Sunday, January 20, 2008

? for President? Josh Marshall: "A number of commentators are arguing that Mitt's victory in Nevada yesterday can be discounted because of the heavy turnout of coreligionist Mormons who voted almost unanimously for Romney. But as our numbers maven Eric Kleefeld pointed out to me last night, even if you exclude all the Mormons who caucused in Nevada, Romney still would have had more than twice the support of the candidate who came in second, Ron Paul." "2008 pres" 9:01:20 PM

Delegate count Political Wire: "There are 4,050 Democratic delegates at stake in the primaries and caucuses (excluding delegates from Florida and Michigan, which violated party nominating rules.) The winner of the nomination needs 2,026 delegates. There are 2,380 Republicans delegates at stake (accounting for reduced delegate totals in Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wyoming for violating party rules.) The winner of the nomination needs 1,191 delegates." Click through for the current counts. "2008 pres" 8:56:43 PM

Iraq Juan Cole: "Andrew Bacevich eviscerates the Iraq War party with this passionate and clear-sighted essay on 'the Surge to Nowhere' in WaPo. He points out that the real motivation behind last year's troop escalation was to avoid popular outrage building in the US electorate to the point where the troops were pulled out. He observes that the argument for the 'success' of the 'surge' is purely a tactical one. When viewed from the vantage point of grand strategy, the Iraq War is as much a failure as it has always been. "If someone came to you six years ago and said that for only $2 trillion, you could have for your colony a burned out country, a failed state, and a semi-permanent incubator of terrorism and hatred against the US, would you have ponied up the money? That's what you've got, and that is what it cost you. Detroit could have used some of that money. New Orleans could have used some of that money. Appalachia has lots of schools that need to be painted." "2008 pres" 9:15:46 AM

? for President? Oliver Willis: "Ron Paul beat Rudy Giuliani in South Carolina, 4% to 2%. Ron Paul beat Rudy Giuliani in Nevada, 14% to 4%. Ron Paul beat Rudy Giuliani in Michigan, 6% to 3%. Ron Paul beat Rudy Giuliani in Iowa, 10% to 4%. Who is the candidate who appeals only to a small fringe of the party again?" The Moderate Voice: Can it be? After weeks of mad scrambling, are there finally two real front-runners in the 2008 presidential races? It looks that way as John McCain capped an extraordinary comeback by sneaking by Mike Huckabee in South Carolina, a state that has played king-maker by going for the eventual Republican nominee in every primary since 1980 while in Nevada Hillary Rodham Clinton scored a victory as glittering as the Las Vegas Strip. Although Baptist preacher Huckabee is a Southerner in a Southern state where 60 percent of GOP voters identify themselves as evangelicals, South Carolinians opted for experience over religious preference in handing McCain a three-percentage point win. That was only half of Clinton's six-point margin over Barack Obama, but McCain's win is the more impressive because the field was deeper and he was able to cast aside another round of attacks in a primary that had derailed his 2000 bid. Neither win represented a knockout punch. But with John Edwards again playing third fiddle and getting a mere 4 percent of the Nevada vote, his presidential bid is over if he cannot do well in the Democratic primary in South Carolina next Saturday. Meanwhile, Fred Thompson sleepwalked to a distant third in South Carolina and talk of his campaign being revitalized now seems hollow. If he has any sense, he'll follow Edwards out the door... The Democrats are as fired up as the Republicans aren't, and the turnout in Nevada, the first Western contest of the year, was 10 times that of the 2004 caucuses. Clinton did especially well among women and Hispanics. A majority of the latter -- many of whom are casino and hotel workers whose powerful union had endorsed Obama -- had been expected to go for the Illinois senator, but once again the polls were wrong as Clinton won six of the nine so-called casino precincts. Older voters also went for Clinton, while Obama got nearly 80 percent of the black vote. Mitt Romney, who turned tail in South Carolina and headed out to Nevada after polls showed that he was trailing badly, swept the field in the Nevada Republican caucuses on the strength of the state's substantial Mormon population. MSNBC had called the race for him with zero percent of the vote reported. Ballsy, eh? By the way, Romney and Clinton lead in national convention delegate counts, Clinton by a substantial margin. So do we really have two genuine front-runners with McCain and Clinton notching two consecutive wins each? Or are they merely the flavors of the week? Political Wire: "Sen. John McCain won a narrow victory in South Carolina on Saturday, but the final results and the exit poll continue to show a very fractured Republican party without a single candidate who has emerged as a consensus choice. Once again the devil is in the details, and anyone who digs through the exit poll will find that the GOP race is still wide open." "2008 pres" 9:07:19 AM

Climate change: The earth is a beautifully complex system Colorado Confidential is running an piece on 2007 being the second warmest year on record. The thumb above is a satellite photo of arctic sea ice last September. Click here for a shot from September 2005. From the article: 2007 was tied with 1998 for the second warmest year in the last 100 years, according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The news is only the latest in an unbroken string of "warmest years" as measured by average global surface temperatures. The eight warmest years in the GISS records have all come since 1998 and the 14 warmest years since 1990. According to NASA: The greatest warming in 2007 occurred in the Arctic, and neighboring high latitude regions. Global warming has a larger affect in polar areas, as the loss of snow and ice leads to more open water, which absorbs more sunlight and warmth. Snow and ice reflect sunlight; when they disappear, so too does their ability to deflect warming rays. The large Arctic warm anomaly of 2007 is consistent with observations of record low geographic extent of Arctic sea ice in September 2007. "As we predicted last year, 2007 was warmer than 2006, continuing the strong warming trend of the past 30 years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases," said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS. "2008 pres" 9:04:34 AM

Lake Pueblo: Winter storage The winter storage program at Lake Pueblo is on track, according to a report at this week's meeting of the Southeastern Water Conservancy District, reports The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article: Lake Pueblo is filling up, but at the current rate there is no danger of spilling water stored in excess-capacity accounts. "By March 15, we'll have a 5,000 acre-foot cushion," Roy Vaughan, head of the Pueblo office of the Bureau of Reclamation, said at the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District meeting Thursday. "We don't know what everyone will do with their water at that point." March 15 is the date the four-month winter water storage program ends, and at that time irrigation flows again are passed through Pueblo Dam. Capacity of Lake Pueblo after April 15 is 256,949 acre-feet in order to maintain space to contain floods. Currently, there are almost 209,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Pueblo. The bureau is moving water into Lake Pueblo from Twin Lakes and Turquoise Lake at a rate of 200 cubic feet per second, or 400 acre-feet per day, in order to make room for what looks like a big runoff this spring, Vaughan said. Plans are to bank 18,000 acre-feet by March 15. Natural inflows into Lake Pueblo, including winter storage and contract storage, will add another 25,000 acre-feet, bringing the total to more than 252,000 acre-feet. "The snowpack at first looked like it was going to be below normal, but now it's almost 150 percent," Vaughan said. Snowpack measured 139 percent of normal in the Roaring Fork basin, where water from the Fryingpan River is diverted through the Boustead Tunnel into Turquoise Lake. Snowpack in the Arkansas River basin was 143 percent of normal as of Thursday. Snowpack accumulation in March and April ultimately will determine water supply availability, as well as the rate the snow melts. For the past five years, snowmelt has occurred earlier than usual... Winter water storage is at the highest level in years, with more than 83,000 acre-feet throughout the system, said Steve Witte, Water Division 2 engineer. There also are 23,000 acre-feet of 2007 winter storage water in Lake Pueblo that must, under the winter storage decree, be evacuated by May 1. "That's above the five-year average, above last year and above the 18-year average," Witte said. Approximately one-third of winter water is stored in Lake Pueblo at the present time, while the rest is in off-channel storage maintained by ditch companies or in John Martin Reservoir. The Pueblo Board of Water Works also has begun refilling Clear Creek Reservoir, which was up to more than 2,300 acre-feet by the end of December. Through December, the water board stored more than 40,400 acre-feet of water in four reservoirs, a 3,400 acre-foot increase compared to a year ago. "colorado water" 8:49:38 AM

Aurora long term contract with Reclamation Arkansas Native LLC has filed another motion to intervene in the Lower Arkansas Water Conservancy District's lawsuit with Reclamation over the Aurora long-term storage contract, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article: Arkansas Native LLC's motion to intervene was denied this week by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham because the group's lawyers failed to show they had consulted with other attorneys to work out issues, as required by federal court rules. In a new filing, Arkansas Native listed its efforts to consult with attorneys representing the Bureau of Reclamation, Aurora and the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. The group also explained in the filing that its original motion was timed because attorneys believed they had met the rule's requirements after five attempts to confer with other attorneys. The filing also indicates the group's attorneys were concerned Aurora would file a motion to stay a related state water court motion that the federal filing is predicated upon. The new filing indicated Lower Ark attorney Peter Nichols could not support or oppose a Jan. 9 motion to intervene until the Lower Ark board gave him direction at its Jan. 16 meeting. The Lower Ark this week voted to support Arkansas Native's intervention. Reclamation and Aurora have said they will oppose intervention. Arkansas Native is a group of four water rights owners, Chieftain Publisher Bob Rawlings, former Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District President Wally Stealey, former state lawmaker Bob Shoemaker and Wiley banker Frederick Esgar. More Coyote Gulch coverage here, here, here and here. "colorado water" 8:34:04 AM

Snowpack From The Denver Post, "Colorado's snowpack has declined slightly in the past week, from 127 percent of the 30-year average to 121 percent Saturday. But the cold weather will make sure it does not begin melting early. And more snow is falling in the mountains." "colorado water" 8:15:28 AM

Water policy: A perfect storm is approaching It's great to be at the top of the hill, as Colorado is, with waterways flowing out of the state on down to other users, getting first crack at the most basic of life's needs. It's also easy to lose perspective about the imminent worldwide sustainable water crisis. So here we are on a Sunday morning getting whacked up the side of the head by a short essay and call to arms from The Australian. Click through and read the whole thing. Here are a few excerpts: The world is on the verge of a water crisis. As the global economy and the world's population continue to expand, we are becoming a much thirstier planet. It is important to realise just how much water we need to make the various aspects of our economy work. Every litre of petrol requires up to 2.5litres of water to produce it. On average, crops grown for their bio-energy need at least 1000 litres of water to make one litre of biofuel. It takes about 2700 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt, up to 4000litres of water to produce 1kg of wheat and up to 16,000 litres to produce 1kg of beef. The statistics are equally surprising for hundreds of other products that we all take for granted, such as milk, juice, coffee, fruit, pizza, detergents, carpets, paint, electrical appliances, cosmetics and so on. On average, wealthier people consume upwards of 3000 litres of water every day. Even to produce the much more basic things our economy needs, such as cement, steel, chemicals, mining or power generation, requires tonnes of water. We have seen how a combination of crop switch for biofuels and drought can have an inflationary impact on food. Water is the bigger problem behind this issue. It has the potential for a much more profound impact on consumers and voters. In the breadbasket areas of the world, which help feed our fast-growing urban populations, we are heading for painful trade-offs or even conflict. Along the Colorado, the Indus, the Murray Darling, the Mekong, the Nile or within the North China Plain, for example, do we use the scarce water for food, for fuel, for people and cities, or for industrial growth? How much of the upstream river can we really dam? How do we figure out ways for every actor in the economy to get the water they need to meet their human, economic and cultural aspirations? And can we ensure that the environment is not wrecked but can flourish in the process? These are tough questions. And unlike carbon reduction, there is no alternative, no substitute to promote. Nor is there a global solution to negotiate. Turning off your tap in Vancouver or Berlin will not ease the drought in Rajasthan or Australia. Water is local. Water basins will become the flashpoints. These are the large areas that drain into the world's major rivers and eventually into the sea. They contain millions of people, farmland, forests, cities, industry and coastline, and often straddle multiple political boundaries. The sector that will get the most attention will be the water used by agriculture for food and textile production: 70 per cent of all our freshwater withdrawals are in this sector. Savings made here can help elsewhere in the water basin. The International Water Management Institute had 500 scientists examine the water we use for agriculture. Their report took five years to complete. It found that we will not have enough water to supply global demand for food during the next few decades unless urgent and substantial reforms in water and agriculture are undertaken. Climate change will create this situation more quickly and make it worse. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says that if global average temperature rises by 3C, hundreds of millions of people will be exposed to increased water stress. It provides the wake-up call we all need to start acting on water. We can see this crisis unfolding during the next few years. A perfect storm is approaching. And all this sits on top of today's morally indefensible situation where 20 per cent of the world's population is without access to improved water supply. But it is not a catastrophe yet. It lies within our collective grasp to find the solutions. Business can improve its water efficiency, and in many cases it has raised the bar. There are many success stories. But it will take everyone in the water basin working together to change the overall game. This is what makes the challenge complicated. We are ahead of the curve for now. Addressed smartly, innovatively and with new forms of collaboration between government, business and industry, we believe the coming crisis can be averted. It is against this backdrop that we will come together at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting to raise the economic and political profile of water: to raise awareness among our business colleagues, our politicians and society at large about adapting to this urgent challenge. How can we start moving to ensure we organise a water-secure world for everyone, including businesses, by 2020? Our aim is to catalyse at this year's Davos meeting in Switzerland an unprecedented, high-impact public-private coalition to find ways to manage our future water needs before the crisis hits. "2008 pres" 8:11:36 AM

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