Posted on 06/10/2021 7:27:19 PM PDT by blam
Much of the Western half of the US is in a severe drought, and parts of the Southwest are “exceptionally dry,” the worst category, according to US Drought Monitor. Taking this into account, the iconic Hoover Dam has just recorded the smallest amount of water inside Lake Mead since the 1930s.
The damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border created Lake Mead and supplies water to 25 million people, including in the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
We’ve explained in the past if Lake Mead drops to dangerously low levels, the entire town of Las Vegas is absolutely screwed because two pipes, known as straws, are at elevation 1,050 feet and 1,000 feet. However, a third straw was recently constructed at 860 feet just in case the water level continued to drop. For Vegas to prevent a total collapse if Lake Mead continues to drop, it will have to continue constructing straws at lower and lower depths.
Tim Barnett, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, wrote back in 2014 that Lake Mead wasn’t able to supply Vegas with water, “it’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly. Unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.”
… and this quote was over seven years ago, and the water situation has dramatically worsened.
As of Wednesday, the lake’s water level sank to 1,071.56 feet above sea level and broke the record low in July 2016. Since the early 2000s, the water level has plunged 140 feet due to years of drought that has gripped the region.
“Some states, especially parts of California and parts of the southwest, it’s really quite extreme drought conditions,” Ben Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. Here’s a map (as of June 3) of the drought situation, which is extremely severe.
Artificial lakes, such as Lake Mead, is no match for Mother Nature, and the latest drop in water level could force state governments (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) to pass a water shortage declaration sometime this summer.
The demand for water downstream from Hoover Dam continues to increase. Farmers in the Southwest are itching for Lake Mead’s water to irrigate their crops as their land becomes fallow.
Over the past year, the lake has declined by more than 16 feet and is projected to fall nine more feet by the end of 2021. The lake’s trigger point for a “shortage,” declared by the government, is 1,075 feet, which has already been broken.
Lake Mead’s downward spiral has also reduced Hoover Dam’s hydropower output by 25%. At some point, the dam could stop producing electricity.
“Our previous number [for cutoff] was at elevation 1,050, and now we’ve lowered that number to 950,” Hoover Dam, facility manager Mark Cook told CBS News. “So, we bought ourselves 100 feet.”
For more than a half-decade (see: here & here), we have the ongoing problems of Lake Mead and how it could impact the water supply of tens of millions of people. Now that the lake is at levels not seen since it was filled in the 1930s, and below levels for an official “shortage.” This means an emergency declaration of water shortage could be seen sometime this summer.
The drought is so severe that the governor of Utah is urging people to pray for rain.
“it’s really quite extreme drought conditions.”
Reject. I am not buying it. The threat of drought has been broadcast just as much as the silly threats of global warming and killer bees. California had tons of rain to wipe out the drought for a long time in 2017. Meade gets tons of water from Utah, Idaho and Montana.
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.: “Lake Mead lowest in history!!!” Reject.
>> Lake Mead and supplies water to 25 million people, including in the cities of ... Los Angeles, and San Diego.
The water is piped along the desert to the West Coast?
Not a drought — just excessive demand.
If Mankind ever does manage to get off this rock liberals will be the first to insist that oxygen is a natural right that justifies enslaving some suckers to provide it.
bookmark
According to a friend, who lives near the Orovlle Dam-every time it rains the state quickly releases the water to the ocean.
IOW, the ‘drought’ is a plan of the gov’t.
“That rock leaching thing is pretty surprising.”
It sure looks like leaching doesn’t it? But in the interest of science I should share that it is actually a coating of dried and sun bleached algae that is normally tan/brown when underwater. Grew up walking on that fuzzy slime, it lines the whole Colorado and the lakes.
“The water is piped along the desert to the West Coast?”
Yes.. But that statement they made about Lake Mead supplying those cities is kind of misleading but true in a sense. It is “stockpiled” in lake Mead for steady release throughout the year to points downstream where there are indeed pipes and canals that pull from the Colorado and flow it west to these coastal cities. So while Lake Mead is the important primary storage source, they do not pull from it directly, it comes out much further downstream.
“Green lawns and filled pools in and around Los Angeles, right?”
And golf courses! It is absolutely ridiculous how many golf courses there are in all these cities.
Thanks for that... I was wondering too.
I though I was the only one who thought of that. I wouldn't use the Great Lakes though. The canal would be further west coming out of Canada.
We've got more water here than we can handle. After the heavy rains of Memorial Day weekend, all the creeks around here are full to the brim.
For the visually challenged
I had hoped an earthquake would destroy the California city states. Looks like no water will be the angel of destruction
It looks like an open border is the cause of the drought
My privilege, It is a common curiosity.
“Bathtub Ring
A high-water mark or “bathtub ring” is visible around the shoreline of Lake Mead. The bathtub ring is white because of the leaching of minerals on previously submerged surfaces. The bathtub ring generates automatic attention and you’ll notice that many of the restroom facilities are located further from the water’s edge than they used to be.”
https://www.planeta.com/lake-mead/
Evaporated salts could be a part of it.
Irrigated freeway interchange landscaping.
And artificial lakes with signs that say “no swimming, fishing, or boating”. Then why? Just simply for the “visual appeal”? These should be a criminal act...
According to a friend, who lives near the Orovlle Dam-every time it rains the state quickly releases the water to the ocean.
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There is currently more water going out than coming in. Here a link to Oroville dam water stats. It is almost 200 feet below full capacity.
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryF?s=oro
The focus seems to be on climate and drought conditions. I would like to see a graph of the amount of water drawn from Lake Mead over the years (e.g., monthly/annual rate) and the number of people serviced by the water from the lake over time.
Bet some are wishing they had built those two other proposed dams on the Colorado back in the 1960s.
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