The Los Angeles Times reports that tragedy has struck the dinosaurs of Cabazon. Looming over Interstate 10 on the way to Palm Springs, they are the sort of cheesy roadside attraction that makes this country great, an icon of childhood road trips to the desert. It’s the place Pee-wee and Simone cemented their lasting friendship, …
Continue reading ‘C’mon, Simone, let’s talk about *your* big “But”.’ »
Rob Davis at Voice of San Diego has a nice overview of the proposal being considered to build a desalination plant on the coast of Baja, near Tijuana, to provide water for U.S. and Mexican users: Together with the Mexican government, the agencies supplying San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson are studying …
Continue reading ‘Is Desal Really Only an Option at the Margins?’ »
Headed toward the river on my bike yesterday, I ended up riding for a while with an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a while. I mentioned I was working on a Colorado River book (it’s my standard excuse for “not having a lot of miles in my legs”, as the cyclists say) and talk turned …
Continue reading ‘Is it about the alfalfa? Thinking Like a River Basin…’ »
Now that California’s drought is over, the folks in San Diego are back to whining about water rates. A new poll shows: More than half of respondents — 55 percent — said water is too expensive. Among households who pay their own water bills, 48 percent said they are not willing to spend more each …
How China’s surging manufacturing sector helps save water in California: Although California’s population has continued to grow rapidly, water conservation activities and changes in economic structure (notably, less water-consuming manufacturing) have reduced water use enough since the mid-1990s to keep total gross urban water use roughly constant. From the PPIC’s “Managing California’s Water“
When I’m telling stories, I look for the telling example that can represent something deeper – some small but memorable tip to stand in for the rest of the iceberg. There are ways in which Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, the two photojournalists killed this week in Libya, are terrible examples, bad choices as the …
It’s only Tuesday, but I think I can call the Quote of the Week already. Chris Brooks, on who will end up bearing the cost of the externality that is the drying Salton Sea: What typically happens is that the costs are imposed on a large, disinterested constituency – i.e. all the taxpayers of Calif. …
Shaun McKinnon’s great reader piece on the retirement of Larry Dozier after 42 years working western water issues has an interesting coda. The story’s drama is the great tale of Glen Canyon Dam and the 1983 flood. (I like to call it “the year they nearly lost Glen Canyon Dam”, though that’s perhaps a bit …
Economists have a useful framework for thinking about effects of an economic transaction that extend beyond the actors involved in the transaction. They call them “externalities”. They can be good or bad (benefits/costs enjoyed/borne by those not involved), but mostly the conversation revolves around the bad ones. The good ones we tend to take for …
Continue reading ‘California Water: Pricing the Externalities’ »