My Utton Center colleague Rin Tara and I spent the day out in the field yesterday, a visit to River Mile 60 at the bottom end of New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande. (Disclosure: We took bikes, but “out in the field” sounds fancier than “on a bike ride.”) The trip was fodder for a piece …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s incredible shrinking Rio Grande’ »
“Everybody keeps hoping that the only way we’re going to really rebuild storage is if we have another ridiculous, gangbuster year like 2023,” said Jack Schmidt, a watershed sciences professor at Utah State University and Director of its Center for Colorado River Studies. But, he continued, “that’s highly unlikely.” Via Anastasia Hufham in the Salt …
Nowadays, almost no one’s experience of water insecurity is dependent on the physical availability of water in their local environment. What determines how much water we have is the kinds of infrastructure we build, the economies that we built to manage the water, the values we put on the water, and so if we want …
We are heading into a remarkable year on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande. Here are some critical factors: The preliminary April 1 forecast from the NRCS is for 27 percent of median April – July runoff at Otowi, the key measurement gage for New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande. Current reservoir storage above us is basically …
Continue reading ‘Dancing with Deadpool on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande’ »
My Utton Center pal Rin Tara and I are excited to launch “Water Matters,” our new podcast. Our first guest is Diane Agnew from the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, who is charming and also breaks some news. Find it here, or, as they say on podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
I’m back after a couple of months’ hiatus to working on Ribbons of Green, the new book Bob Berrens and I are finishing up for publication next year by UNM Press. The current task, putting together the final package of art, is a blast. There’s more than a little tedious technical work (sorting out copyright …
Via Annie Snider at Politico: The Trump administration escalated a water fight with Mexico on Thursday, saying it will cut off Colorado River water deliveries to the city of Tijuana. In a post on X, the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said it would deny Mexico’s request to deliver water to Tijuana through …
By Jack Schmidt (1), John Fleck (2), Kathryn Sorensen (3), Eric Kuhn (4), Katherine Tara (2) | March 21, 2025 1 Center for Colorado River Studies, Utah State University 2 Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico 3 Kyl Center for Water Policy, Arizona State University 4 (sort of) retired In Short: Since the …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River Reservoir Storage in Mid-March: Where do we stand?’ »
By Eric Kuhn The Bureau of Reclamation released its March 24-Month study last Friday and just like last month, the forecast is for big trouble in the Colorado River Basin. Under the “Most Probable” scenario, the ten-year cumulative flow at Lee Ferry will drop below 82.5 million acre-feet (the “tripwire”) by the end of Water …
Continue reading ‘The March 24-Month study and the myth of a “Compact Call”’ »
Those Rio Grande runoff forecasts we use to make critical water management decisions on New Mexico’s Rio Grande? NRCS…. From the Western States Water Council: The mass layoff of federal workers, including U.S. Department of Agriculture layoffs, has led to the loss of seven positions at the National Water and Climate Center (NWCC), cutting nearly …
Continue reading ‘Wrecking ball report, snow survey edition’ »