Posted on 06/21/2022 3:06:26 PM PDT by blam
The surface of Lake Mead, North America’s largest artificial reservoir, now stands at 1044 feet above sea level and is dropping fast. If Lake Mead’s water level falls another 149 feet, a dangerous level known as a “dead pool” could wreak havoc across Southwestern US.
Since the beginning of March, Lake Mead has dropped about 23 feet, and compared with the 5-year trend, the reservoir’s water levels are well below average, at the lowest point since the lake was filled nearly a century ago.
A graph might not do justice to visualizing just how fast the water level has fallen. So here are three pictures of a sunken speedboat in the lake and the corresponding date. Just in May, the boat was partially submerged. Now there’s no water.
If Lake Mead were to keep dropping, it could be a couple of years until a danger zone at 895 feet is reached, which is the point water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam to supply California, Arizona, and Mexico. Below 895 feet, the lake would be considered a “dead pool.”
BREAKING: Lake Mead has now dropped to 1044.39 feet in elevation for the first time since the lake was filled nearly 100 years ago.
This is a loss of 1.18 feet or 14.2″ in the last 7 days when I last reported on this.
Dead pool is now < 150 feet away.https://t.co/7fUfKF4exK pic.twitter.com/5TBQgvcntt
— Edgar McGregor (@edgarrmcgregor) June 20, 2022
For more context of what’s happened over the last three decades as a megadrought grips the US West, here’s a view of the spillway of the Hoover Dam in 1983 versus 2021.
Weather satellites have captured an absolutely stunning view of the lake rapidly shrinking in the last two years.
Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the 2 largest reservoirs in the US, which provide water to over 40 million Americans in Nevada, Arizona and California, are at their lowest levels ever.
This will have unprecedented consequences and require drastic water restrictions never seen before. pic.twitter.com/VSb6ZMtPRq
— US StormWatch (@US_Stormwatch) June 15, 2022
A lake observer on YouTuber shows how the water level has dangerously dropped in the last two weeks.
My brother lives in the southwest and he said normally it is very dry from a historical perspective. The last few hundred years he says have been unusually wet.
He studied atmospheric chemistry, so he’s probably a reliable source.
Buy land where it rains. Lake mead is going lower because a. Global warming or b. 10s of millions more people draw from it now compared to 1940.
Just what we need, in addition to all the other troubles...a water shortage!
Feds better keep their hands off the Great Lakes.
Ca also shooting itself in the foot by not putting in desalination plants on coast
Maximum effort!
Just what we need, in addition to all the other troubles...a water shortage!
= = =
Save your pee in a bottle.
Watch Waterworld.
Windmills will fix it
Ca also shooting itself in the foot by not putting in desalination plants on coast
= = =
CA put a bunch of solar farms in the desert.
They need to put the desalination plants out there, too.
If we just CUT OFF California from using any Colorado River Water, the USA could be saved
Canceling water desalinization projects is the California way.
Sometimes I wonder if these asshol#s are actually able to control the weather.
Gonna be ‘ell on the little spotted owl newts.
Down to about 25% of maximum capacity. Last full about 2000.
https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/nature/storage-capacity-of-lake-mead.htm
Remember this the next time kalifornia boasts what a strong economy they have...
80% of water leaving Lake Mead goes to agriculture primarily in California and Arizona people as in residential use less than 10% of the water. In California they take now with restrictions 4.4 million acre feet per year. Nevada gets 300,000 and Arizona gets 2.8 million. Both Arizona and especially California grow water hungry crops in the desert that have no business being grown there such as rice, almonds and especially alfalfa hay which uses FIVE FEET of water per square foot per year to grow. It is singly the largest user of water in California using five million acre feet per year in California alone. Each almond uses two gallons think about that each individual almond uses two gallons to grow to harvest. Clearly this is not sustainable. People who have no math skills and even less actual knowledge beat on Las Vegas they are the most efficient user of water in America in a acre foot to gross state product of economic activity. They use less than their smallest 300,000 acre feet per year while having 40+ million tourists per year. Casino’s use less than 1% of that 300k and generate 13+ billion in GSP. They also recycle back to Lake Mead every drop that hits a drain in that basin in a feat of hydrological engineering unequaled in North America only the Israelis have a higher percentage of water reuse. Fact is California needs to be cut off from Colorado river water going to agriculture or at least limited to a percentage not a raw amount well in excess of 4 million acre feet which they dump on crops that have no ecological reason to be grown in a desert. The break down of California gross water is 40% agricultural,10% industrial and residential and 50% environmental but that is rural from all California sources including local rainfall. If you just look at imported Colorado river water then it’s 80% big agriculture and 20% industrial/urban use for their 4.4 million acre feet. Big agriculture needs to do with less that’s just a fact.
Putin’s water shortage ... to go along with Putin’s oil shortage.
Spot on, all the efforts CA is spending on the climate BS and next to nothing desalination. In fact they just killed a bill to fund it. It is insane.
Yes, desalination plants need enormous amounts of water for cooling. Nuclear power plants are the best way to run them. They need to be built on the coast. Only coastal NIMBYs stand in the way.
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