That looks like a nice place for a dam!
Black Canyon on the Colorado River, from the 1871 Wheeler survey, courtesy USGS. This is the area eventually chosen some years later for what was called Boulder or Hoover Dam:
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Has desal drought-proofed Israel?
Another example of reasons to be optimistic about our water future? With just half its normal precip last winter, Israel is in what might properly be characterized as a meteorological drought this year. But not to worry, according to this AP report: Tenne said the country has managed to close its water gap through a …
The turkey vultures of Mesa Verde
Five years ago, Lissa and I stopped to talk to a ranger on the Petroglyph Point Trail at Mesa Verde. We’d been admiring the turkey vultures soaring above the canyon, and the ranger clued us in. If you like turkey vultures, she told us, go to the Spruce Tree House overlook at dusk tonight and …
Lake Mead: lowest end-of-May levels in history
Unless tropical depression Amanda does something miraculous, and quickly, Lake Mead will end May at its lowest level for this point in the year since Elwood Mead and his buddies filled the reservoir in the 1930s, 20 feet in surface elevation below last year at this time. The “tropical storm Amanda” thing was a joke. …
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A river no more again
I suppose if you work this image from yesterday’s Landsat pass over the Colorado River Delta hard enough, you could find a path of wet connection between river and sea: Image courtesy USGS Earth Explorer
Peak Cheap Water?
We’re not running out of water in the West. What we’re running out of is cheap water in the West. – Jeff Mount
Pollution cleanup as a solution to water supply shortfalls
As Southern California looks at its next water supply steps, one of the top items on its agenda is cleaning up groundwater contamination. It’s cheaper than building more storage. So says MWD’s Jeff Kightlinger: I think you’re going to see the next wave of investments over the next decades in Southern California focused around issues …
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Our increasingly efficient use of water
Another reason for optimism about our ability to solve our water messes: [I]n most regions, the water needed to feed one person decreased even if diets became richer, because of the increase in water use efficiency in food production during the past half-century. Global Changes and Drivers of the Water Footprint of Food Consumption: A …
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The Four Corners is a complicated place
The Four Corners is a very big, very arid, and very complicated place.
George Maxwell, Colorado River irrigation and the “Asiatic menace”
When I first ran across the rantings of George Maxwell as the Colorado River Compact was being developed in the 1920s, their racism seemed almost comical. Here he is in a written submission to the 14th Meeting of the Colorado River Commission, Nov. 13, 1922 (pdf from University of Colorado): The flood menace must not …
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