Perspectives of a Wandering Geographer

Since the publication of my last article in the Zephyr two months ago, the water level at Lake Powell has dropped another two feet.   That’s actually less than the typical declines in the fall but the lake has now dropped to a level not seen since 1969 when it was still filling.   In an attempt to slow the decline of water in Lake Powell, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam and other dams in the Colorado River basin, has been releasing water from upstream dams.   The Bureau has also been helped by some early season snowfall in the Rockies which has been melting because of recent Indian summer weather.   The declines in reservoirs which feed Lake Powell are most dramatically seen in Colorado’s largest lake, Blue Mesa Reservoir in the southwestern part of the state (the Blue Mesa Dam was completed in 1966).   From June 21 to October 31, 2021, the level of Blue Mesa dropped a whopping 35 feet.   The decline can be attribu...

Well, like ‘ol Rip, the blog is waking up after a very long nap.  Eight-plus years, to be exact, since my last posting.  For several reasons, such as being lazy about writing, I lost interest in doing a blog.  What’s changed? Last summer, I wrote a little photo-illustrated story about the dramatic declines in water levels my partner, Judy, and I observed in Lake Powell and two other reservoirs in the Southwest.   I was just going to send it out to friends in a mass emailing.   Then I figured it was pretty good and decided to send it off to the Canyon Country Zephyr , an off-beat, on-line publication that dealt with contemporary issues and modern history of Utah canyon country.   To my amazement, the editor Tonya Stiles, liked the article and offered to publish it in the August-September issue.   The article garnered more than 40 comments, mostly from friends whom I’d begged to read and comment on it, but also from people I didn’t know. With encoura...

I suppose it was inevitable. Sooner or later in the course of 50+ blog posts I was bound to say some things that ran afoul of the International Erosion Control Association's management team and membership. After all, IECA is in the business of serving erosion control professionals and businesses that provide erosion control products. The negative opinions I have occasionally expressed about the policies of foreign governments or obnoxious travelers I have encountered as well as my sometimes "salty" language are not exactly what IECA had in mind when they suggested I do a blog about my 2012 around-the-world trip to attend erosion control-related conferences and meet with erosion control professionals. In my very first post, "Intro to My Trip" (July 19, 2012), I pointed out that I am an opinionated SOB and didn't "plan on toning it down for this blog." While I have done my best to stay positive most of the time, I'm no Pollyanna. Those of...

Following the conference of the International Soil Conservation Organization (ISCO) in Medellin, Colombia, we had a choice between two one-day field trips on Friday, July 12. One trip visited a coffee growing area around the city of Venecia and the other looked at profiles of volcanic soils and commercial flower cultivation east of Medellin. I chose the latter because I’d seen enough of coffee cultivation during the pre-conference field trip. The choice provided more excitement than I’d expected from the trip description. Medellin, site of the 2013 ISCO Conference, is located in the Central Andes Mountains of northwestern Colombia. We met at 7:00AM next to the Plaza Mayor convention center in Medellin where two buses (one for each trip) awaited us. As soon as I figured out which was the bus for my trip, I grabbed a seat next to the window on the right side immediately behind the door. I wound up with an empty seat next to me as there were only about 20 of us on a b...