“If the year that we’re working within is hot and dry, there is more crop demand than if we have storms within the year,” said Jeremy Dodds, who helps account for water use at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency tasked with managing the delivery of Colorado River water.
In a recent letter first reported by the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis, federal water managers warned the states that they are considering an emergency action that could accelerate the decline of Lake Mead. They are proposing to keep more water in Lake Powell, which is held back by Glen Canyon Dam upstream. Lake Powell and Lake Mead work together in tandem.
By keeping more water in Lake Powell, federal officials would release less water downstream to Lake Mead than expected. The move is intended to keep Lake Powell stable, providing a small window of relief to the system. But it comes with a cost: Such a move would lead to the further decline of Lake Mead, potentially making the risk of deeper, short-term water cuts more likely.
In addition to the action resulting in Lake Mead dropping roughly 7 feet lower, it could also have an impact on the hydroelectric power produced at Hoover Dam. In California alone, the cost of replacement power could be about $5 million, said Bill Hasencamp, the manager of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District, which serves most of Southern California.
:this-is-fine:
Let's gooooo, water markets will save us, https://on.wsj.com/3xBDmFP
:squidward-nervous: when im in an irrational water use competition and the opponent is the Colorado river watershed
lawns and golf? private pools and lakes? yaaaas slay! :porky-happy:
agriculture, personal showers? sanitation? noooooo Reduce! stop killing the earth! :only-throw:
Palm Springs is a monument to man's hubris.
California, Nevada, and Arizona all need to get governments in place that will take defending the water supply seriously, otherwise we're looking at the worst climate-change driven disaster in the developed world happening right here. Farming water-intensive crops needs to be banned, fracking and shit too, limiters placed on all commercial uses of water, and cities like Las Vegas need to be decommissioned and the population moved somewhere more sustainable. Then we need publicly owned desalinization powered by something renewable installed by every coastal city to reduce the demand on rivers and lakes. It's a massive undertaking and it probably won't happen until the military coups the federal government and creates the TVA2.
Another option is to get a bunch of nukes and explode a new river into existence.
get a bunch of nukes and explode a new river into existence.
and hey, it would combat rising sea levels! we should totally do this
Colorado's snowpack is 90% of normal. Because we changed the definition of normal a few years ago to make it less scary. It's April and I just spotted a 20 acre wildfire about 10mi away, which thankfully doesn't seem to be blowing in my direction right now. People water their diseased lawns here at least twice a week and put 4lbs of agriculture-grade nitrogen on each 1000sqft of those lawns.
God damn America. That's in the bible.
America fixes climate change the same way it fixes poverty, literacy, etc. By redefining the problem every few years and moving the goalposts so that it looks like progress is being made
Boogaloo chuds thinking they can start a race war when Civil War 2 is certain to be a water war
The Dreamt Land is a good book that describes the current state of insanity in the San Joaquin Valley that probably can't be fixed without one of them French slicey bois
In California alone, the cost of replacement power could be about $5 million, said Bill Hasencamp, the manager of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District, which serves most of Southern California.
Is this a typo? $5 million doesn’t sound like all that much tbh.
On March 28, 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration submitted to Congress a proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Budget request of $813.3 billion for national defense. Given that number, $5 million represents about 3 minutes and 12 seconds of military spending. Too bad we can't afford it...
