Random Thoughts about Water

When this blog first started, no one talked about water resources.  The discussion of water is now in the news daily.  Most of the rhetoric is how to get more of the stuff.  Why…are people getting nervous?

Signs in restaurants occasionally proclaim, “Water served only on request”. Is that comment due to the cost of water or its availability?

Our environment is changing and turtles, frogs, and fish have smaller habitats.  Why isn’t that viewed as important?

Do we need lawns and pools, or . . . do we just want them?

The current water release to Mead Reservoir from Glen Canyon Reservoir is 13 million acre ft. That was an unanticipated, high release made possible by the runoff from the unusually heavy snow pack in Colorado and Utah.  It made many people happy and averted a “drought” warning for Arizona.  Can we count on heavy snow packs in the future?

The release numbers for the last 17 years average 9.69 million acre ft.  That figure is not much above the low numbers of “drought” years which hovered around 8.24 acre ft. 

We seem to get enthusiastic about that number but is it really something to be excited about?

“It is not necessary to change,” remarked Dr. W. Edward Deming, “Survival is not mandatory.”