It’s Been Really Cold Here This Week

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We’ve been remarkably cold here in New Mexico this week. Yesterday, it turned into a major infrastructure problem, which forced me to very quickly get up to speed on how our state’s natural gas infrastructure works, on account of because a bunch of people had theirs turned off. From the morning paper (sub/ad req):

The problem originated in supply lines that run into southwest New Mexico from Texas, Marks explained.

Within the state, demand was rising dramatically because of the record cold. At the same time, supply lines from Texas were hit by a double whammy. First, according to Gas Company officials, electricity blackouts in Texas cut power to equipment needed to deliver gas.

Second, the intense cold across the nation’s midsection cut into production in key gas fields that supply New Mexico and much of the rest of middle America.

Much of the natural gas delivered by utilities at this time of year is pumped from wells, processed and delivered in real time, as it is needed, said Matt Marshall, an industry analyst at Bentek Energy in Colorado. While it is common to have cold-weather “freeze-offs” that cause wells to shut down in northern climates, it is very unusual for the effects to spread all the way to West Texas, as they did this week, Marshall said.

That caused a huge drop in U.S. natural gas production at the same time demand was rapidly increasing because of the cold.

“It’s a lot to happen all at once,” Marshall said.

In New Mexico’s system, the result was dropping pressure in lines serving communities throughout the state. The gas company had no choice but to get ahead of the problem by shutting off portions of the system where the pressure was low, said Los Alamos National Laboratory infrastructure expert Loren Toole.

“It’s not that anybody goofed,” said Mike Hightower, a Sandia National Laboratories scientist who studies natural gas infrastructure.

Toole, who had been briefed by officials involved in the emergency, said the decision to cut off communities where pressure had dropped allowed the gas company to maintain service to the rest of its customers, avoiding a far more serious situation.

In natural disasters, it’s the poor who suffer

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The terrific scientist-writer Anne Jefferson, who studies what happens when water meets earth, has an excellent post up today summarizing flooding around the world. The floods in Queensland have gotten the most attention in country, because (I suspect) the people are like us, plus they have the affluence and technology to post cool flood videos on the Internet.

Anne notes that Southern Africa’s flood troubles have gotten less attention:

Flooding in South Africa has gotten almost no international attention, despite the fact that floods have killed 120 people there and have caused disaster declarations in 8 of 9 provinces. Flooding has also affected Mozambique, where 13 people have died, and forecasts for continued heavy rains over the next several months have much of the southern part of the continent on alert. In some areas, up to 10 times as much rain as normal has fallen in the month of January. Tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed. Many of the lost homes are shacks belonging to poor Africans, because informal settlements are often located in low lying areas.

A reminder it’s the poor who suffer most.

Having to rip out your lawn is not the worst thing that can happen

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The bemused Brits at the Economist paid Pat Mulroy a visit:

The main reason why Lake Mead, currently only 40% full, has been getting emptier is a decade-long drought. Whether this is a cyclical and normal event, or an early sign of climate change, is unclear. But even if the drought ends, most scientists think global warming will cause flows on the Colorado River to decrease by 10-30% in the next half century, says Douglas Kenney, the director of a water-policy programme at the University of Colorado Law School.

The consequences seem dire:

Does every middle-class house really need a lawn in a desert? Ms Mulroy has already started paying Las Vegans to rip out their turf and opt for desert landscaping, which can be chic. Her own husband put up a fight but lost. So out went that lawn, too, just as the low-flow toilets and taps came in.

Meanwhile, halfway ’round the globe:

The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.

This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages. (emphasis added)

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Dairies and Groundwater

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Struck by the numbers on dairy industry groundwater contamination in New Mexico, I’ve been poking around in the regulatory issues involved. Here’s a bit of what I found (sub/ad req):

Dairies are found throughout New Mexico, but are especially concentrated in the southeastern part of the state, where growth of industrial dairy operations has made it the largest sector of the state’s agricultural economy, according to a study by University of New Mexico law professor Denise Fort.

The state Environment Department says groundwater beneath 57 percent of the state’s 168 current and former dairies is contaminated in excess of safe drinking water standards.

Among other things, the new regulations would require plastic liners at all new or replacement dairy waste ponds. The industry argues that those liners are costly and ineffective.

Attorneys at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center say a Jan. 12 e-mail from dairy lobbyist Walter Bradley to Martinez’s deputy chief of staff Brian Moore suggests that the industry had the inside track as the executive order delaying the regulations was being prepared.

“Our attorneys (for the Dairy Group) Dal Moellenberg and TJ Trujillo of Gallagher & Kennedy drafted some language for the ex. order,” Bradley wrote. In the e-mail, Bradley offered the industry’s legal help in defending the state against a subsequent lawsuit filed by attorneys at the Environmental Law Center.

‘

A Jug of Water?

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The folks at Arizona’s Salt River Project are soliciting ideas from the public for the time capsule they plan to bury as part of Roosevelt Dam’s centennial celebration this spring. “What would you lock away for 50 years and give to the future people of Phoenix?”

My question is how many acre feet you could fit in the time capsule.

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Changing Ways New Mexico Manages its Water

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Buckman Diversion

Buckman Diversion, Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal

From this morning’s newspaper, a look at the implications of Santa Fe and Albuquerque shifting from groundwater to surface water imported from the Colorado River Basin (sub/ad req):

For 40 years, San Juan-Chama water has been added to the Rio Grande. You could think of it as “bonus water,” and its loss should in theory not hurt the Rio Grande.

No one disputes the cities’ right to use their imported water, and few question the benefits of the cities’ shift to more sustainable supplies.

But, over those decades, New Mexico has become accustomed to the water’s presence in the river, and water managers are struggling to understand the implications of its loss.

“The river had gotten pretty used to having this extra water,” said Elaine Hebard, a member of the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly.

Farmers and the environment could feel the pinch.

Did the Imperial Irrigation district give away $246 million worth of water last year?

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This is one of those headline cheats that my journalism friends heap merciless scorn upon, the question lead for which the answer is “no”.

Sometimes thinking through the implications of the doctrine of prior appropriation pretzels my brain. The idea, in short, is that the people who were there first get to use the water, and the people who came next get whats left over, and the people after that get what’s left over after that, lather, rinse, repeat.

But suppose I’m first in line but the people who came later want to make a deal. Can I sell them part of my share, just this one year, when they really, really need it?

But what if I just don’t take my share this year for some other reason? Not because I made the deal with the junior users, but just because, say, the weather was lousy and I left part of my land fallow, or it rained a lot and I didn’t need to divert. Can the junior appropriator just take my unused leftovers without so much as a by-your-leave?

Which brings us to this cryptic William Roller story in the Imperial Valley Press about this year’s underutilization of Colorado River water by the Imperial Irrigation District:

Has the Imperial Irrigation District been giving away its allotment of unused water to the Metropolitan Water District without compensation?

The unused water amounts to 245,966 acre-feet for 2010, according to preliminary figures on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Web page.

Some maintain the water has a value of $1,000 per acre-foot. And that means it could be worth nearly $246 million.

Here’s where the story is frustratingly cryptic. “Some maintain”? Who? What’s their argument? In what forum did they raise it? Whatever, the answer is “no”.

Soft farming prices during 2010 resulted in farmers not growing as much as previously, so there was less agriculture irrigation and less water usage, and for the two prior years also, King said.

“Not only that, but we had five to six inches of rain, when we normally get 2.85 inches,” King said. “And we almost doubled that. So that reflects on usage.”

No water users are compensated for water, King said. Whenever one of the seven party signatories cannot use its allocation of water, by law, the next priority user has rights to the water.

Expensive water

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Over at Columbia University’s “Water Matters”, Debbie Cook has been making the case against desalination as a water supply solution. She has a number of lines of argument, but it all boils down (pardon the pun) to cost, and to a series of societal tradeoffs that flow from that. Consider Saudi Arabia’s decision to use its plentiful energy resources to provide desalinated drinking water:

According to some reports, water rates in Saudi Arabia cover less than half of one percent of the cost of producing desalinated water. Subsidizing water, food, and gasoline is seen as a way of sharing the country?s oil wealth. But the absence of any price signal has led to some of the highest per capita water consumption in the world, and highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Saudi Arabia now ranks 6th in greenhouse gas emissions, half directly attributable to desalination. Authorities are straining under the burden of water and energy demands pushed by burgeoning population growth. Despite allocating $150 billion over the next five years for power and water projects, they have been forced to abandon their goal of becoming self-sufficient in wheat production. With natural gas in short supply, the feedstock to produce electricity will continue to be oil. The irony is that oil revenues make up 90% of the Saudi government?s budget so every barrel diverted to water is a barrel that cannot be sold on the market to fill state coffers.

More of Cook’s desal arguments here and here.

“He called the place Lonely Dell, and it was not a misnomer”

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Lee's Ferry, 1921

Lee's Ferry, 1921, courtesy USBR

Lee’s Ferry is a storyteller’s delight, one of those connect-the-dots places that is simply irresistible. On the Colorado River just downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, it is where John D. Lee was sent into hiding (exile?) following the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where John Wesley Powell split his second Grand Canyon trip in two, where the Colorado River Compact splits upper and lower basin water, where the USGS today measures the great river’s flow.

A delightful gift arrived in the mail yesterday, the two-volume collection of essays from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s centennial symposium in 2002. It’s full of mineable treasure. For today, there’s this wonderful little bit of business. Before the big dams, John D. Lee made little ones:

In addition to constructing lodging, Lee quickly turned his attention to the establishment of a garden patch. One of his first tasks was to complete a dam on the Paria River to impound water for irrigation. Thus began a continual battle to maintain the dam in the face of frequent floods and to keep the crops watered during times of drought.

It’s a battle that, on a larger scale, is in some sense still going on. From Lee’s Ferry, the Colorado River and the Development of the Bureau of Reclamation, by Douglas E. Kupel.