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in the US west, water is power
https://spectrum.ieee.org/in-the-ame...oblem-is-water
There's a 1-in-3 chance Lake Powell won't be able to generate hydropower in 2023 due to drought conditions
the dam produces power that is distributed to some 5.8 million homes and businesses spanning from Nebraska to Nevada.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/23/weath...ook/index.html
in the US west, water is power
https://spectrum.ieee.org/in-the-ame...oblem-is-water
projections got a little worse for Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/drought-hit-colorado-river-projections-grow-more-direWhile the reservoir on the Nevada-Arizona border is key for those three lower Colorado River basin states, Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border is the guide for Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah in the upper basin. Smaller reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell have been releasing water into the massive lake so it can continue producing hydropower. But any bump from the releases that started this summer isn't factored into the five-year projections, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
The agency's projections show a 3 percent chance Lake Powell will hit a level where Glen Canyon Dam that holds it back cannot produce hydropower as early as July 2022 if the region has another dry winter.
“The latest outlook for Lake Powell is troubling,” Wayne Pullan, the bureau’s director for the upper basin, said in a statement. “This highlights the importance of continuing to work collaboratively with the basin states, tribes and other partners toward solutions.”
Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S., largely rely on melted snow. They have been hard hit by persistent drought amid climate change, characterized by a warming and drying trend in the past 30 years.
Both have dipped to historic lows. The lakes had a combined capacity of 39 percent on Wednesday, down from 49 percent at this time last year, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
Just run a water pipeline from the East to the West.
Reopen all those desalination plants up & the down the Western seaboard.
Close all the golf courses.
Close all the car washes.
Stop planting produce in the desserts.
Chop/chop!!!
could lead to generation problems later this year at Glen Canyon Dam
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/02/...hange-drought/The low range of probable forecasts, Patno said, show that hydropower generation at the dam may become impossible before the end of 2022, marking an uncertain new reality for the 40 million people who rely on Colorado River water between Denver and Tijuana.
The dam’s hydroelectric intakes are at 3,470 feet above sea level, but as the reservoir level drops below 3,525 feet the risk of equipment damage increases due to the possibility of air passing through the turbines.
Long-term forecasts produced by the Bureau of Reclamation in the early 2000s did not take into account the climate change-based models available at the time. In 2007, the federal agency set interim drought guidelines that are still largely in effect today, using a model that concluded there was less than a 10% probability that Lake Powell’s elevation would fall below 3,570 feet by 2050. The reservoir reached that level last March.
Let us proceed...
About to get real
worst drought in Cali in 1200 years, reportedly
If it were really that bad they'd close the golf courses and the car washes toot sweet.
If it were really that bad they'd open up those dozens of desalination plants up and down the Western seaboard.
If it were really that bad they'd construct water pipelines from the East to the West like they're running from Northern California to Southern California.
Chop/chop!!!
"unprecedented cutbacks"
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/enviro...er-from-states
they can't build, or afford to build, de-sal plants fast enough
Capitalism has ed us all, and Capitalists DGAF. BigFinance still finaces BigOil with $100Bs
The Great Salt Lake is drying up
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/c...-disaster.htmlIf the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store:
The lake’s flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.
Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.
“We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that’s going to go off if we don’t take some pretty dramatic action,” said Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and rancher who lives on the north side of the lake.
As climate change continues to cause record-breaking drought, there are no easy solutions. Saving the Great Salt Lake would require letting more snowmelt from the mountains flow to the lake, which means less water for residents and farmers. That would threaten the region’s breakneck population growth and high-value agriculture — something state leaders seem reluctant to do.
Utah’s dilemma raises a core question as the country heats up: How quickly are Americans willing to adapt to the effects of climate change, even as those effects become urgent, obvious, and potentially catastrophic?
The stakes are alarmingly high, according to Timothy D. Hawkes, a Republican lawmaker who wants more aggressive action. Otherwise, he said, the Great Salt Lake risks the same fate as California’s Owens Lake, which went dry decades ago, producing the worst levels of dust pollution in the United States and helping to turn the nearby community into a veritable ghost town.
“It’s not just fear-mongering,” he said of the lake vanishing. “It can actually happen.”
1987:
2022:
Repugs are attacking index funds because they are woke about climate change, and because they disinvest in the oil and gas industry..
Iow. Freedom for the Repugs means the Repugs decide who is free from Repug political attacks and punishment.
"You must agree with us or we will hurt you" fascism
this thread
The polar caps are melting, we'll be 20' below sea level soon!
The water is magically going away! Lakes are drying up!
Biblical level breaking of the laws of physics, bedlam is upon us. Where's Batman now?
DMC thinks oceans are lakes.
seems to think his voice throwing bit is clever, but it just makes him look like a sad, out of touch grandpa.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/...ged-to-act-nowWith the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs continuing to drop to new lows, the federal government has taken the unprecedented step of telling the seven Western states that rely on the river to find ways of drastically cutting the amount of water they take in the next two months.
The Interior Department is seeking the emergency cuts to reduce the risks of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country’s two largest reservoirs, declining to dangerously low levels next year.
“We have urgent needs to act now,” Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, said during a speech on Thursday. “We need to be taking action in all states, in all sectors, and in all available ways.”
Trujillo’s virtual remarks to a conference at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder underscored the dire state of the river under the stresses of climate change, and the urgency of scaling up the region’s response to stop the reservoirs from falling further. She provided details about the federal government’s approach to the crisis two days after Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced that major cuts of between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet will be needed next year to keep reservoirs from dropping to “critical levels.”
For comparison, California, Arizona and Nevada used a total of about 7 million acre-feet.
https://www.grid.news/story/climate/...-to-deal-with/The Bureau of Reclamation’s required cuts of up to 4 million acre-feet is a stopgap measure, intended to only address water shortages in 2023. Beyond that, new guidelines must also be developed to govern water use after 2026. Schmidt and his colleagues did offer up some potential solutions that would theoretically stabilize the river in the face of continuing drought conditions. One such scenario would involve capping upper basin use at 4.5 million acre-feet per year, while the lower basin and Mexico cut their usage by 3 million acre-feet; that would put both basins at around 67 percent of their original allocation.
But Schmidt told Grid that even that sort of scenario has risks, since their analysis basically assumed the present conditions remain — but they are likely to get worse. “The atmosphere is going to keep getting warmer, which means the flow is going to keep getting less, which means the amount of cuts have to keep going down even more,” he said.
Experts agree that basically all sectors will have to make some concessions, but with 70 to 80 percent of all the water used going to agriculture, it is clear where the bulk of the reduction in use will have to come from. And while there is a very obvious requirement — both legally and practically — to come to an agreement to stabilize the river and its reservoirs, no one seems quite prepared to offer up the needed cuts just yet. In a sense, it mirrors international climate change negotiations.
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