Aug
31
Is Stream Restoration Working?
August 31, 2010 | 1 Comment
Here in the Pacific Northwest, stream restoration is a growth industry (purely anecdotal – I have not done a study). The big issue is restoration as it relates to the salmon fishery: trying to undo the mess we’ve made of the environment. I’ve been told that the Columbia River produced something like 20 million adult [...]
Aug
22
Watering the Southern High Plains Aquifer
August 22, 2010 | 1 Comment
In May 2009 I posted an item Saving the Ogallala (aka High Plains) Aquifer, in which I reported on an article from the March 2009 Scientific American. The southern portion of the High Plains Aquifer is well-known for drastically lowered groundwater levels because of unsustainable pumping. Schemes have been proposed to recharge the aquifer, generally involving pumping water [...]
Aug
18
Ten Laws of Western USA Water
August 18, 2010 | 1 Comment
Thanks to Lloyd G. Carter for sending these my way. They are the product of Hugh Holub, a water attorney down Arizona way, who has given me permission to post these. You can also find them on his WWW site. Holub was once asked to give a talk summarizing Western water law to non-lawyers, and this [...]
Aug
8
Wally’s Warming World Warning
August 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Time for a shout-out to a remarkable scientist (thanks to columbiawater for alerting me to this). Thirty-five years ago, on this date in 1975, renowned geoscientist Wallace (Wally) Broecker published a seminal paper in Science titled,“Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?“. To say that Broecker was prescient is an understatement. Here is the abstract: If [...]
Aug
7
Voodoo Volumetric Analysis: Relative Volumes of the Gulf of Mexico and Dispersant
August 7, 2010 | 1 Comment
A Tweet rolled across my screen the other day. I can’t recall the exact verbiage but it was something like this: Gulf volume: 643 quadrillion gallons; dispersant volume: 1.5 million gallons. What’s the problem? Sounds like the Tweeter had a great point: the volume of the Gulf is so huge relative to the volume of [...]
Aug
4
Two Reports: 1) Western Water Management Case Studies; 2) Western Water in the 21st Century
August 4, 2010 | 1 Comment
Today, like all days, is Western Water Day! Two blockbuster reports! 1) Cherise Estes just sent me this report released by the Family Farm Alliance on 30 July 2010: Western Water Management Case Studies. Download Final_Western_Water_Management_Report From her email: The report discusses several creative and successful ways that scientists and agricultural leaders in the Western [...]
Aug
2
The Western Governors’ Association and the Western States Water Council will sponsor a two-day workshop in DC, 14-15 September 2010, on: Drought, Climate and Water: Using Today’s Information and Designing Tomorrow’s Services. Here is a copy of the flyer: Download Western States Water Council Conf Info PURPOSE: To bring together a diverse group of federal, tribal, [...]
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