I’ve triggered some puzzlement among California water folks as I call around trying to understand the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in preparation for my trip out there next month. Why does a New Mexican care? Other than the fact that it’s fascinating, of course. I mean what water wonk wouldn’t be fascinated by California’s water problems. …
Continue reading ‘Why Some NM Schlub Cares About the Sacramento Delta’ »
The drama on the Mississippi has spawned a lot of good writing on the disconnect between how nature thinks about flood plains versus how we think about them. As Anne Jefferson wrote, the bits next to our rivers tend to be the most desirable places to live: People are drawn to settle on floodplains – …
From the morning paper, a wander in the bosque to look for signs of drought (sub/ad req.): There is a resilience, it turns out, to these desert ecosystems. They’re used to this happening every so often, and they know what to do in response. Some leaf out less, or leaf out later. Some depend on …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Lessons from a Drought’ »
How dry is it this year in New Mexico? So dry that rafters on the Rio Chama will have to use spare drinking water, pumped through the system weekends this spring and summer, for their fun. From Friday’s ABQJournal (sub/ad req, I think): Albuquerque has to move its water supplies down the Rio Chama sometime, …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Rafting on Drinking Water’ »
The Carlsbad Current-Argus yesterday morning had a story saying this: Officials at the National Weather Service in Midland, Texas, say their weather data shows the drought in Eddy County and the surrounding region is on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Eddy County has not had any measurable rain since Sept. 25, and …
I’ve a chance to get out to California later this year and do some reporting on water issues, so I’ve been doing some reading, trying to get a better feel for where to focus my attention. This is in part driven by my belief that the West’s water issues have become inextricably linked, and to …
Continue reading ‘California Water Governance: Some Questions’ »
I’ve been spending a lot of my work days of late in a blow-by-blow rundown of the growing drought conditions in New Mexico: An already dismal forecast for spring runoff in New Mexico’s rivers has gotten worse, after a dry, windy March sapped the state’s snowpack. Spring and summer flow on the Rio Grande into …
Continue reading ‘Water in the desert – low flows on the Rio Grande’ »
Watching them bring water to the 300-year-old Duranes irrigation ditch.
Many years ago, as a young pup of a reporter, I was sent to Madrid, NM, on a quiet Saturday to chronicle an old-timers day in the old mining town-turned art colony. Madrid’s community center sits next to the Oscar Huber Ballpark which, legend has it, was the first lighted baseball field west of the …