Do you live in the Southwest?

If you've somehow not heard yet that you live in a desert, you should read this article from this month's National Geographic Magazine that talks about the present and future water-related difficulties of our beloved West. I don't think any of it was really news to me, as a water quasi-professional, but this is probably the most widely-read (amongst laypeople) publication I have seen take a stab at the issue (ha! pun!). Give it a read and a think. You think tap water tastes bad now? Just wait. Also, the writer talked to a lot of scientists from Arizona and New Mexico whose work I have read or am familiar with.

In other news, we went on vacation and discovered a new and frightening quasi-state we like to call New Texico. We have a joint blog post planned to detail this place, which means it will be published in a terrifyingly unnecessary three different locations.

Two days in the Valles

This week I spent Wednesday and Thursday up in the Valles Caldera with my advisor. We deployed a few more temperature probes and did some sampling. Mostly we got to hike up a streambed in 1-2 feet of snow with snowshoes strapped to our feet!


I have discovered that my old gaiters do not work all that well. The backs did not stay on my boots, instead resting on my socks, which allowed snow to get into my boots. My feet were therefore damn cold by the end of the first day. Eventually I thawed out. Check out the windblown snow we saw about halfway up:


The second day we hurried up the catchment and did some more sampling up at the top. It was a productive couple of days, and we brainstormed some good ideas for furthering my research. Hopefully things really get moving this winter! I'll hopefully be spending much of the spring (post-snowmelt) up in the Valles.

The Rio Grande in trouble? Who knew?!

The Rio made the list of the top ten most endangered rivers worldwide. The outflow is so low at the Gulf of Mexico that sea water is backing up into the estuary. This is threatening freshwater fish at the end of the river. According to the article, there are 69 species of fish (including the endangered silvery minnow) that are only found in the Rio.
I wish that the government here could enact legislation forcing water conservation. There's little to no grass in this state (unlike the incredible water sink Phoenix), but there's also whackloads of agriculture and (open, evaporating) canals running right through Socorro. But I also know that this kind of legislation won't happen, because people are comfortable and uninformed, and would rather jeopardize the water resources future of the desert than become interested in what is happening. This is the story in pretty much every environmental field today, not just water resources.