John Fleck

Flows through Farmington on the San Juan - largest since the 1930s, and double the largest since Navajo Dam was completed: www.inkstain.net/2026/10/farm...

#WaterYear 18 The Clean Water Act passed 54 years ago. The Cuyahoga River helped inspire the Act thanks to the infamous time(s) it caught fire, but the river has recovered. 2 racing shells practicing at sunset on the Cuyahoga not far downstream of where the 1969 river fire happened. @neorsd.org

Replacement of the Corrales Siphon, a century-old irrigation gizmo, is almost completed, raising all kind of questions that I probably need to write another book trying to answer: www.inkstain.net/2026/10/corr...

This is my inbox right now.

The new fire (and fire fighting regimes) and the old school irrigation of the Rio Santa Cruz in northern New Mexico - Via Alicia Inez Guzmán - www.hcn.org/articles/wat... #nmwater #nmfire

Soviet Army instructions demonstrating how to wear a pigeon vest, c. 1937

Batman Meets Columbo: World's Greatest Detectives Art by Colin Cracker

I also have a bunch of fused glass pendants using cabochons from @nora.zone . When I was teaching myself how to do netting wraps, their fused glass cabs were perfect test subjects. This one is not a netting wrap, but almost all of the other ones are. www.lunalapidary.com/product/auro...

All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is 4 for £1.00.

Hey Albuquerque peeps, come hear me Friday, Sept. 25, 12:30 p.m. at the Guild talking about my new book "Ribbons of Green"! www.inkstain.net/2026/09/albu...

Still do.

We’ve got a podcast! We’ve got (well, at least briefly we had) a river! We recorded a podcast about the river! www.buzzsprout.com/2465964/epis...

A remarkable experiment underway today on New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande: www.inkstain.net/2026/09/chas...

Spelling it “Ŵâshîngtôn” so people know we have more mountains than D.C.

New Mexico rare birds never cease to amaze — South Polar Skua at 7000 feet elevation, eating trout 🤯 ebird.org/checklist/S3...

With Lake Powell reaching its lowest level since 1968 (when it was still being filled), I dive into the hydropower implications as it approaches minimum power pool (i.e. de facto dead pool). www.landdesk.org/p/glen-canyo...

Our bosque, the Rio Grande's riverside forest through Albuquerque, is dying: www.inkstain.net/2026/08/rapi...

I shall not hang my Rio Grande/Colorado water supply hat upon the Super El Niño hook, which looks small and risks my hat ending up on the floor. www.inkstain.net/2026/08/supe...

As a Supreme Court settlement forces New Mexico to reduce water use on the Rio Grande, local stakeholders are seeking a collaborative solution. My latest in @insideclimatenews.org insideclimatenews.org/news/1907202...

The information world PageRank created was a pretty nice one in a lot of ways. It also was not a natural law. It was created by humans, ruined by humans, and will be replaced by humans. We can try to participate in that or we can sit it out.

On tending our gardens - fun switchup from our usual schtick, my podcast co-host Rin Tara in conversation with me about the new book Ribbons of Green: www.buzzsprout.com/2465964/epis...

The last time Lake Mead and Lake Powell had this little water in them combined, Lake Powell didn't exist yet. Meaning all the water was in Lake Mead. Harrowing stuff. www.inkstain.net/2026/07/a-gr... via @jfleck.bsky.social

There are growing indications that large, intense, & perhaps record-breaking mid-atmospheric high pressure system (aka a "heat dome") will develop somewhere between Rockies & Central Plains by mid-Jul. This could bring a widespread & severe heatwave across much of the U.S.

“When you’re in a community, and you want to try to understand the nature and the structure of the community, you can always start with the water,” says author @jfleck.bsky.social @insideclimatenews.org insideclimatenews.org/news/2606202...

I interviewed author @jfleck.bsky.social for @insideclimatenews.org about his new book "Ribbons of Green." We talked about why this history matters. "Right now, in Albuquerque, we’re at a very similar juncture to where we were 100 years ago," Fleck said. insideclimatenews.org/news/2606202...

My 06/21/26 postcard features a cormorant we found perched on a sun-bleached log at Tingley Beach. Standing motionless above the water, it seemed completely at ease, watching for fish with a calm, attentive gaze. #Albuquerque

thread

Bookshop.org is amazing because they build software for public good without accepting compromise: it has to be every bit as good as the alternatives. So I regret to inform that if you excitedly pre-order a friend’s book, Bookshop will happily let you do that repeatedly without a warning 😂

Only bollards can deliver this much happiness. #WorldBollardAssociation

Available from UNM Press, online retailers, and at Bookworks tonight for a book talk with the authors! www.unmpress.com/978082636968...

Happy Pub Day to John Fleck and Robert Berrens, authors of Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque, which explores how Albuquerque built its environment to create a valley floor that its residents have come to adore and how, in a climate-altered world, we might keep it.

One last gasp: www.inkstain.net/2026/05/2026...

May 18, 1980 | 8:32 a.m. The ground shudders. A M5.1 quake hits beneath Mount St. Helens. Weakened critically, the north face bulge collapses outward. Within seconds, a pyroclastic density surge bursts through the disintegrating slope. The clock strikes zero.

My 05/18/26 postcard is a fairy scene tucked into a yard along Solano, built against the base of a tree like a hidden doorway into another world. The tiny blue door, mushrooms, glass stones, and fairies transformed a patch of dirt into something that felt halfway between a garden and a storybook.

Crossed the threshold yesterday from "pdf(s) on my hard drive" to "book in my hand": www.inkstain.net/2026/05/june...

Friends of Inkstain John Berggren and Kevin Wheeler suggest a new widget for moving around Colorado River water that's one of those things that's got obvious advantages, it's simply archaic rules standing in the way: www.inkstain.net/2026/05/the-...

Ivo Pannaggi, My Mother Reading the Newspaper, c. 1922 https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135569

Sorry if this news screws anything up for anyone, but it turns out that rivers during the Cambrian period didn't wind as much as they do today pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulle...

This is a perfect example of a fire where we should NOT risk human life to suppress. This area has seen lots of fire. This fire will probably clean up a bunch of heavy fuel from the W-B. Upwind of this fire are a whole bunch more fire footprints.