NG: Why is America running out of water?

[China]

The Western megadrought is revealing America's 'lost national park'

 

On a turquoise lake in a sandstone desert, Ross Dombrowski is trying to figure out what to do about the rock growing behind his houseboat. The rock, spectacular and rust red, like most in southern Utah, wasn't visible below the water's surface when Dombrowski moored his houseboat on Lake Powell last year.

 

Today, it's three stories tall.

 

"I would never think it would get to this," he says, looking at the shrinking lake. "But it has."

 

Despite recent rain and record snowfall in California's Sierra Nevada, the Western U.S. is experiencing one of its driest periods in a thousand years — a two-decade megadrought that scientists say is being amplified by human-caused climate change. The drought — or longer-term aridification, some researchers fear — is forcing water cutbacks in at least three states and is reviving old debates about how water should be distributed and used in the arid West.

 

 

At Lake Powell, the nation's second-largest reservoir, record-low water levels are transforming the landscape, renewing a long-standing dispute over the land the reservoir drowned — a canyon labyrinth that novelist Edward Abbey once described as "a portion of earth's original paradise." For half a century, environmental groups and Colorado River enthusiasts have implored water managers to restore Glen Canyon by draining the reservoir.

 

The goal has always been viewed as a bit far-fetched. Lake Powell is one of the busiest tourist destinations in the country. A half-billion-dollar tourism industry has blossomed on its stored waters along the Utah-Arizona border.

 

But with water levels at record lows and dropping, hindering tourism and revealing long-hidden rock formations like the one behind Dombrowski's boat, advocates for Glen Canyon see a unique opportunity to catalog what was lost and to correct, perhaps, what environmentalist David Brower called "America's most regrettable environmental mistake."

 

Human actions built the reservoir. Now human actions are causing it to shrink.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Exchange: Rio Verde Foothills Homes to Lose Water Source

 

Flooding rains have eroded the roads here until they resemble desert washes, but they still will carry you to someone’s version of paradise. The roads curl past multi-million dollar homes, lead to sprawling ranches and take people to views once thought impossible to see from a front porch.

 

The area known as Rio Verde Foothills looks abundant, from the desert landscaping to the red-tile roofs. But one thing isn’t abundant: Water.

 

The wealthy community north of Scottsdale is the site of the latest skirmish in a coming water war. It’s a New West struggle that plays out like the Old West stories that have left ghost towns strewn across the Arizona landscape.

 

Everything is great as long as the resource you’re taking doesn’t run out.

 

And then it does.

 

There have been screaming matches, property damage and death threats, according to the people who live there. The hostilities are to the point where the residents who spoke to 12 News (KPNX-TV) wanted to remain anonymous.

 

What will you do when the water goes away?

 

The Foothills won’t be the last metro Phoenix community that will have this conflict. A combination of relaxed real estate regulations, careless Maricopa County permit issuing and a loophole in Arizona law will lead other multi-million dollar communities in the state to inevitably dry up.

 

Foothills residents are not Scottsdale residents, even though the two share a ZIP code. Scottsdale, however, has been one of the largest suppliers of water to the rural community.

 

The rural community’s homes mainly get water in one of two ways: through water wells or through private water-hauling services.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Why don't Arizona cities require residents to conserve water? It's simple, really

 

Why don’t cities mandate conservation measures if Arizona needs to save water?

 

This is a question I get frequently, and there’s a simple answer: Because we’re not at that stage yet.

 

That doesn’t mean saving water is unimportant. Cities can and should be doing more to help residents use less.

 

But there are reasons why Arizona cities aren’t yet forcing residents and businesses to save – and we can see them playing out in California.

 

California has essentially cut off State Water Project supplies to many cities and farmers this year because there isn’t enough water to go around. It also has announced another round of mandatory statewide restrictions on things like outdoor watering and car washing.

 

The state enacted mandatory conservation measures for the first time in 2015 to reduce usage by 25%. Many cities have generally sustained those savings, the result of converted landscaping and other measures.

 

But the state also widely missed its target last year to save an additional 15% – in part because those 2015 mandates took out the low-hanging fruit. If California wants to save more water now, it’ll require behavioral changes that residents may not be so eager to make, much less sustain over time.

 

That’s the downside of mandatory measures. If people aren’t willing to play along, the only way to get there is by enforcement, which is expensive, time consuming and usually anger producing.

 

That’s why Arizona cities are loath to use mandates.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[kfrankie]

It’s not.

[China]

Study finds Western megadrought is the worst in 1,200 years

 

Shrunk reservoirs. Depleted aquifers. Low rivers. Raging wildfires. It's no secret that the Western U.S. is in a severe drought. New research published Monday shows just how extreme the situation has become.

 

The Western U.S. and Northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to the new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The last comparable – though not as severe – multi-decade megadrought occurred in the 1500s, when the West was still largely inhabited by American Indian tribes.

 

Today, the region is home to tens of millions of people, massive agricultural centers and some of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. — all in an area where there's less water available than there was in the past, partially due to human-caused climate change.

 

"We have a society that's relying on there being the amount of water there was in the 1900's," said the study's lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But now with the number of water molecules available to us declining, it really is time for us to get real about how much water there is for us to use."

 

Williams looked at tree-ring data from thousands of sites to conduct the research. They sampled data collected from live trees, dead trees and wood beams preserved at Native American archeological sites. The tree rings gave Williams an insight into drought events dating back to the year 800 AD, around the same time Charlemagne was being crowned Emperor of Rome.

 

He identified four other megadroughts in that time period, the most notable being a 23-year drought that ended in the late 1500's. There were hopes during a wet 2019 that the current megadrought was following a similar pattern, Williams said.

 

"And then from summer 2020 through all of 2021, it was just exceptionally dry across the West...indicating that this drought is nowhere near done."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A dangerous game of chicken on the Colorado River

 

Seven Western states and their leaders -- all depending on water from the Colorado River -- remain divided.  

 

Split into basins by an imaginary border at Lees Ferry, Arizona, each state can share blame for the rapid depletion of reservoirs that once held over four years’ flow of the Colorado River. But now, Lake Powell and Lake Mead edge closer to empty. With water savings gone, the Lower Basin has been trying to cope, though the Upper Basin carries on business as usual. Meanwhile, 40 millions Americans depend on flows from this over-diverted river.

 

So far, leaders in the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming appear to be hoping that their counterparts will agree to use less water. This is hardly a useful strategy and seems a lot like a dangerous game of chicken.

 

It is the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California that have taken the brunt of low flows. Thanks to a series of agreements between 2007 and 2021, by the end of this year the three states will curtail their river use by more than 1 million acre-feet --325 billion gallons. But it’s likely these cuts won’t change much.

 

Federal data released last month predict that Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the nation and the Lower Basin’s water saving’s account, will continue to lose water for years to come. Lake Powell, the Upper Basin’s saving’s account, is also vulnerable. But that raises the obvious question: What are Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico doing to limit their water use and conserve? The answer is not much. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Captain Wiggles]

Yeah I always hated the fact we had water restrictions in Colorado during the summer meanwhile....... In Arizona. 

 

[China]

Lake Powell water crisis is about to be an energy crisis

 

As the West's megadrought continues, communities reliant on hydroelectric power — including tribes and rural towns — face shortages.
 

Stretching for 186 miles along the border of Utah and Arizona, Lake Powell serves as one of two major reservoirs that anchor the Colorado River. Last week, the lake reached a disturbing new milestone: water levels fell to their lowest threshold ever, since the lake was created by the damming of the Colorado in 1963.

 

The precipitous drop is the result of the decades-long drought in the American West that has ravaged the Colorado River for years, forcing unprecedented water cuts in states like Arizona. This newest milestone on Lake Powell, though, is significant for another reason. The reservoir also sustains a hydroelectric power plant, Glen Canyon Dam, that provides energy to millions of people. That power source, critical for rural and tribal communities across the region, is now in jeopardy. 

 

The federal government expects Lake Powell’s levels to rise again this spring as mountain snow melts across the West, but there’s still a significant chance that the reservoir will reach the so-called “dead pool” stage some time in the next few years, at which point it will stop producing hydroelectric power altogether. The dry spell has been causing slowdowns or shutdowns at power plants in California and Nevada, creating yet another challenge for officials trying to adapt to a seemingly endless water shortage. 

 

If reservoirs like Lake Powell keep falling, millions of people across the West will have to turn to dirtier and more expensive energy at a time when transitioning to renewable power is of paramount importance for reducing carbon emissions.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Fergasun]

I always thought a water pipeline from east (rising seas) to west (drought) would be a noble national project... our ultrawealty are busy shooting themselves to Mars.

[Jabbyrwock]

9 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

I always thought a water pipeline from east (rising seas) to west (drought) would be a noble national project... our ultrawealty are busy shooting themselves to Mars.

 

From a page back:

 

On 11/23/2021 at 1:37 PM, Jabbyrwock said:

 

USBR did a study in 2009 or so on this:

 

https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy/finalreport/Technical Report F - Development of Options and Stategies/TR-F_Appendix4_FINAL.pdf

 

On 11/24/2021 at 5:57 AM, The Sisko said:

The chart below is from this study. There’s a whole lot of red and orange there with some yellow. If you look at the cost column, the only three that seem acceptable from that standpoint are low yield, which makes sense. Take a look at the legal column. There’s a whole lot of states, localities and individual landowners along the routes studied. So, many of these projects wouldn’t even get off the ground due to court challenges. The energy needs column is particularly brutal. Also, this report is almost a decade old. So costs would certainly be higher now.

 

I agree that desalination technology will get better from energy use and probably cost standpoints as well. However, they still need to figure out how to minimize the environmental damage because the nature of brine and concentration of elements in seawater won’t change.

 

Ultimately, I still think it will come down to population reductions and conservation. I think the best way to do that is to do nothing and let the increasing costs and unviability of some farmland in those areas take their natural toll. It’s the appropriate market-based solution IMO.

 

[The 12th Commandment]

On 10/27/2021 at 1:22 PM, Renegade7 said:

We have oil pipelines, we need water pipelines.  Desalination is the way to go and the price will come down, it already is. its crazy to me that 2/3rds of the planet is covered in water yet people are dying from lack of access and fighting over it, we are better then this.

Heard an interesting podcast on this, the biggest issue, by far, is disposing of all the salt that is left over.  

[skinsmarydu]

At one point in history salt was currency, so I'm sure we can figure something out. 

[China]

Conserve water usage or face cutbacks, CA regulators warn

 

As California reels from an ongoing drought, state regulators are asking residents to conserve water or face further cutbacks.

 

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced water deliveries from the California State Water Project, which distributes water all over California through a systems of reservoir, canals and dams, will be cut.

 

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million residents, including in Los Angeles, says 30% of the water we use in SoCal comes from the State Water Project. Some parts of Ventura, L.A. and San Bernardino counties are more reliant on that water, meaning residents need to start saving water immediately.

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

California's snowpack is 'roasting in the dry and sunny conditions'

 

California's winter snowpack is suffering after the state saw historically dry weather in January and February, and March is headed down the same track. An early spring heat wave this week brought record-breaking temperatures that accelerated snowmelt. On Friday, the snowpack — which historically has provided about a third of the state's water supply — stood at 46% of its average for this time of year. 

 

The picture is bleak: Recent analysis of the snow in areas feeding into the state's key watersheds showed that "the snow has been roasting in the dry and sunny conditions for a while and is clearly melting," said David Rizzardo, chief of hydrology for California's Department of Water Resources.

 

Rizzardo said the finding came after aircraft with the Airborne Snow Observatory mission collected data on snowmelt in the Feather, Tuolumne and San Joaquin watersheds, finding shrinkage from early February to late March. "From these analyses, we also get an idea for the cold content of the snow, or how much energy it takes to melt the snow," he wrote in an email. "The lower the value, the less (solar) energy it takes to melt the snow."

 

Unless the mountains get cooler and cloudier weather, Rizzardo said the rate at which the snow is melting will only speed up. 

 

In the past 15 years, going back to 2007, snowpack was below 50% at about this same time of year seven times. By comparison, for the 30-year period from 1976 to 2006, it sank below 50% of average four times, Rizzardo said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Mr. Sinister]

These next few decades are hurt bad.

[China]

Nebraska wants to build a $500 million canal over the border. Can Colorado stop it?

 

If Nebraska does indeed try to dig a $500 million canal across its border and take water from the South Platte River on the Colorado side, it will have to be over the dead bodies in this town’s cemetery. 

 

Or perhaps under them. 

 

At the very least, extremely close. 

 

That includes the great-great-grandparents of Jay Goddard, whose big white Suburban is fishtailing around the edges of the cemetery and through the muddy remnants of the last canal Nebraska tried to dig in Colorado. Goddard, a fifth-generation farmer, points out century-old footprints of the canal Nebraska wants to revive. Goddard’s ancestors likely got a kick out of watching 600 Nebraskans with shovels, struggling to sculpt the rolling hills into a waterway before they finally gave up and went home in 1894. 

 

Nebraskans are Goddard’s friends and neighbors, and employ his wife as a schoolteacher a few miles away in Big Springs. Nebraska may even have a legal right to buy up Julesburg land and send the bulldozers over, he admits.

 

But water is gold on the increasingly dry high plains. And a water war among friends is still a water war. 

 

Nebraska’s rich fields need water as much as Colorado does, Goddard said. But as a regional bank president, he sees prosperous Sedgwick County farmers expanding, developers buying land, and Fort Collins and Greeley to the west growing relentlessly. 

 

Colorado’s 6 million people could be 12 million before the canal fight is settled. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Running dry: Pine-Strawberry's proposed solution to its water crisis may backfire

 

Wealth, in one way or another, was the main reason modern communities sprouted up in Arizona's High Country.

 

Gold found in the multicolored hills of the Bradshaw Mountains caused the area's European population to boom in the 1860s, attracting prospectors with dreams of riches. 

 

The natural wealth of rich soil, towering pines and an abundance of water offered in the area that would become Pine-Strawberry offered different riches to people who ventured out of the mines, according to the community's historical society.

 

Both kinds of wealth continue to draw people today to both live and vacation in Pine-Strawberry. But, increased development is threatening the community's most precious resource: water. 

 

The town's largest water supplier has seen more than half of its wells dry up, going from nearly 40 active wells to 14.

 

The situation has become so dire that residents are meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly's team to try and secure funding for potential solutions.

 

The main solution being purposed by town leaders, however, will only make matters worse, according to one of the state's leading hydrologists.

 

The few wells that the Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District (PSWID) has left are strained. The district supplies water for 8,000 people, including more than 5,000 part-time residents and tourists.

 

There are around 100 private wells also in the community either used by companies or by individual residents, but PSWID's Director David Dickinson said many of those wells have also dried up.

 

"It's just too many straws in the glass," Dickinson said. "That's why a lot of folks are running dry. The way the [water well] rules are written right now, anybody can build a well, and that's kind of the problem."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

6 million SoCal residents asked to limit outdoor watering to 1 day a week under new restrictions

 

Southern California's water wholesaler took emergency action Tuesday in response to the regional drought, imposing unprecedented restrictions that will limit outdoor watering to one day per week for roughly 6 million people.

 

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California officials said the restriction will apply to its member agencies that are heavily dependent on supplies from the State Water Project, but MWD called on all Southern California residents and businesses to slash water use by 30% to combat drought conditions "unlike anything we've experienced before.''

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Water intake pipe pokes above surface at Lake Mead

 

The top of a water intake pipe at Lake Mead is now sticking up above the water’s surface as the lake level continues to drop.

 

 

A photo posted by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) shows the newest evidence of the megadrought gripping the West.

 

“It’s official – the top of Intake No. 1 is now visible and the low lake level pumping station is now operational,” according to an SNWA tweet. “The new low lake pumping station was completed in 2020 to ensure the delivery of high-quality water in Southern Nevada. 

 

Lake Mead dropped below 1,056 feet in elevation this afternoon, less than a week after hitting 1,057 feet late last week. Lake levels are expressed in altitude, not depth — the surface of the lake is 1,055.95 feet above sea level as of 5 p.m. today.

 

In California on Tuesday, a water shortage emergency was declared by Southern California water officials — the first time that has ever happened.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[China]

To Save Water Amid a Megadrought, Las Vegas Outlaws Grass

 

It was a superbly respectable patch of garden, a number of hundred sq. ft of grass in a condominium neighborhood on this metropolis’s western edge. However Jaime Gonzalez, a employee with an area landscaping agency, had a job to do.

 

Wrangling a heavy gas-powered sod cutter, Mr. Gonzalez sliced the turf away from the soil beneath, like peeling a potato. Two co-workers adopted, gathering the strips for disposal.

Mr. Gonzalez took little pleasure in destroying this patch of fescue. “However it’s higher to switch it with one thing else,” he mentioned. The bottom would quickly be coated with gravel dotted with vegetation like desert spoon and pink yucca.

 

Beneath a state regulation handed final 12 months that’s the first of its sort within the nation, patches of grass like this, discovered alongside streets and at housing developments and business websites in and round Las Vegas, have to be eliminated in favor of extra desert-friendly landscaping.

 

The offense? They’re “nonfunctional,” serving solely an aesthetic goal. Seldom, if ever, walked on and saved alive by sprinklers, they’re losing a useful resource, water, that has change into more and more valuable.

 

Outlawing grass is maybe essentially the most dramatic effort but to preserve water within the Southwest, the place a long time of development and 20 years of drought made worse by a warming local weather have led to dwindling provides from the Colorado River, which serves Nevada and 6 different states, Native American tribes and Mexico.

 

For Southern Nevada, dwelling to almost 2.5 million folks and visited by upward of 40 million vacationers a 12 months, the issue is especially acute. The area is determined by Lake Mead, the close by reservoir behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado, for 90 p.c of its ingesting water.

 

The lake has been shrinking since 2000, and is now so low the unique water consumption was uncovered final week. The regional water utility, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, has been so involved that it spent $1.5 billion over a decade constructing a a lot deeper consumption and a brand new pumping station, lately put into operation, so it could possibly take water whilst the extent continues to drop.

 

The brand new regulation, which handed with bipartisan help, is supposed to assist make sure that what water there may be goes additional. It’s an instance of the type of strict measures that different areas could more and more be compelled to take to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of local weather change.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[gbear]

Well, before lawns were a sign of socio-economic status they were imported to the U.S. to feed herds of animals.  If you aren't raising animals, then your grassy yard is simply a way of saying, "I have money and time."  Do we really need to spend water needed for life on people's need to say "I have enough money and time to deserve to live here." Find another socio-economic que.  There is still the time honored car or other home decoration.

Edited May 4, 2022 by gbear

[abdcskins]

As I've stated before in this thread, I am all for getting rid of grass in arid areas. It's so dumb. Grass is not meant to grow in the desert! Stop wasting water it's horrible. If you really want some green looking area to run around then get artificial grass.

[China]

Interesting side effect of the drought/low water levels:

 

Body in barrel in Lake Mead was man who had been shot decades ago, Las Vegas police say

 

Las Vegas police believe a body found inside a barrel in the newly exposed bottom of Lake Mead was that of a man who had been shot.

 

Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer also said Tuesday that shoes worn by the man were manufactured in the middle and late 1970s, indicating that the killing likely occurred between the middle 1970s and early 1980s, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

 

Police previously said they thought the remains probably dated from the 1980s.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Sounds like somebody ran afoul of the gangsters that used to run Las Vegas.

[@DCGoldPants]

Keep coming back to this. Desalination tech advancing is a must. Also, aqueducts/pipes crisscrossing the US to bring water from area that are getting maybe flooded to those in drought. 

 

A water pipeline has a leak/spill? OK. It's water. Might do some damage. But it's not an oil spill.