Heather Tanana and Anne Castle will be talking about the Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities project at today (Feb. 22, 2023 – noon Arizona time) at the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center seminar series – over the Zoom! Signup info here. Access to clean drinking water is a fundamental human …
I was talking to a friend last week about the work Bob Berrens and I are doing for our new book on the origin stories of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. I’m deep into a chapter on the failed 1920s efforts at tobacco farming (I’ve told that story before here), and we were talking …
Continue reading ‘The peculiar economics of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’ »
First the bad news from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s mid-February forecast – this year’s runoff into Flaming Gorge, which is at record low thanks to Drought Response Operations Agreement releases to prop up Lake Powell, is forecast to be below average this year, at 86 percent of average. At some point we’ve gotta …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The chance of deadpool declines’ »
As we try to adapt to climate change, understanding how our changing hydrology funnels through legal filters will be crucial. That’s why the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center funded this terrific piece of work by UNM Water Resources Program student Annalise Porter: New Mexico’s Greenbelt Law: Disincentivizing Water Conservation Through Agricultural Tax Breaks, just …
Continue reading ‘Tax Breaks and Water Conservation Disincentives in New Mexico’ »
The Feb.1 numbers from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center look good – Lake Powell inflow 1.4 million acre feet above the median. We’ve got a lot of winter left, so definitely too early to make big plans to, for example, cut Colorado River water use deeply to avoid deadpool or, alternatively, decide that we …
John Write a Haiku about conflict in allocating Colorado River water. ChatGPT Colorado River flows, Nations vie for its sweet thirst, Peace in drought, a dream.
Getting ready for an interview this morning with Mark Brodie at KJZZ (waving at my Phoenix friends!) I put together a table to make it easier to compare the six-state proposal submitted Monday to reduce Lower Colorado River Basin water use, and the California proposal submitted yesterday (Tues. 1/31/23). Perhaps worth sharing here? “Elevation” is …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The numbers in the states’ two proposals’ »
While we eagerly await whatever it is that might happen this week as the Colorado River basin states struggle to come up with a short term plan to use less water, the Bureau of Reclamation is inviting y’all to a webinar this afternoon (Monday Jan. 30 2023, details here) to begin thinking about a long …
As we get spun up for the second time in six months about a capricious notion of a “deadline” to fix the Colorado River, I’m reminded of the tagline from my favorite teenage superhero comic, Marvel’s Howard the Duck: Trapped in a world he never made. Once again, we are trapped in a narrative driven …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: Trapped, again, in a world we never made’ »
The big farms we have left in Albuquerque’s South Valley are weird. I spent a good fraction of my weekend staring at maps of them, or riding my bike around them, or both. My co-author Bob Berrens and I have zeroed on in this area for a key part of the storytelling in our new …