After all my whining about our stage 1 moderate drought emergency down here in Carlsbad, NM; compleat with stage 1 water restrictions (a mere slight inconvenience), it has rained. Oh, how it has rained! It has rained here, and it has rained there, and mostly it has rained the bejeezus out of Loving, where entire roads have been merrily washing away.
Anyway, it rained. There is also a distinct possibility - dare I say likelihood? that it will rain a bunch more between now and fall.
It has not, however, rained in South Central Texas, that I've noted. And I do watch the map, the wonderful drought monitor map that a Texan Kossack so kindly pointed out when I was whinging in an unmitigated manner about our borderline drought/abnormally dry conditions here a few weeks back.
We are still on stage 1 water restrictions though. I kind of suspect it's because the proud forefathers of the City of Carlsbad, some of whom were highly instrumental in ensuring we had really good proprietary rights to water (the Tracys come to mind), didn't manage to get it sufficiently down the pipe to the later fathers, as to how to keep the boat floating. I'm talking about these later city politicians who have been carrying on ever since I got here in 1998 about how "Carlsbad Needs To Grow!"
I think perhaps what failed to be assimilated was this: just because you have great water rights, doesn't mean you can manage a bunch of citizens if you let your infrastructure fall apart, or if your population suddenly swells because of all those FLETC cadets living in Artesia who came down here to live when they ran out of housing in Artesia (thank you Dick Cheney!) and suddenly your wishes have all come true! No vacant housing! Lots of new residents shopping at Albertson's, paying taxes, and...watering their yards. Taking baths. Just think of it; all those FLETC cadets being lured down here into the hinterlands of Drought Central. Whose idea was that, anyway?
And wells running down. I spent some time last week reading the local newspaper Forum Topix, and catching up on previous threads about teh water rationing. Response was all over the place...and, that's good! Because previously it was kind of all "I LUVS me some lawn! (taunt, taunt)" and "I PAY for the water and they will pry it out of my cold dead hose!" Now it's: "We're in a DROUGHT here and what on earth are we talking about gardens for?" and "Miep's suggestions about water conservation are good!" and "How about all those people with golf courses? How about the Country Club?"
Well, the country club has its own wells and water rights, but in any case: Progress! here on the CCA Forum Topix Front (last I looked at it; I haven't dared lately.)
The city wells are about 12 miles SE of the city, and the individuals with the water rights are often near the Pecos too, at times even closer, like just down the street. They don't have to deal with this water rationing thing; the State of New Mexico has been buying up water rights from people (by buying desert property with water rights) and retiring the rights so we can meet our compact with Texas, which we did, and that prevented a priority call on the Pecos, which would have resulted in people with junior water rights in New Mexico having to deal with stuff like (in at least a few cases) not being able to water their giant lawns in the north end of town. Y'know, the part the river goes right by. The part north of Lea St (I live just north of Lea). The Pecos hies off to the east after that, also fed by Dark Canyon Draw. One can only wonder where the Pecos might have gone if humans hadn't been fooling around with it.
Oh, wait! I have a flood plain map, a digital camera, and a Flickr account!
Here's a photo. God I love maps. Hey, did you know that Google Maps has Street View now? Ineffingcredible! You can see your house, perhaps! You could see MY house if I'd give out the street address! (no such luck, suckers!) Check it out, really; it's awesome. The big street information companies have been hiring people to drive around and photograph stuff for the GPS manufacturers, to make sure one way streets are such and the streets are even there, etc., when you ask for location finding instructions from Google. You can click on parts of the photos and drag around and see all sorts of things! Spy on what your neighbors of ten years ago were doing with their property last year! Oh, man!
Back to Texas and their water rights: I'm all for that, because I'm all for rivers getting to the sea. It was a bit funny awhile back though, reading about how the State was trying to sell off the desert without the water rights, having purchased it and not known what to do with it. "What can you do with that?" people would write on Topix. Still, I thought I would like to buy it, if I was rich; just so I could keep the humans off of it. But then, my life's fantasy is to run the Nature Conservancy, as Head Tyrant.
Back to the nitty-gritty - Yeah, the wells run down, and the water gets more salty/briny; this isn't just about NaCL; we have all those other salts here, those lime salts we have here, for instance. The ones the caves are made out of. The kinds that make your teeth more healthy, one can only hope. But dang, there is a lot of white stuff that will precipitate out of our tap water here, given half a chance (boil it a bit? Make ice cubes?) and lately I've been seeing it on stray patches of my yard. It does tend to tie up the H2O, that stuff.
So, the idea here is to get it across to people that water rationing isn't a CT engendered to take away THEIR right to water THEIR lawns ALL DAY LONG DURING 100oF WEATHER IF THEY FEEL LIKE IT.
It's about what happens when the water salts up too much. Everybody's boat may well float, should they be personally involved with boats; but their plants will in many cases sink, and their tap water will not get tastier.
Fortunately for us...it's raining. Fortunately for us, our summer monsoon hasn't been relocated to wherever the climate change gods have in mind (if any of you listening readers work for them, will you please drop me a note? Climate is quite the salable item here, marketing-wise).
But those people in South Central Texas continue to be screwed, last I checked. I've read stuff about global warming models suggesting the drying will start at the equator and work on up. Maybe we're only in our last hurrah here, getting South Central TX and maybe some of Mexico's rain, before it moves on up into...Colorado? That would make sense. They have mountains there, too. Lots of them. Our mountains to the west are a big factor in why we have water here.
Do I have any friends in Colorado? Perhaps not; only strangers I haven't met. I can work with that. I can. Hi!
Oh, and I forgot! Good thing I remembered now, before I got into some of those tedious updates - thanks to that guy who pens XKCD. I have gotten into reading the back comix on that site the last few days, and I do believe it's done me good! You go, geek!