Twain Whiskey-Water Quote Watch, Arizona Supreme Court edition

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Mark Twain, alleged to have known what whiskey was for, water not so much

Mark Twain, alleged to have known what whiskey was for, water not so much

In 2001, the Arizona Supreme Court at least had the wisdom to acknowledge that Mark Twain might never have said the thing about whiskey and water and drinkin’ and fightin’. But the court used it anyway:

We wish it were possible to dispose of this matter by establishing a bright line standard, easily applied, in order to relieve the lower court and the parties of having to engage in the difficult, time-consuming process that certainly lies ahead. Unfortunately, we cannot.

In a quote attributed to Mark Twain, it is said that “in the west, whiskey is for drinkin’ and water is for fightin’.“Nicholas Targ, Water Law on the Public Lands: Facing a Fork in the River, 12 Nat. Resources & Env’t 14 (Summer 1997). While this remains true in parts of Arizona, it is our hope that interested parties will work together in a spirit of cooperation, not antagonism. “Water is far too ecologically valuable to be used as a political pawn in the effort to resolve the centuries-old conflict between Native Americans and those who followed them in settling the West.” Rusinek, supra, at 412. This is especially so now, when the welfare and progress of our indigenous population is inextricably tied to and inseparable from the welfare and progress of the entire state. (emphasis added)

Alex Breitler’s backstory

Stuff I wrote elsewhere: decision-making under scientific uncertainty

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Here in Albuquerque, we have a really big groundwater contamination problem under and adjacent to the Air Force base on the city’s south side. It is a textbook model of decision-making under scientific uncertainty: how long will it take to reach the nearest drinking water wells?

I’ve seen an increasing confusion among the public, politicians and policymakers as detailed modeling efforts come up with different answers to the question. In a story for this morning’s newspaper, I turned to Dan Sarewitz for help:

The public and decision-makers need to realize that the uncertainties are real, involving questions to which science cannot give crisp answers, said Daniel Sarewitz, an Arizona State University researcher who studies the use of science in political and public policy decision-making. “What they have to ask themselves is how much risk they are willing to put up with,” Sarewitz said.

the fruit frost report

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Smudge pots in orange grove on Victoria Avenue, Arlington Heights Citrus Landscape, Southwestern portion of city of Riverside, Riverside, Riverside County, CA, photo by Brian Grogan, courtesy Library of Congress

Smudge pots in orange grove on Victoria Avenue, Arlington Heights Citrus Landscape, Southwestern portion of city of Riverside, Riverside, Riverside County, CA, photo by Brian Grogan, courtesy Library of Congress

My first memory of weather is the fruit frost report.

I’m not sure how old I was, certainly younger than five. It was the early ’60s, in the big living room of Dick and Elizabeth Fleming’s, a grand old farmhouse in the middle of an orange grove in Riverside, in southern California. The Flemings were my father’s first and oldest California friends. We’d go over for dinner, and then Dick and Elizabeth Fleming and Bob and Elizabeth Fleck would play bridge, but everything would stop for the fruit frost report.

I think it was at 6 p.m., and I think it was on KFI 640, the big 50,000-watt AM radio station out of Los Angeles. We’d stop, and Dick would listen carefully to a voice that was very distant and important, and I didn’t fully understand the details, only the importance. Freezing is bad for citrus, but the farmer is armed with tools to fight it off – smudgepots and wind machines. I don’t think we were ever there on the night of an actual freeze, but the quiet importance of the ritual left an impression on my young mind.

I wish my modern self had a chance to sit down with Dick, so he could explain his life in citrus.

How much should Rio Rancho charge for this water?

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Rio Rancho, New Mexico, has a dilemma.

My colleague Rosalie Rayburn has been writing about the trials and tribulations of the privately owned Chamisa Hills Golf and Country Club, which has had a lot of both.

In her latest story, Rosalie describes

… a recent request by potential Chamisa Hills buyers Bob Gallagher and Jhett Browne to consider a proposal to set the rate at 20 percent of the potable irrigation rate, or $1.09 per 1,000 gallons, effective July 1.

They asked that the rate remain at 20 percent of the potable rate as those rates increase.

At present, Chamisa pays 47 cents per 1,000 gallons and faces an increase to $3.28 per 1,000 on July 1 when its contract expires, under a rate schedule councilors approved last year.

Gallagher and Browne say they can’t operate the golf course economically at that rate.

By way of background, Rio Rancho currently faces a long term need to buy agricultural water rights as offsets for the groundwater it pumps, because of the way groundwater pumping (which is a junior right) impacts flows in the river (which provide water to senior rights holders).

The opportunity cost associated with the golf course water is therefore the loss of the chance to use the golf course water as an offset, either through aquifer storage and recovery or direct discharge to the Rio Grande.

How should Rio Rancho determine what price to charge the golf course for its water?

The ag water conservation paradox

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With drought gripping California, there’s a renewed push for spending on ag water conservation measures. Brett Walton explains why not every gallon saved is really a gallon saved:

“Farmers are several times smarter than politicians, and they have done a good job convincing the government to help pay for more efficient irrigation systems. Politicians actually believe that these more efficient systems will make the water last for their children and grandchildren,” Bob Stewart, an agriculture professor at West Texas A&M University, told Circle of Blue. “The fact is that a more efficient system in many cases uses more water, not less.”

Irrigation efficiency is a ratio. It measures how much of the water put on a field is used by the crop compared to how much soaks into the ground and does not aid plant growth. Higher efficiency leads to higher yields, which increases water consumption because extra water is needed to nourish a larger plant. Even though a farmer might draw the same amount of water from a river or an aquifer, he returns less to the source if he is more efficient.

The unintended consequences of irrigation efficiency, well-established by years of scientific study but often ignored or misunderstood by policymakers, holds special relevance today as many of America’s top farming regions cope with devastating droughts.

The entire article is very much worth reading.

Stuff I wrote elsewhere: “an insatiable greed for water”

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From the morning paper, a look at the U.S. government’s filing in the case of Texas v. New Mexico (and Colorado*) over water-sharing (or lack thereof) on the Rio Grande:

In a brief filed Thursday, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli alleged that excess groundwater pumping in New Mexico is intercepting water in the shallow aquifer that would otherwise drain back into the Rio Grande and flow to Texas. Federal attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and order New Mexico to curtail such pumping to the extent that it is harming Texas water users.

And there is this:

In a talk about the litigation Wednesday at the University of New Mexico School of Law, Assistant New Mexico Attorney General Stephen Farris accused Texas of bullying its neighbors and having “an insatiable greed for water.”

That’ll for sure be taped up on the locker room wall before the Big Game.

* Colorado’s a formally named defendant, but this is really between Texas and New Mexico.

 

Breaking Worse

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I live in Albuquerque, as does my wife, my sister and my daughter. At dinner recently, we realized that none of us watched “Breaking Bad”, which is a television program filmed in Albuquerque starring people who would be famous to us if we watched said television program. This leaves us all left out of some conversations, as apparently the actors sometimes visit favorite hot dog stands and make meth in well-known locations. But has not stopped my offspring from launching a new project in which she apparently makes shit up:

I’ve never actually seen Breaking Bad, but I’ve spent my whole sentient life living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so I feel like I am an expert on the show. Ask me questions about it.

 

Stuff I wrote elsewhere: the giant rubber duck risk

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OK, this was just fun:

Absent a really giant floating rubber ducky, the Rail Runner bridge across Albuquerque’s main flood control channel appears to be safe.

“The thing about water that people don’t understand is that it is so powerful,” said Adrienne Martinez as she stood over water rushing beneath a scale model of the flood control channel and the Rail Runner bridge. The bridge held, intact, against a simulated flood flow larger than anything nature has yet provided since the Albuquerque system was built in the 1970s.

Until Martinez released the rubber duckies into the channel. Wham! The little toy Rail Runner train was in the drink.

“And that’s what would happen if we had really big ducks,” Martinez said with a smile.

Here’s a picture I took last July when the flood diversion channel beneath the railroad bridge was running high:

Water 10 feet deep beneath the Rail Runner bridge, July 19, 2013, by John Fleck

Water 10 feet deep beneath the Rail Runner bridge, July 19, 2013, by John Fleck