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Thursday, February 22, 2007
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? for president?
New York Daily News: "The Democratic race for the White House turned abruptly rough yesterday when Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign accused rival Sen. Barack Obama of hypocrisy and the 'politics of trash.'"
"The Democratic front-runner went ballistic over snide comments by a Hollywood mogul who dumped Clinton to throw Obama a glittering $1.3 million fund-raiser.
"The blasts from both camps shattered their vows to run positive campaigns and avoid personal attacks. Yesterday's eruption was also a preview of the nearly two years of campaigning still to come and demonstrated that neither side intends to back away from an attack."
Political Wire: "New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) has agreed to meet with Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) to talk 'about Culver's concerns about his state's leadoff Presidential caucus,' reports the New Hampshire Union Leader."
eyeon08.com: "Georgia moving up primary date. Just peachy. But why should they stay out, with Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina being on or before Feb. 5th."
Captain's Quarters: "The two Republican frontrunners have not yet signed a no-new-taxes pledge, despite the adoption of the pledge by rivals in the campaign. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani so far have not answered the query sent by the Americans for Tax Reform, usually an automatic for GOP nominees."
Political Wire: "A new Strategic Vision (R) poll finds that Democrats in Iowa would choose John Edwards as their party's presidential nominee. Edwards leads among likely caucus voters with 24%, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama tied at 18%. Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack received 14%."
6:38:29 PM 
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Immigration
Denver was part of the ICE sweep today, according to the Rocky Mountain News. From the article, "Three top officials of a nationwide cleaning service were charged Thursday with fraud and tax crimes as part of an ongoing federal investigation that also netted hundreds of illegal immigrants in 18 states, including Colorado. The illegal immigrants were working as janitors for Nevada-based Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, Inc., or RCI, a cleaning contractor for businesses. The workers were swept up early Thursday in 63 locations nationwide, including restaurants such as the House of Blues, Hard Rock Cafe, ESPN Zone, Planet Hollywood, and others, according to a law enforcement official."
Colorado Confidential: "An alliance of immigrant rights groups has released a statement regarding the ICE raids that took place today and yesterday.
"The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), composed of more than 80 organizations, is speaking out against the raids and calling on Congress to reform what they call a 'broken immigration system.'"
"2008 pres"
6:19:00 PM
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Energy policy: Renewable energy
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is stepping up it's collaboration with schools, according to the Denver Post. From the article, "Leaders from the state's top research institutions signed a landmark agreement Wednesday to work together to develop and commercialize renewable-energy technology. The Colorado School of Mines, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory formed a 'Collaboratory' aimed at making Colorado the renewable-energy capital of the nation. Last year, state officials approved $2 million annually for three years to begin research and development while the partners seek matching federal and private funding. Any state funding would have to be repaid if the developments make money in private industry."
"2008 pres"
7:05:19 AM
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Carson City Democratic presidential forum
Here's an article about the Carson City Democratic presidential candidate forum from the Denver Post. They write, "U.S. Sen. Harry Reid kicked off the Democrats' first presidential forum of the campaign by declaring in his home state capital that the 'future of the Democratic Party begins in the West.' But that doesn't necessarily translate into a national airing of regional issues. The war in Iraq, universal health care and union matters were the focal points for the eight presidential hopefuls. Water, environmental and other so- called Western issues were never raised in the two-hour forum, in which candidates answered questions from ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, some submitted by the audience.Additionally, the candidates tried to distinguish themselves from one another, which occasionally resulted in a verbal jab. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards took New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to task for refusing to repudiate her 2002 vote supporting the Iraq war. 'It's not for me to judge,' said Edwards, who also voted for the war but has since said it was a mistake. 'It's between her and her conscience.' That all the major players except Illinois Sen. Barack Obama made it to the event reveals the new clout of Nevada. The state's presidential caucus on Jan. 19 is sandwiched between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary...
"As it has for weeks, the war in Iraq dominated the debate as candidates launched political grenades at President Bush and jockeyed to distinguish themselves from their opponents. Candidates not in Congress were the most critical."
"2008 pres"
7:00:19 AM
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Richardson for president?
Coyote Gulch is a political junkie. Everyone who reads this weblog knows that. Political junkies are fascinated with candidates so we took the opportunity to see Bill Richardson up close at his press conference last night at Centennial Airport.
Governor Richardson was in town for a fundraiser on his way back from the Carson City Nevada Democratic presidential candidate forum. He also introduced his Colorado team.
Richardson said, "The road to the White House runs through Denver." He's excited about the role the West is playing in the 2008 election. Democrats are doing well out here. A few years ago seven of seven Rocky Mountain governors were Republicans. Now five of seven are Democrats.
Governor Richardson feels that the next president, "Must restore the U.S.'s standing around the world, find a path to true energy independence, fix education and work for the middle class."
He hopes that (despite the rumblings earlier in the day from Obama and Clinton) the Democrats in the race will stay positive. This echoes the policy we've seen from the Democrats around Colorado. Westerners can teach the politicians east of the 100th meridian a thing or two.
According to Richardson the country needs a candidate that can, "be electable in all regions of the country." The U.S. is suffering from "enormous divisions" and therefore needs a proven "problem solver." He added that "Denver and Colorado are the center of the Rocky Mountain West. Denver is a financial hub".
Here's the coverage from the Denver Post. From the article, "New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced Wednesday night that he has picked five prominent local Democrats to run his presidential campaign in Colorado. Tom Strickland, Polly Baca, Lawrence Martinez and Erich Bussian were named co-chairs of his Colorado campaign at a news conference in Centennial. The governor selected J.W. Postal to direct the campaign and serve as spokesman. In his picks, Richardson has chosen officials from the traditional party base, Latinos and organized labor."
"2008 pres"
6:52:37 AM
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Managing the Chaffee County RICD
Chaffee County is working on managing their new recreational in channel eiversion water right, according to the Mountain Mail. From the article, "Commissioners discussed the timing of eight 'event days' privy to 1,800 cubic feet per second minimum flows in the Arkansas River based on the decree that was finalized in October. They plan to have the event day window coincide with FIBArk in Salida and any June river event in Buena Vista. Commissioners discussed the issue at their work session in Salida. Currently there is no event in Buena Vista scheduled to coincide with the event days, which are restricted to June in the decree. Buena Vista's second-year Paddlefest is planned for May 18-20, too early to benefit from the event day minimums. However, Paddlefest organizer Earl Richmond said a June event in Buena Vista that would take advantage of the RICD flows is on the drawing board...
"Paddlefest will remain the week before Memorial Day because it is designed as a kickoff to the whitewater season. Flows during last year's event were about 1,750 cubic feet per second, Richmond said, well below the June peak above 2,000 cfs. Paddlefest benefits from the lower flows because it has a significant learn-to-kayak component. 'High flow is great for avid, active paddlers, but really high flows make it hard to learn to kayak on the Arkansas,' Richmond said. In addition to deciding on the eight event days by April 1, commissioners will also have to decide on a 30-day period of minimum flows of 1,400 cfs by May 1. Commissioners directed county staff to place RICD management decisions on a yearly calendar so future staff and commissioners will remember to set RICD flow timing every year."
"colorado water"
6:25:32 AM
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Energy policy: Oil shale development
The meeting in Grand Junction with Shell oil over oil shale development disappointed many that attended, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article, "A meeting Wednesday night in Grand Junction that Royal Dutch Shell billed as a chance to hear the public's concerns about the company's Piceance Basin oil shale research projects and 'definitely implement' public comments turned out to be something a bit different. Shell neither solicited public comments nor took any effort to write them down. The meeting was the third of four public open-house sessions presenting information about Shell's four Piceance Basin oil shale research and demonstration projects, including its private Mahogany Research Site and three other proposed projects on public land. Those three sites are now beginning the state permitting process, which could take about a year. The previous two meetings were held Tuesday in Meeker and Wednesday morning in Rangely. The final meeting is scheduled for Rifle at 9 a.m. today at the Garfield County Fairgrounds exhibit hall. Company spokeswoman Jill Davis said last week Shell wants to hear public feedback about its research plans and said the company will 'definitely implement' the comments it receives at the meetings and alter its state permit applications accordingly. But on Wednesday, after a short presentation outlining general details of Shell's first planned oil shale test, Davis told the crowd gathered in a Grand Junction Double Tree Hotel ballroom to direct questions about the projects to company technical personnel scattered around the room."
"2008 pres"
6:17:00 AM
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Global warming and the West
Here's a short report on the 16th annual Colorado Agricultural Outlook Forum at the Double Tree Hotel in Denver from the Greeley Tribune "reg". From the article, "Is human activity a contributor to global warming? Probably. Is agriculture contributing to warmer temperatures? Maybe. Are greenhouse gases the crux of the problem? No. There are too many variables that are not predictable that all a part of warming temperatures globally, but there are implications of that on Colorado agriculture, two Colorado State University experts said Wednesday...
"[Dennis Ojima, a senior research scientist with the CSU Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory] said there have been climate implications to Colorado agriculture for the past 150 years, but the last five years have been some of the warmest years in recent history, and the world will continue to warm for the next 100 years or so. There has been a .15 degree increase in the past 100 years, but .2 degrees warmer in the winter. 'We may be headed for a climate that will be consistently warmer but not as much variability,' Ojima said. That will result in an increase of growing degree days, which could lead to more crop stress if that is combined with lessening water supplies. Seasonal availability of water may be altered, he said, and extreme weather events could increase. Air pollution also will be a contributor, as both said recent research has indicated that during an upslope weather condition, Front Range pollution is pushed into the mountains and there is an indication mountain precipitation has been reduced by as much as 30 percent."
"colorado water"
6:06:37 AM
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Roaring Fork Watershed meeting tonight in Basalt
The future of the Roaring Fork Watershed is the subject of this article from the Glenwood Springs Independent "reg". From the article, "Mark Fuller knows meetings about water resources sound like a dry topic, but he makes a convincing case that everyone in the Roaring Fork Valley should be interested in a process beginning tonight in Basalt. Fuller, the executive director of the Ruedi Water and Power Authority, is part of a group coordinating a detailed plan for the Roaring Fork watershed. Everyone from ranchers concerned about having enough water to irrigate hay fields to anglers worried about water quality to maintain trout fisheries on streams is needed to develop strategies for future water use in the Roaring Fork Basin, Fuller said.
"So he's hoping that the meeting pulls as many people off the streets as it does water attorneys and utility managers: 'We don't just want it to be a bunch of water geeks talking to other water geeks,' he said. The meeting, from 7:30-9 p.m. at Basalt High School, is officially called the Roaring Fork Watershed Plan. The plan will have two phases; the first will be a 'State of the Watershed' comprehensive report tackling issues like quantity and quality of water. The second phase will be recommendations on topics such as guarding the basin's water against outside interests that covet it...
"Any basin that hasn't studied its needs and made a plan for the future could find any unallocated water tapped for use elsewhere. The Roaring Fork watershed has got some so-called excess water. 'It's certainly got more than other basins in the state,' Fuller said. 'We've got a target on us.' Planning might not prevent additional diversions, he said, but it can assure sufficient compensation and mitigation for diversions."
"colorado water"
5:49:39 AM
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New water storage?
Most water watchers agree that part of the solution to sustainable water supplies is to build new reservoirs. Of course, since we're talking water in the West the experts can't agree about where, when or how large the reservoirs will be. Here's a short article on the subject from the Rocky Mountain News. They write, "Climate change may mean less water in Colorado rivers and streams, but experts can't agree on whether building more reservoirs is a wise investment or a waste of billions. A series of recently released studies on climate change in the West predict more drought, warmer weather and greater water loss because of evaporation. 'The future doesn't portend a new abundance of nature's water. Rather, nature will be taking more water than it's now delivering,' said Martin Hoerling, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder...
"Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and other cities tap the Colorado River in western Colorado and move about 500,000 acre-feet to reservoirs that serve the Front Range...
"Hoerling and other weather researchers said that climate trends argue against building more reservoirs that rely on the Colorado River. 'If you add reservoirs, you are not going to fill them,' he said. The Colorado River serves seven states - Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah in the upper basin and Arizona, California and Nevada in the lower basin. When the 1922 Colorado River Compact divided the water among the states, the annual flow was estimated at 15 million acre-feet. Hoerling said that the recent annual flows are about 13 million acre-feet, but by 2050, climate change may drop that to about 10 million acre-feet - less than what is currently used by all of the states. That could mean there would be no extra water to store in Colorado, which hasn't claimed it's full share of the river, he said. 'You can build all the reservoirs you want, but there are no existing surplus flows to fill them,' he said.
"That's not the conclusion that Chips Barry, manager of Denver Water, draws from the studies. Denver Water supplies 1.2 million homes in Denver and the suburbs. 'It's a powerful argument for building more storage,' Barry said. 'More storage is one of the ways to adapt to climate change.' Barry said the climate studies also found a trend toward episodic periods of heavy precipitation with earlier and heavier runoff seasons. 'When you have a highly variable precipitation pattern, you store as much water as possible in times of plenty,' he said. 'That's the lesson of the West. You need more storage for the swings.' That doesn't mean a revival of the big dam building era that started in the 1960s after the devastating droughts of the 1950s. Barry said that the best dam sites - mountain canyons - already have reservoirs. Environmental issues, political conflicts and costs make new reservoir construction difficult, he said...
"The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which serves Fort Collins, Greeley and other towns in Larimer, Weld and Boulder counties, is studying several new storage projects. 'As we look at the forecasts for less runoff and most of it coming down all at once, we think we need to grab it as fast as we can,' said Brian Werner, the district's spokesman. The district is studying a 500,000 acre-feet reservoir near Maybell in northwestern Colorado to capture the Yampa River flows, he said. The Yampa River flows into the Colorado River, so the project would claim part of the state's share of the river...
"Nolan Doesken, the state's climatologist, said that the recent studies have shifted the discussion from whether there was climate change to 'what do we do about climate change? We know we are grateful for the water-storage projects we have now, but will new ones be cost effective? I have no idea,' he said. 'That decision is the greatest challenge for the combination of science and policy that our part of the country has seen in a long time.'"
"colorado water"
5:42:37 AM
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Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic Variability
Here's a short overview of the National Research Council's conclusions of what is expected for the Colorado River Basin, from the Rocky Mountain News. From the article, "Global warming likely will reduce Colorado River flows in the coming decades, increasing competition for the West's lifeblood liquid, a federal panel said Wednesday. Reduced Colorado River flows also would contribute to more severe, frequent and longer Western droughts, the National Research Council panel concluded in a six-chapter report, Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic Variability [pdf]...
"The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. 'The point that we make is that the technological and conservation operations, although very useful and necessary, will not in the long run constitute a panacea for coping with the limited water supplies in this desert area,' said panel chairman Ernest Smerdon, dean emeritus of the University of Arizona College of Engineering and Mines. The report's projections for the West's future echo a climate- change update issued Feb. 2 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That panel's latest study said the U.S. West is likely to warm around 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. The warming, unless accompanied by increased precipitation, would result in regional drying and reduced stream flows, it said. The new National Research Council document calls for further study of the Colorado River Basin but offers no solutions for the West's water woes...
"'There's not much in here that should be a surprise to anybody,' Eric Kuhn, manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District in Glenwood Springs, said of the new study. 'The big question is, will the water management infrastructure - meaning the big state and federal agencies - adopt it or dismiss it because it's telling them things they don't want to hear?'"
The Denver Post adds, "Water for lawns, showers, fountains and farms will become increasingly scarce in the West, according to a dire new assessment of the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from Wyoming to California. A new report from the National Research Council describes growing pressure from three trends: fast population growth, global warming and a 2,000-year history of recurrent droughts worse than what has been seen in the last 100 years. 'This should be a wake-up call,' said Connie Woodhouse, a climate researcher with the University of Arizona at Tucson and one of the report's 13 authors. 'Water is a precious commodity in the semi-arid West,' Woodhouse said. 'It's not a given. And it's going to become even more precious in the future.'[...]
"The region has heated up more than 2 degrees since 1895. It will continue to warm as people pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to 18 computer models used in a recent United Nations climate report, Smerdon said. That makes snow melt earlier, when reservoir managers aren't always prepared to 'catch' water, and it means more water is lost by evaporation and plants pulling water through their roots and releasing it into the air."
More coverage from the Salt Lake Tribune. They write, "The recent drought the Colorado River basin endured pales in comparison with dry spells from centuries ago. One of these mega-droughts likely will strike again someday. And water managers and scientists need to be prepared, according to a new National Academy of Sciences report. The report looked at studies that examined tree-ring data to assess drought conditions over the past several hundred years. Severe droughts were noted in the late 1500s and the mid-1800s before scientists began installing gauges along the Colorado River, on which most Western states rely heavily as a water source, Connie Woodhouse, a University of Arizona researcher involved with the report, said during a Wednesday tele-conference. While models all project a warmer climate for the Colorado River basin, there is less agreement on the future of precipitation."
Here's another article about the report from KVOA News 4, Tucson. From the article, "Citing several tree-ring studies, which helped write a hydrological history of the Colorado dating back more than 500 years, the scientists concluded that the river is more vulnerable to prolonged, intense droughts than previously thought. The report said temperatures also have risen along the Colorado in recent years and have already affected snowmelt in some areas with long-term warming possibly shrinking the river's flow and increase demand. Growing cities will force states to strike deals with farmers, but even that supply is limited, according to scientists. The report said the combination of threats eventually will overwhelm the seven river states, which have struggled to produce a short-term drought plan."
Here's an article about the report from the Los Angeles Times "reg". California knows a thing or two about trans-basin diversions from the Colorado River. They write, "Global warming will worsen drought and reduce flows on the Colorado River, a key water source for Southern California and six other Western states, according to a report released Wednesday...
"The report acknowledges some uncertainty over whether climate change will alter the amount of precipitation in the basin. Even if it doesn't, Smerdon added, 'the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that warmer temperatures will reduce Colorado River stream flow and water supplies.' That is because the snowpack that feeds the Colorado will shrink as the climate grows hotter. More precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, and the snowpack will melt earlier, diminishing late spring runoff. As the mercury rises, water demands will also increase. There will be more evaporation from croplands and reservoirs, and wild land vegetation will suck more moisture from the soil, reducing runoff."
"colorado water"
5:26:13 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 9:05:17 PM.
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