Reading

In Amazonia, a holistic anthropological trip through the recent history of a river community.

Mr. Raffles's most interesting point concerns the scientist/ subject relationship: one gathers a few facts to take back for synthesis and a presentation about the effect of people on Amazonian hydro features, while the other lives with the river and makes subtle distinctions about the natural and human politics occurring there.

So, Raffles proceeds to tell the story of a tributary by telling the historical and personal stories of the people there, by way of explaining the human/ nature relationship. All this with a healthy dose of sociological theoretical jargon and environmental philosophy.

Lake Ralph Hall

Fannin Co Commissioners approved, 4-0, a contract with UTRWD, to proceed developing Lake Ralph Hall on the North Sulphur River. Fannin County will get about 15 percent of the water in the lake, up from and original 0 percent.

By Vicki Graves
Herald Democrat

BONHAM — Construction of Lake Ralph Hall on the North Sulphur River in Fannin County won support of the Fannin County Commissioners Court, which voted 4-0 Monday to approve a contract with Upper Trinity Regional Water District of Lewisville.
...
After the meeting Commissioner Pat Hilliard said the county will get about 15 percent of the water.

“We started out getting zero and now we’ll get a little bit more. We tried to get a little better deal for Fannin County and I had hoped for a lot more water and money. Even a nickel per gallon on 30 million gallons per day comes up to a big chunk of change.”

There was no mention during public session of when purchase of property or construction will begin but Hilliard said he believes the county judge will be calling Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Austin soon to remove sanctions Fannin County previously submitted in opposition to the lake.

UTRWD will now begin dealing with the landowners, he added, saying that many people who live in that area really want the lake and many others really don’t want it.

Land and Water Conservation Fund

The National Park Service's Land and Water Conservation Fund provides matching grants for local govts and states to acquire parkland. The 09 Bush budget proposes drastic cuts.

Insufficiently fundilated links

Albuquerque suggests watering by the numbers

Big Bend Brewster County Groundwater Conservation District is considering exporting water from a Marathon well.

Amarillo is test drilling the Santa Rosa Aquifer, underneath the Ogallala and saltier, too.

Athens is considering reuse of their municipal wastewater to supplement Lake Athens.

More on Indian Water

I noticed that High Country News has an article about the Navajo are working out their water rights, and dealing with internal conflict as they try to cash in their heritage water.

Jeff Sachs on Developing World Water

Jeff Sachs, of Columbia Univ, has a new development book, and one of the chapters is on pressure on water supplies in the developing world. The blogger is Tyler Cowen, a moderate to conservative economist.

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment, but Cowen makes a good
point about subsidizing water for agriculture. I remember reading
recently that some of the California Imperial Valley farmers are
starting to sell their water rights because that's more profitable
than growing, and it's very profitable because they get their water
below cost in the first place, courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation
and taxpayer money.

I'm dumbfounded that there aren't tighter restrictions on what farmers using essentially public water can and can't do.

From MR

Chapter five of Common Wealth is called "Securing Our Water Needs," an
important topic but one neglected by most economists. One lesson is
that climate change will put a big stress on water supplies. So far,
so good, but the recommendations start with greater international
cooperation:


A first step, at least, would be to focus on the hardest-hit lands,
specifically the world's drylands. Fortunately, these are covered by
the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, which has 191 member
governments as signatories. Unfortunately, the treaty as it now
stands is little known and has little clout and financial backing.
Rather than reinvent the treaty, however, it would be better to
reinvigorate it.

I would say it needs invigoration, not reinvigoration. It is no
accident that the Convention has little clout and little financial
backing. Many such Conventions are toothless objects, designed to
appeal to a least common denominator within the process of the
Convention itself (recall, it has 191 signatories). No one is opposed
to "international cooperation" but it is no accident that truly
international bodies have to either find a way to make profit (e.g.,
the World Bank lends to China) or they are usually very strapped for
funds. That's just not where the political rents are and that isn't
going to change.

Since Sachs calls this a "first step," his position is in some sense
invulnerable. Whatever you really think should be done can be called
the next step. Sachs writes, however, that the next step is more
finance if I understand him correctly he wants to increase funding by
more than a factor of 100). I would prefer finance from national
governments, or even from the states or provinces, than finance at the
level of international organizations. Most of the 191 signatories
just aren't that good at R&D, funds accountability, or even technology
adoption.

I might add that national governments are the ones that subsidize the
price of water to ridiculously low levels, most of all for
agriculture. My first step is to remove all these water subsidies,
allow water prices to rise, institute more water trading, and then see
which innovations the private sector decides to finance (hmm...those
are my first four steps). One role for government would be to ensure
that patent law does not hinder international transfer of worthwhile
innovations, a point which Sachs makes in other contexts. That sounds
less glamorous than a big international plan, but I think it has a
better chance of succeeding.
"

May is American Wetlands Month

Here's the scoop

Amarillo's new pipeline

Also via B+C's Texas Water News, Amarillo has started engineering on a pipeline to bring in water from a new, 40 million gallon a day well field northeast of the city.

"People don't think about it, but north of Amarillo is downhill," Atkinson said.

That means moving a 4-foot wide column of water 170 feet higher to the city, a distance of more than 18 miles.

For scale, water towers are 120 feet tall.

When both phases are complete, production will be up to 40 million gallons a day. Running at full capacity every day, the pipeline could carry 14.6 billion gallons per year. That rate would empty Lake Meredith, at its current level, in two years.

On average, each well would be capable of pumping 1 million gallons a day, or about 700 gallons per minute.

Golf Courses Less Evil with the help of Audubon Society

Via B+C's Texas Water News, several DFW courses are working on certification under the Audubon Society's Cooperative Sanctuary program, which promotes reduction in watering and water reuse, less chemical use, and wildlife management. Course managers say they've cut water usage by as much as 50 percent and don't apply fertilizer and pesticide to areas meant for animal use.

Southwest Hydrology

The new issue of Southwest Hydrology came in my mail a couple of days ago, and it's about over-saltiness

Lake Ralph Hall moving along

Thomas Taylore and UTRWD say that negotiations with Fannin County have worked out commissioners' concerns with Lake Ralph Hall's effects on the county, and that planning could advance soon.

For the past couple of years, county commissioners have opposed the construction of the lake because the plan did not meet their requirements on four specific areas: economic development, the handling of roads and infrastructure, the reduction of taxable land, and the distribution of surface water throughout the county.

Taylor says now all of those concerns have been worked out with the county.

"Challenges are to be sensitive to the environment to be sensitive to the neighborhood be sensitive to the desires of property owners so that it will be a benefit."

Outreach

The fourth annual Trinity River Run was this weekend, and runners got to see the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge under construction.

Interesting vacation spot

Cuatro Cienegas, in Coahuila. It's a valley biokingdom home to phosphorus-free mineral pools clear as a bell and the stromatolites that live in them.

Documentary of the Week, consolation prize

...goes to the TPWD docu narrated by Walter Cronkite called Texas: The State of Springs

you would think it might be free to the public, but it's not. I saw another, similar TPWD docu narrated by long, tall Ray Benson called Texas: the State of the Water , but I can't find any reference to it. It recently played on Denton public acces, the The State of Springs was playing on PBS, I think

Documentary of the week: The Unforseen

about Gary Bradley and the coalescence of Save our Springs against his development over the Edwards Aquifer in the late '80s

watch the trailer for The Unforseen

El Chamizal

I ran across this neat map of El Chamizal, an uncertainty in the bed of the Rio Grande at El Paso/ Juarez. When the river shifted, it made a sort of island with no real jurisdiction and moved a few hundred acres from Mexico to Texas. The problem was big enough to require a treaty and brought JFK to town.

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/252-a-river-runs-through-it-the-cham\
izal-dispute-1895-1963/

My thoughts are echoed by the first comment: how can half a square
mile of land lead to a concrete channel, dislocation of families, and
a treaty? It the Rio Grande had water, it wouldn't endure such an insult.


FYI, this is a great blog: they publish some neat weird and alternate
history maps, among other things.