Posted on 01/12/2017 7:32:06 AM PST by dangus
Nearly all of California's reservoirs are far above their historical average volumes for this date of the year. This is somewhat due to the La Nina, and it's a La Nina heading OUT of an El Nino, not into one, so a subsequent drought is unlikely. Reservoir levels are so high, that many are approaching their typical April peaks. And the snowcaps are already approaching their average post-winter depths.
Shasta Lake, the largest reservoir, is at 81% capacity and 126% of average. Terminus reservoir is at 321% of normal. Statewide snowcaps are at 160% of normal for the date, and already 70% of normal for the entire season (which usually occurs at around April 1.)
Surely, the floodgates will have to open, and when they do so much water will be wasted, unless....
But California's largest water source isn't in California. It's Lake Mead, bordering Nevada and Arizona. And it's just about as dry as ever. That leads to the question:
Can Los Angeles essentially shut off its usage of Lake Mead and draw down these massive reservoirs instead, allowing Lake Mead to refill? And if so, why aren't they doing that yet? The outflow from Lake Mead is still massive, even as the smaller downstream reservoirs are relatively healthy.
Here is an interesting web page about the status of the snow packs and reservoirs *in* *California*: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reports/DROUGHTSUM
I believe that Lake Mead’s source of water is runoff from the Colorado Rockies. Given that Colorado has record amounts of snow, Lake Meade will most probably benefit from spring runoff next year.
Best solution is for California to kick out their illegals. Imagine the water savings!!!
The watershed for Lake Meade is the Colorado river region going chiefly through Utah and Colorado.
Only if the dam reduces its rate of release, due to reduced need in CA.
Here’s a story about ‘talks’ among the states involved:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-lake-mead-water-20160523-snap-story.html
Very complicated, and long term...they need another water source.
Only DJT can do that. He can make water run up hill don’t you know.
Right... that’s why Lake Mead isn’t benefitting from the same wet weather California is.
So while the logical answer is yes, the practical answer is that the leftards in California have always found it easier to steal from their neighbors who share the Colorado than to build their own projects which would move water from NORTHERN to SOUTHERN California.
Better to let it flow into the ocean lest some sub-species of water insect be disturbed.
>> Only if the dam reduces its rate of release, due to reduced need in CA. <<
Right... that’s exactly what I was wondering... can they, and is there a reason they aren’t yet? Are the damned fools gonna wait until California’s dams are at full capacity?
From the look of it, the Bureau of Reclamation is sending water to Los Angeles
Take a look at this graph of Folsom and tell me they aren’t drawing down and shipping the water south.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=FOL
But the problem for Los Angeles isn’t that there’s not enough water in the Colorado, it’s because Arizona is finally taking it’s share (which was water SoCal was taking). Plus, LAWD has had to cut way back on the water it takes from the Owens River since they were successfully sued over what they were doing to Mono Lake. Personally, If I could cut off ALL NorCal water to Los Angeles, I’d do it in a heartbeat, because without water maybe some of the Illegals would have to go home.
I thought I read somewhere that no new water reservoirs have been built in CA in the past 30(?) years. As population (legal and illegal) has increased, no new sources of storage of water have been built.
Even with all the snow & runoff, due to the enviro-whackos, most of it will be runoff & not captured ..... from the link at the bottom:
In an average year, California gets enough snow and rain to put 200 million acres under a foot of water, but environmental opposition to dams over the last several decades has allowed the majority of the freshwater to flow into the ocean, even as the state’s population exploded to nearly 40 million people. The current drought has left farms parched and residents under strict water consumption orders, but some say it didn’t have to be that way.
“This is a man-made disaster,” said Bonner Cohen, senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. “Southern California is an arid part of the world where droughts — even severe droughts — are commonplace, and knowing this, you’d think the government of California would have included this mathematical certainty in its disaster preparedness planning, but the government has done nothing, not even store rain, as the population has continued to grow.”
...... the vast majority of the state’s 1,400 dams and reservoirs, in the two massive systems and smaller ones that supply southern California, were built well before the 1980s. Environmentalists have since stopped the construction of water storage and delivery systems through legal and political actions. They have also fought to ensure that captured water is released into streams and the ocean — rather than the water delivery system — in order to boost fish populations and dilute the salinity of the delta.
“Droughts are nothing new in California, but right now, 70 percent of California’s rainfall washes out to sea because liberals have prevented the construction of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades, during a period in which California’s population has doubled,” said Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard and likely GOP presidential candidate. “This is the classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology.”
‘Man-made disaster’: Critics say California drought caused by misguided environment policies
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/16/man-made-disaster-critics-say-california-drought-caused-by-misguided.html
Time to get rid of Lake Powell, that would do the trick
That will probably flush a few delta smelts with it.
California will find a way to screw up their newfound abundance of water. They’ve done it before. I hate it because California is a beautiful state with so much (good) to offer.
I’d rather see a sensible immigration policy than the inundation of mountain valleys, if I had to choose one or the other. But you certainly can’t have both millions of millions of immigrants, especially illegal immigrants AND no new water resources.
I don’t think the infrastructure exists to pipe the water from the north all the way to LA.
The amount of water lake mead gets is regulated by the glen canyon dam futher upstream.
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