Saturday’s post about Phoenix and the need for proper institutional structures to sort out the West’s water problems was really a bit of shadowboxing with a piece I was working on for today’s paper about New Mexico (sub. ad req.) It’s about an ongoing argument here about a proposed water rights agreement between our Interstate …
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We had a nice line of thundershowers move across Albuquerque this afternoon. After dinner, Lissa and I headed to the north end of town to view the results. The metro area’s North Diversion Channel drains roughly 100 square miles of city, and flood control engineers tell me it’s a relatively unusual terrain for a major …
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From this morning’s newspaper (sub/ad req), a story about the new paper in today’s Science by Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall about climate change in the West. Udall and Overpeck have become fixtures on the western water meeting circuit over the last several years delivering this message, and the paper contains no real surprises. But …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Dry Times Ahead in the West’ »
The book project means I often pay more attention to the Colorado River, at least journalistically, than the river through my own back yard. But via the work blog, you can see that it’s dry over on this side of the continental divide as well: Over the last 14 years there have only been three …
From the pages of the Albuquerque Journal (sub/ad req), a look at the growing concerns regarding a deal between the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission and Intel over water rights needed to cover Intel’s pumping: A proposed agreement to use excess Rio Grande water to meet computer chip-maker Intel’s long-term water rights needs faces growing …
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Seen on the bike today: A new beaver dam taking shape in the riverside drain, just south of the Interstate 40 bridge. A pair of bicycle cops pulling over a cyclist on the riverside trail. (If you ride the trail on the weekends, you know Singing Guy. Wears headphones, sings very loudly and very badly. …
From this morning’s newspaper, a visit with John Horning to the railroad bridge at San Marcial (sub/ad req.), one of the choke points that prevents high flows on the Middle Rio Grande through central New Mexico: The railroad bridge, and similar spots where too much water could damage property, prevent the high spring flows that …
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From this weekend’s newspaper (sub/ad req), a piece about UNM’s Museum of Southwestern Biology taking responsibility for the remarkable early twentieth century plant collection of Brother Gerfroy Arsène Brouard: A Smithsonian scientist eight decades ago joked that the mosses and lichens of northern New Mexico were sure to suffer before the determined onslaught of Brother …
If you’re in Albuquerque, it’s a great weekend to go out and see your river. The Rio Grande is flowing at nearly 6,000 cubic feet per second through the city right now (Saturday evening, 5/22), courtesy of a spike flow to help Rio Grande silvery minnow spawning. The high flows allow water to get out …
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Greetings from the not-so-wilds of Taos, New Mexico, where I picked up this morning’s Albuquerque Journal to find this (sub/ad req), on the surprising discovery of PCBs in the Rio Grande just downstream from the main Albuquerque storm water outfall: If the nuclear weapons lab were responsible, dealing with this problem would be simpler. Attentive …
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