White Christmas somewhere but maybe not here
It’s that time of year when I’m looking for a storm a week to build a snowpack. More is better. Zero is not better.
Archive of posts filed under the water category.
A sign of hope on the Colorado River
One of the hopeful notes coming out of the recent Colorado River discussions is the way the operation of Glen Canyon Dam in a more flexible way, to accommodate a broader range of values, is back on the table. The USBR alternatives released ahead of this week’s Colorado River Water Users Association, while requiring some …
Deficit Spending on the Colorado River
By Jack Schmidt | December 3, 2024 Drawdown of the Colorado River’s reservoirs now slightly exceeds the amount of gain that occurred during the 2024 snowmelt season. For the next four months until snowmelt begins again, the basin’s reservoirs will be drawing from the excess accumulated in 2023, demonstrating the immense challenge in balancing water …
Does our current approach to Colorado River accounting hide a looming problem?
My colleagues with the Colorado River Research Group have a new policy brief out today taking another whack at the question of “assigned water” – water kinda sorta conserved, but left in storage so water agencies can pull it out again at some future date. Think “Intentionally Created Surplus” (ICS). At this point, nearly 40 …
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A minor blog redesign, which is a metaphor
As near as I can tell from a lazy visit to the Wayback Machine, it was sometime around 2014 that I added the old Metropolitan Water District Colorado River Aqueduct map to my blog header. It’s a lovely map that has served me well these many years, but it doesn’t match my brand any more. …
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Tools for better environmental adaptation as we manage the Colorado River
I put up a slide for my University of New Mexico water resources graduate students during class yesterday afternoon with two pictures – the emerging canyons at the upper end of Lake Powell, and a smallmouth bass. When Lake Powell gets low, we get a) the remarkable emergence of Cataract Canyon, and b) warm water …
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Consumption and Waste of Water, circa 1895
Public opinion has always favored the free use of water. Brackett, Dexter. “Consumption and Waste of Water.” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 34, no. 2 (1895): 185-203. In 1848, the designers of Boston’s water works assumed a need of 28 gallons per capita per day (GPCD). By 1872, while searching for and …
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Arizona’s 50,000 acre-feet of Upper Basin water has always been destined for tribal use
Eric Kuhn, Rin Tara, John Fleck The pending Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement settles Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe claims to the Upper Colorado River Basin in Arizona. To do so, Arizona’s 50,000 AF entitlement of Upper Colorado River Basin water will be allocated. Although Arizona’s testimony during …
Jack’s Graph is Better Than Mine
This version of the Colorado River graph, courtesy of Jack Schmidt, more clearly illustrates the narrative of the talk I’m giving later this week: Early 20th century pluvial, when we built the institutions Mid-century baseline, when we built all the dams and farms and cities Millennium drought, when we emptied the reservoirs
The Colorado River Problem, In Brief
Putting together a slide deck for a talk next week, borrowing Brad Udall’s trick of a horizontal line for visualizing the mean during different time periods.