BLOG
How We Drained California Dry
April 7th, 2023
Via the MIT Technology Review, an article on the story of remaking California and taking the water until there was nothing left: The wind finally blew the other way last night and kicked out the smoke from the burning Sierra. Down here in the flatland of California, we used to regard the granite mountain as […]
Read more »Government Wants To Pay Western Farmers To Save Water By Not Farming
April 7th, 2023
Via Fast Company, an interesting look at a proposed government plan to pay western U.S. farmers to save water by not farming: Tom Brundy, an alfalfa grower in California’s Imperial Valley, thinks farmers reliant on the shrinking Colorado River can do more to save water and use it more efficiently. That’s why he’s installed water sensors […]
Read more »Colorado River Is Running Dry, But Nobody Wants to Talk About the Mud
April 7th, 2023
Courtesy of The New York Times, commentary on how the Colorado River is running dry, but nobody wants to talk about the mud: It’s difficult to fathom how the Colorado River could possibly carve the mile-deep chasm that is the Grand Canyon. But if one thinks of the river as a flume of liquid sandpaper […]
Read more »Granting Rights to Great Salt Lake: A Debate
April 7th, 2023
Via the National Review, commentary against the idea of granting rights to Great Salt Lake: The nature rights movement keeps making inroads into establishment thinking — and people keep ignoring the threat. The concept has now been advocated in a major opinion piece in the New York Times. Utah’s Great Salt Lake is shrinking — a […]
Read more »Great Salt Lake: In Danger Of Disappearing
April 7th, 2023
Courtesy of the New York Times, commentary on the drought threatening the Great Salt Lake: From a distance, it is hard to tell whether the three figures walking the salt playa are human, bird or some other animal. Through binoculars, I see they are pelicans, juveniles, gaunt and emaciated without water or food. In feathered […]
Read more »California Plans To Replenish Groundwater With Floodwaters
April 7th, 2023
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, an article on California’s plans to replenish drought-depleted groundwater with floodwaters: With torrential rains drenching California, state water regulators have endorsed a plan to divert floodwaters from the San Joaquin River to replenish groundwater that has been depleted by heavy agricultural pumping during three years of record drought. The […]
Read more »