The week that was, 7/27/2009 – 8/02/2009
Posted on | August 2, 2009 | No Comments
“This is the evening for a renewed call to focus on water …” – Timothy Brick, chairman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (pictured far right), moderating “A National Water Policy Event,” sponsored by the Chronicles Group, Tuesday July 28, 2009 in the US Capitol Visitor Center
“…we estimate that almost 19,000 bottles were not sold and used.” – Stephen Winman in the Santa Fe New Mexican on an art festival serving local tap water instead of bottled
“The ads suggest viewers go to Tappening.com to find out ‘the truth’ about bottled water, or to StartALie.com to spread an untruth.” – New York Times, “An Environmental Group’s Campaign of Wry Lies Against Bottled Water”
Click here for more of The week that was
How it’s done in the desert
Posted on | August 2, 2009 | 4 Comments
A REMORSELESS game of political chess being played out by the two driest states in the country moved inexorably toward checkmate last week in Washington DC.
Mount Wheeler, the peak whose snowmelt feeds this stream in the Great Basin Desert, stands in Nevada. But Wheeler’s water serves Snake Valley, which straddles the Nevada-Utah border.
Congressional maneuvering over which state has the rights to how much of Mt Wheeler’s water began in 2004, when in a land bill pushed by the Nevada delegation, Congress granted right of way for a Las Vegas pipeline that would eventually run hundreds of miles into the Great Basin to tap Snake Valley.
But hours before the vote, Utah Senator Bob Bennett slipped a clause into the bill dictating that no water could be taken from border valleys without Utah’s consent.
As negotiations took months, then years, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy became so incensed by what she regarded as an Utahan “veto” on the Las Vegas pipeline that in 2006 she threatened the editorial board of the Salt Lake Tribune. The longer Utah delayed approval of Las Vegas’ water withdrawals from Snake Valley, she said, “the more uncomfortable it will become for Utah. If they can do it to another state, they can have it done to them, too.”
To read how Nevada retaliated, click here
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Harry Reid > Robert Bennett > Snake Valley
Why cacti have thorns
Posted on | August 1, 2009 | No Comments
High good, low bad: Mead in July
Posted on | August 1, 2009 | No Comments
Lake Mead is the Colorado River Reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and the Republic of Mexico. The Landsat photos (left) compare water levels between 1990-2009. The red rim in the lower right image marks the receding water line.
The maximum elevation is 1,229 feet. The closing elevation for July 2009 was 1,094.20. The lake has dropped 31.53 feet in the last five years.
Click here for year-on-year July comparisons for Lake Mead’s elevation
Political map / weather map
Posted on | July 30, 2009 | No Comments
WEATHER is wild. Water policy is dictated by state. This map is as quick an explanation as any as to why congressional delegates from California and Oregon are pushing for a Comprehensive Integrated Water Policy, to be headed by a water czar. More on that after reading a wad of water and energy bills that passed this week and trying to figure out what is happening in the absence of a water czar, or if a water czar would bring any over-arching reason to these bills and their spend-a-thon.
In the meantime, to be taken to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center, click on the heat wave in Oregon.
To be taken to the weekly drought map, a new version of which was published Thursday, click here.
This post has been updated on Friday, July 31st, to account for the delay in reporting on the import of the movement of the stage armies involved in last Tuesday’s “National Water Policy Event.”
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