In 1960, the Cold War was a thing – the moral imperative of our global stand against the commies. At the time, Albuquerque, New Mexico, was one of the nation’s centers for nuclear weapons research, development, and management. What better reason for supporting water development? From a May 20, 1960 hearing before the House Subcommittee on Irrigation …
My new hobby, hunting for pictures of Lake Mead when it was full, led me this evening to the helpful USGS EarthExplorer archives of old U.S. government satellite images, where I found this little beauty. Apologies if it’s a slow load, they’re relatively large image file so interested water nerds can click on it and zoom …
Continue reading ‘The last time Lake Mead was full, as seen from outer space’ »
A great find for Bill Hasencamp’s collection of pictures of Lake Mead full: Optimistically, presumed to be full.
“When will Lake Mead fill up again? Probably not in our lifetimes,” said Bill Hasencamp, the MWD’s point person for the Colorado River. “If you saw it full, save those pictures.” LA Times My best guess is that the picture above was taken in 1987.
I’ve been joking to my Colorado River management friends about how I keep trying to leave the Salton Sea out of my book. This effort has been such a failure that the Salton Sea now makes multiple appearances in the current draft. All paths to the end of my book’s argument seem to pass through …
Even with a dose of bonus water transferred from the Upper Colorado River Basin’s storage account to the Lower Colorado River Basin’s storage account, Lake Mead is forecast to drop another five feet between now and the end of September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s first forecast of the 2015-16 water year. We’re …
Continue reading ‘Lake Mead forecast to drop another 5 feet in the coming year’ »
In the latest High Country News, Stephen Elliott reports on the tribulations of the Paradox Valley desal unit run by the Bureau of Reclamation to help reduce salt load on the Colorado River: Without the unit’s deep injection, the salt that covers the desert valley floor at Paradox, and the thousands of tons of it …
Continue reading ‘Colorado River salinity program showing its age’ »
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., had a go at Deputy Interior Secretary Mike Connor during a Senate hearing last week, looking for assurances that if his state left unused water in Lake Mead as part of a Colorado River Basin conservation effort, the Interior Department wouldn’t just kype it and give it to someone else (mumble …
Continue reading ‘Arizona, water conservation, and the tragedy of the “paracommons”’ »
In response to reader feedback, here’s my depressing graph of current Lake Mead storage, adapted to be readable on your mobile phone. Yes, there are people now who prefer their bad news on the go! More background here.
It’s one of those milestones that’s an entirely arbitrary result of the units we use to measure, but it’s probably nevertheless worth marking: for the first time since it was filled in the 1930s, Lake Mead ended the “water year” below 10 million acre feet of storage. The finally elevation at midnight last Wednesday, Sept. …