Day: February 25, 2018

A look at the history of #GlenCanyon Dam #ColoradoRiver #COriver

A high desert thunderstorm lights up the sky behind Glen Canyon Dam — Photo USBR

Here’s a in-depth look at the history of Glen Canyon Dam from Reuben Wadsworth writing for the St. George News. Click through and read the whole article and check out the impressive gallery of photos. Here’s an excerpt:

To those who opposed the dam, Glen Canyon’s history reads like an obituary about the loss of an incomparable sandstone and water wonderland boasting a plethora of Native American ruins, emerald hanging gardens and a few spectacular natural bridges – a place to truly commune with nature and to find complete solitude since few made the effort to traverse the river along the canyon’s stretch.

Those on the other side of the issue feel the dam has improved Glen Canyon – now providing greater access to its breathtaking contrast of towering crimson sandstone walls and vast expanses of crystal blue water.

No matter what side one is on, the history of the grand red rock spectacle in Southern Utah and northern Arizona is a compelling one.

Welcome to the age of climate migration — Rolling Stone Magazine

GOES East Hurricane Harvey image.

From Rolling Stone Magazine (Jeff Goodell):

Near Flagstaff, I pulled into a service station and parked next to a Subaru with the words “We Survived Hurricane Harvey, Orange, Texas” scrawled on the back window in bright-pink letters. The mud-splattered car was loaded with luggage, boxes and a guitar case. A middle-aged woman and a scruffy man with wild brown hair pulled themselves out, looking road-weary and haggard. The man popped open the hood and fiddled with some wiring.

I nodded to the words on their back window. “How bad was Harvey?”

“Bad,” the woman said. She introduced herself as Melanie Elliott. “We had to get out of there.”

“It was a fucking disaster,” the man said, bent under the hood. His name was Andrew McGowan. “We got swamped.”

Orange, I later learned, is an old industrial seaport near the Louisiana border, population 18,643. The town has been hit repeatedly by recent hurricanes: In 2005, Rita savaged the city; three years later, Ike breached the city’s levee and flooded the streets with as much as 15 feet of water. Three people died. “We were just dealing with water all the time, constant flooding,” McGowan continued. “The whole place is going under.”

“Harvey was it for us,” Elliott added. “Too much water, we can’t deal with this anymore. We are going to San Diego.”

“What are you going to do there?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” McGowan said. “I’m gonna play some guitar and see what comes along.”

As they piled back into their Subaru and headed toward the highway, I thought of the old Woody Guthrie song about the farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl: “We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in/We rattled down that highway to never come back again.”

Does messaging with fear really work? — @KHayhoe

“If people don’t care about climate change, the best way to get them on board is to scare the pants off them, right?” — Katharine Hayhoe

West Greeley Conservation District to hold first ag symposium, March 14-15, 2018

Sugar beets via UC Berkeley

From the West Greeley Conservation District (Rona Johnson) via The Greeley Tribune:

The West Greeley Conservation District will conduct its first Northeast Colorado Progressive Ag Symposium on March 14-15 at Island Grove Park, 501 N. 14th Ave. in Greeley. The symposium is free but the conservation district requires attendees to RSVP by March 6 so they can get a head count for lunch.

The first day of the symposium will focus on soil, including topics such as soil health and no-till practices. The second day will feature water and include presentations that address irrigation methods and conservation, among other topics.

Kandee Nourse, district manager for the West Greeley Conservation District, said they would like to do something similar to this event every year, depending on the popularity of this inaugural symposium, which includes speakers from other states who may have some new ideas or technologies that might be of interest in this area.

The keynote presenter, David Montgomery, a MacArthur Fellow and professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington, is an internationally recognized geologist who studies landscape evolution and the effects of geological processes on ecological systems and human societies.

» John Stulp, the special policy adviser to the governor for water and interbasin compact committee director, is charged with bringing together a mixture of ideas and pathways for a water plan that balances Colorado’s future water needs.

» Dan Rudnick, an assistant professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will present information about irrigation management.

» Gregory Scott, a certified professional soil scientist, will address soil health principles and the history of the soil health movement.

Symposium attendees also will hear weather analysis from Russ Schumacher, an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and editor of the journal, “Monthly Weather Review.”

» Rick Bieber will use his farm and soils as an example of how everyone can feel good about soil care.

» Jason Von Lembke, vice president of land and resource management from The Bromley Companies, is the project manager for the Subsurface Irrigation Efficiency Project, a 165-acre research farm in Kersey, where they collaborate with Colorado State University to study subsurface drip irrigation, water efficiencies and conservation, crop/water coefficients and collaboration between agriculture and oil and gas interests.

Organizers are still working to secure speakers for the event.

The event also will include booths, but the “people who are coming aren’t selling anything, they will teach people about getting soil moisture from plants and not necessarily the soil itself, for example,” Nourse said.