governance issues that the folks at the Rio Grande Water Fund are tackling are the fascinating part: What McCarthy did next sets …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: watershed health and governance models’ »
Elephant Butte Reservoir, the main storage reservoir on the Rio Grande that provides irrigation and municipal water for southern New Mexico, the El Paso, and Juarez areas, starts the new year at just 13 percent capacity, down a hair from last year at this time. Some data points as we ponder a new water year …
Continue reading ‘The sorry state of Elephant Butte Reservoir’ »
Santa Fe’s oft-proclaimed “oldest inhabited home in the U.S.” may not even by the oldest house in Santa Fe, because tree rings! The building at 215 E. De Vargas St., famously named “the oldest inhabited home in the U.S.” byHarper’s Weekly in 1879, may not even be the oldest in Santa Fe. Tree-ring testing appears to …
Continue reading ‘The oldest house? Really? Tree rings strike again’ »