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Posted on 08/10/2026 7:53:30 PM PDT by Vendome
The Colorado River is approaching thresholds its dams were never meant to cross. What happens next could transform how water and electricity move across the American Southwest.
There isn’t a flashing gauge or a chart on the canyon wall that warns visitors when one of the most important machines in America begins to fail. There’s only an invisible number: 3,490 feet above sea level.
Engineers call it “minimum power pool.” Above that elevation, Lake Powell can still push water through Glen Canyon Dam’s massive penstocks, spin its turbines, and send electricity across the Southwest with no trouble. Below it, the dam loses the function that helped justify its existence. The river still wants to move, but the machine starts running out of ways to move it.
“It’s been the slowest-moving train wreck in history, yet we’re letting it play out in front of us.”
Then, at 3,490 feet above sea level, Lake Powell officially enters that “minimum power pool” phase. Here, electricity generation is no longer possible, as water levels have fallen below the penstocks, but water can still exit through the river outlets.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
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Well now I'm real concerned about that.
Headline’s about Hoover, but there are only random mentions of Hoover, with most of the story being about Glen Canyon.
A simple, if challenging solution - plenty of fresh water in Lake Superior that could be pumped to the Southwest. A hundred years ago, America would have been up to that challenge. Probably couldn’t pull it off now.
Not so much as the major sports leagues are.
I’ve worked at a hydro plant at dead pool. Water falls through the turbine and cavitates tearing the turbine apart. So you shut down the turbines and pass minimal flow to keep the river flowing. There’s no back up. The power house is dead. It won’t be useful till lake level rises above dead pool (probably spring) maybe. Not only that. No power, no water.
Do the math. You’re talking years. They are talking weeks. Any idea how much water AZ, NV, CA use?
It's going to get far worse with water needed for cooling data centers used for spying on the citizenry.
How about the southwest learns to live within their means and keeps their hands off of other state's natural resources?
The article blames Climate Change for the problem.
But of course they did. Every bad thing is due to either Climate Change or Donald Trump. And I guess they couldn’t figure out how to connect Trump.
Not yet, anyway.
The northern border outline of Lake Superior is Canada, they might have a problem with this.
Vegas priced themselves out of the market, you can’t even get a cheap beer anymore.
Great idea! Now if we could just stop all those northerners from moving down here and using up our water...
You can’t do that without some joint agreement with Canada and things ain’t exactly lovey dovey at the moment.
No landing lights and a dark Hooters casino. Lets think about this for a minute...
He caused climate change. Duh! :)
Do I have to solve all your problems?
Drink Brawndo, it has electrolytes 😂
Data Centers built in the US are now going to closed loop systems that use little water, and can be filled in the spring (at least in much of the USA) when we have plenty of excess water.
Even the big data center going in in my region, just a few miles from the Ohio River, will be a closed lop system AND will feature a power plant that produces extra electricity to feed back into the grid, particularly at peak use times.
The “spying” is a separate (and legit) concern, but if we don’t stay ahead of China, we are hosed....
MY region has fabulous quantities of VERY excess water, most Springs. We’d love to send it somewhere else if the means existed...
There’s a mini-ice age just getting underway which will store a thousand gigatons or more of water over the next few decades.
It varies, tho. My spring & summer this year has been unusually wet.....where was that when I laid 7000 sq ft of sod 2 years ago? I watered for months.
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