The ghosts of Lake Mead
- Thread starter OVERKILL
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Use Diablo Canyon? Could have used SONGS too, but, you know, California...
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat, that's crazy. That would never happen.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
The idea is that the states downstream (like California) will use desalination, to reduce the demand on this resource.
One of the video I recently watched said that when the dam was built, the calculations done using the tree ring data was overly optimistic. It was NOT wrong but as it turned out, the prior data they used happened to be the best 5 year period in 600 years!
To put it differently, the assumption made about the water capacity was completely wrong and it is no surprise that it is running out.
To put it differently, the assumption made about the water capacity was completely wrong and it is no surprise that it is running out.
If you supplied L.A., San Diego, and the Palm Springs areas with desalinated water, it would take a tremendous burden off of the Colorado River, and all of its lakes.
The Colorado river serves a large portion of SoCal. (California).
It's an interesting story but there's more to it.
Here's Sylvester's situation.
"...
"With respect to your upcoming story on water usage in the Hidden Hills area, we are concerned that it may mischaracterize and misrepresent the situation regarding the water usage at my client's property. They have more than 500 mature trees on the property, including innumerable fruit trees as well as pine trees. Absent adequate watering, in all likelihood, they would die. That could result in dead or damaged trees falling on my client's property or neighboring properties.
My client has been addressing the situation responsibly and proactively. They have let grasses die, and other areas are watered by a drip irrigation system. They also notified the city regarding the mature trees, and are awaiting an inspection and further instruction from the city about how to proceed.
I am confident that all of the larger properties in the area have similar issues. I therefore trust that my client will not be unfairly singled out in the story because he's a famous person."..."
So is the city going to pay to remove the trees?
If you go on Google Earth from about 20 miles up, and run parallel, southeast along the runway at Palm Springs airport, all the way to the northern shore of the Salton Sea, you can get an idea of just how much water is used to keep all of those golf courses green. It has to be literally billions of gallons annually. They wouldn't last a week in this weather without it.
Most of the water in the Colorado River goes California under Riparian legal arrangements, crafted when supply was higher and demand lower. The excess went into the Sea of Cortez. But it ran dry over a decade ago. Except for spring floods, the delta of the Colorado is a dry plain.
Nevada gets relatively little of the Colorado’s water, because the Riparian deals were crafted a hundred years ago, when water was plentiful, and Vegas didn’t yet exist.
California, and agriculture, get a lot of it. You can’t hold the water behind the dam to keep Lake Mead full, because those downstream have rights to a certain sustained flow, measured in acre-feet. So, the dam has to let that much flow past, because you cannot deny them their rightful water.
This article was over a decade ago, but discusses the problem. The water crisis has been well known for a long time. Lake Mead’s Level has been dropping for decades.
The Colorado River Runs Dry
Dams, irrigation and now climate change have drastically reduced the once-mighty river. Is it a sign of things to come?
www.smithsonianmag.com
How many composting toilets are there in use?
If baseball + football + soccer can be played on fake green plastic turf....so can golf!
If a car washer's sign which reads, "WE USE WELL WATER" is good enough for the trade....it's good enough for the rest of the country. Any restriction on water use is an infringement on my rights as an American. When spiders and moths come out the tap, it'll be someone else's fault.
That's the American Way! <<not good enough.
Using 6 gallons of drinking water to flush away 4 ounces of urine is the only way it can be done. If you criticize me, you're the devil.
Seriously, it really hurts to have to sit through people playing dumb. The "news" shouldn't be to repeat that there's a drought condition.
People should be doing everything they can to use water wisely.
Not only has the "water shortage time bomb" been ticking for decades nationally here (and longer elsewhere), it's been going off locally for ever.
Ancient Egypt has canals which fed water to what became the desert a long time ago. Subterranean salts leached up the wetted earth, killed the plants and fostered soil loss.
Raw markets can't be allowed to control such big impact phenomena.
flame suit on (as there isn't enough water to put me out).
If baseball + football + soccer can be played on fake green plastic turf....so can golf!
If a car washer's sign which reads, "WE USE WELL WATER" is good enough for the trade....it's good enough for the rest of the country. Any restriction on water use is an infringement on my rights as an American. When spiders and moths come out the tap, it'll be someone else's fault.
That's the American Way! <<not good enough.
Using 6 gallons of drinking water to flush away 4 ounces of urine is the only way it can be done. If you criticize me, you're the devil.
Seriously, it really hurts to have to sit through people playing dumb. The "news" shouldn't be to repeat that there's a drought condition.
People should be doing everything they can to use water wisely.
Not only has the "water shortage time bomb" been ticking for decades nationally here (and longer elsewhere), it's been going off locally for ever.
Ancient Egypt has canals which fed water to what became the desert a long time ago. Subterranean salts leached up the wetted earth, killed the plants and fostered soil loss.
Raw markets can't be allowed to control such big impact phenomena.
flame suit on (as there isn't enough water to put me out).
One problem in the USA is that we get stuck in our ways. Other parts of the world deal with these things and they do well.
Toilets should have two buttons. One for a small flush and one for a large flush. There are low flow shower heads and faucets that do work well. Others are a joke.
People need to learn that thirty minute showers are wasteful. Plant flowers and such in pots with drip irrigation lines instead of garden hoses. Rain water harvesting should be promoted better however some localities frown on that. My thinking is, if the rain falls on your roof then you should be able to harvest it.
Desalination should be a priority for one particular state on the west coast. The technology is there. They have sat on it for decades while depending on other regions to help them out.
Well water doesn’t help - it’s extraction, not a renewable resource.
Think of it as mining the aquifer, not drawing from a flowing river of water underground.
The problems out West are both on supply and demand side.
Flushing toilets isn’t the issue, either, it’s agriculture that uses the preponderance of the resource.
So, yeah, let your lawn die, that’s already been done. Fine/punish people for washing cars. Also…Done. Low flush toilets. Done. Low flow showerheads. Done.
It’s all been done already. Living in water - abundant upstate New York, you likely haven‘t lived with any of this, but it’s already been done. All of it.
The elephant in the room: farming.
Tell California farmers that they have to stop farming. That they lose their farms and livelihoods. Tell everyone that they can’t get fresh fruit. Fresh vegetables.
That’s the problem. Kill off the farms, and you solve the water problem.
But you would create food shortages across the country.
As a consumer, as a buyer of produce, you are part of creating this water shortage by buying food that’s grown in California, using water from the Colorado River.
Thats been done my Daughter has a toilet like that.
My new washing machine measures the height of the clothes and fills the tub just below the clothing line.
Before the dams were built there was a river. The dams were build for flood control and water use. There is no special reason the reservoirs need to be full. If there is lots of rain the reservoirs will fill if not well nature will usually win.
Farms ??? My food comes from the grocery store !
This is the biggest problem. Farming. We can't live with it, and we can't live without it. The biggest aquifer in the country is the Ogallala Aquifer. Lake Mead is a mud puddle in comparison. It holds an estimated 948 TRILLION gallons of water, and covers an area that contains 8 states.
And it's disappearing fast. It is expected to be 70% depleted within the next 50 years. But you can't see it. People look at Lake Mead today and say, "Oh my God!" But the Ogallala Aquifer supplies most every center pivot in flyover country.
The average 1/4 mile center pivot waters an average of 126 acres. And pumps 772 gallons per minute. And in 50 years, then what? 50 years is nothing. I've been out of high school over 50 years. When it's gone, or close to it, the nation's bread basket will start drying up. We will see food shortages the likes of never been seen before.
And depending on what study you read, it takes eons to replenish it. What we're seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg, as they say. In another 50 years we will have issues regarding water that are going to be incomprehensible. And it will affect the entire nation.... Not just the desert regions.
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