Birds of the Lower Colorado River Valley

Birds of the Lower Colorado River Valley

Author: Kenneth V. Rosenberg

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9780816511747

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Discusses the status, distribution, ecology, migration and vagrancy, food habits, and breeding biology of birds found in this area, and also suggests accessible areas for bird watching


The Untold Story of the Lower Colorado River Authority

The Untold Story of the Lower Colorado River Authority

Author: John Williams

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2016-01-04

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1623493412

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Arguably, no other institution has transformed the heart of Texas like the Lower Colorado River Authority. Born in the Great Depression of the 1930s, LCRA built a chain of dams and brought predictability to the cycles of extreme droughts and floods that had long plagued Austin and other communities. It also brought hydroelectric power—and with that, modern-day civilization—to the hard-scrabble regions of Central and South Texas. With those achievements, and the support of powerful political leaders like Lyndon Johnson, LCRA for years was touted as one of the state’s major success stories. But LCRA has never been a stranger to controversy, and while it continues to provide much of the energy and water that fuels the economic engine of Austin and beyond, most people know very little about LCRA. In this book, readers will learn about the forces of nature and politics that combined to create LCRA; the colorful personalities who operated, supported, or fought with the agency; its spectacular successes, periodic blunders, and occasional failures; and its evolution into one of the largest public power organizations in Texas. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.


The Colorado River Documents, 2008

The Colorado River Documents, 2008

Author: Katherine Ott Verburg

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 974

ISBN-13:

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Developed by the Bureau of Reclamation's Upper Colorado and Lower Colorado Regions, in collaboration with the Boulder City Field Solicitor, this is the latest of four books published by the Bureau of Reclamation to address the management of the Colorado River since the early 1900s. It summarizes 30 years of updates to the "Law of the Colorado River," a compilation of compacts, federal laws, court decisions and decrees, contracts, and regulatory guidelines that have been implemented over nearly a century to guide the management and operation of the Colorado River. It details the statutes, policies, agreements, and court decisions related to river operations, environmental matters, Mexican treaty deliveries, water development, water entitlement actions, Native American water settlements, proceedings in Arizona v. California, and power generation and distribution issues. All four books are available on the DVD.


Colorado River Basin Water Management

Colorado River Basin Water Management

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2007-06-30

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0309105242

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Recent studies of past climate and streamflow conditions have broadened understanding of long-term water availability in the Colorado River, revealing many periods when streamflow was lower than at any time in the past 100 years of recorded flows. That information, along with two important trends-a rapid increase in urban populations in the West and significant climate warming in the region-will require that water managers prepare for possible reductions in water supplies that cannot be fully averted through traditional means. Colorado River Basin Water Management assesses existing scientific information, including temperature and streamflow records, tree-ring based reconstructions, and climate model projections, and how it relates to Colorado River water supplies and demands, water management, and drought preparedness. The book concludes that successful adjustments to new conditions will entail strong and sustained cooperation among the seven Colorado River basin states and recommends conducting a comprehensive basinwide study of urban water practices that can be used to help improve planning for future droughts and water shortages.


Science Be Dammed

Science Be Dammed

Author: Eric Kuhn

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0816540055

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Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management—and perils in the mismanagement—of water in the western United States. It seems deceptively simple: even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the twentieth century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions. Arguing that the science of the early twentieth century can shed new light on the mistakes at the heart of the over-allocation of the Colorado River, authors Eric Kuhn and John Fleck delve into rarely reported early studies, showing that scientists warned as early as the 1920s that there was not enough water for the farms and cities boosters wanted to build. Contrary to a common myth that the authors of the Colorado River Compact did the best they could with limited information, Kuhn and Fleck show that development boosters selectively chose the information needed to support their dreams, ignoring inconvenient science that suggested a more cautious approach. Today water managers are struggling to come to terms with the mistakes of the past. Focused on both science and policy, Kuhn and Fleck unravel the tangled web that has constructed the current crisis. With key decisions being made now, including negotiations for rules governing how the Colorado River water will be used after 2026, Science Be Dammed offers a clear-eyed path forward by looking back. Understanding how mistakes were made is crucial to understanding our contemporary problems. Science Be Dammed offers important lessons in the age of climate change about the necessity of seeking out the best science to support the decisions we make.


Corralling the Colorado

Corralling the Colorado

Author: Jimmy Banks

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9780890156629

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The history of the Lower Colorado River Authority's first fifty years is filled with dramatic incidents, political intrigue, legal battles and engineering excellence.


Damming the Colorado

Damming the Colorado

Author: John A. Adams (Jr.)

Publisher: TAMU Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13:

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Before there was a Lower Colorado River Authority, the Colorado River cut across Central Texas free and unfettered by artificial structures. But the river could be unpredictable and dangerous. In the early years of the twentieth century there were numerous attempts to harness and develop the river. Some Texans desperately wanted private enterprise to achieve that goal, but the job proved to be larger than the resources of the private sector. What emerged in the mid-1930s was a cooperative federal-state approach that created controversy yet results. John Adams details the dynamics in the struggle of private interests and public institutions to cooperate in the taming of the Colorado. The Great Depression further constricted private capital available for large-scale reclamation projects, but the New Deal entered into the effort. With seasoned Texas politicians in Washington, millions of dollars in federal funds were channeled into the Lower Colorado River Authority. The Lower Colorado River Authority resulted in a system of dams, reservoirs, and hydroelectric power stations. Intensive research in primary documents, including four sets of presidential papers, and in state and national archives has enabled Adams to trace the development of the accord and relationships between private utility interests, conservationists, and politicians that finally dammed the Colorado and further cemented the precedent for federally funded water and reclamation projects in the West.


Goodbye to a River

Goodbye to a River

Author: John Graves

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-11-10

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0307773353

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In the 1950s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north-central Texas. For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream’s regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometimes brutal surrounding countryside would also change, as would the lives of the people whose rugged ancestors had eked out an existence there. Graves therefore decided to visit that stretch of the river, which he had known intimately as a youth. Goodbye to a River is his account of that farewell canoe voyage. As he braves rapids and fatigue and the fickle autumn weather, he muses upon old blood feuds of the region and violent skirmishes with native tribes, and retells wild stories of courage and cowardice and deceit that shaped both the river’s people and the land during frontier times and later. Nearly half a century after its initial publication, Goodbye to a River is a true American classic, a vivid narrative about an exciting journey and a powerful tribute to a vanishing way of life and its ever-changing natural environment.