I mostly hate log scale in graphs I use for broad communication purposes. It’s just not intuitive. But I’ve made the switch for this year’s Rio Grande, because the flows are so low that we need the log scale, because at really low flows small changes become big, if that makes any sense. The difference …
Continue reading ‘Rio Grande so low I needed to switch to log scale’ »
My friend and colleague Becky Bixby (UNM biologist, associate director of the UNM Water Resources Program) gave a great talk recently about her work on the diatoms – little light-eating algae – on the margins of our river. (first 10-ish minutes is Becky)
An email exchange with a friend who helps manage New Mexico’s water led to the graph above, my first stab at a visualization to try to show the accumulation of two bad years’ flow on the Rio Grande. Not quite sure this does all the work yet that I need of it, but perhaps worth …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s Rio Grande: Last year bad, this year worse’ »
No sooner did my spring break begin a week ago (quite literally within a couple of hours of the end of my last class before break) than I got sick. This has led to much laying around, and resting, which I think was the point? I’m finally on the mend, and a friend got me …
Continue reading ‘Some data on a bad year on New Mexico’s Rio Grande’ »
The AP’s Sophia Eppolito did a nice job of pulling a single bit of business from a lengthy interview that captured the key point of my thoughts on Utah’s approach to Colorado River governance and water management: The river supplies Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Mexico as well as a $5 …
Continue reading ‘I said some things about Utah and the Colorado River’ »
I’ll be joining Tim Quinn, former executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies; and Tracy Quinn, Director, California Urban Water Policy, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program at the NRDC (and also a board of of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California) in a webinar to talk about collaboration and conflict around …
Continue reading ‘Water Wars – What are they Good For? Webinar, March 15’ »
Felicia Marcus on the West’s water problems: The problem with vast water negotiations like the Colorado River Compact, said Marcus, the Stanford water policy expert, is that every entity, from governments down to people watering their lawns, come to expect the current amount of available water — even if that availability is an outlier or …
We stopped on Saturday’s bike ride for one of my favorite views of the Rio Grande, looking north from the Gail Ryba Bridge (the bike bridge that parallels Interstate 40). The Rio Grande looks great right now, but looks can be deceiving. This time of year there’s always “base flow” – the basic winter flow …
On a Zoom call with a group of Colorado River brain trusters this morning, there was a realization that we’d all been talking in recent weeks to the same reporters. Sometimes it’s someone new to the issues, looking for help with a single story. With dropping reservoirs, several pressing near-term political and policy questions, and …
Continue reading ‘On the value of Colorado River Beat reporting’ »