Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive. When I was visiting Hoover Dam in October, the folks who were showing me the stilling wells inside the dam took me on a side trip out onto the walkway outside the power plants …
Desalination of seawater along the coasts is the west’s water supply backstop, the reason we won’t in the worst case scenarios abandon southwestern cities. The water is very expensive as compared to the current system of dams, canals, pipes and pumps, but it’s cheaper that bailing out of the region entirely. So what does this …
Chris Brooks notes the good news: Lake Mead is finally beginning to climb. At this writing, its surface elevation is at 1082.30, after dropping below 1082 during the last week of November. And DG points us to some other good news. That’s snow pack as of Friday in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Those of …
Residents of the arid southwestern US like to think we’re the ones who know drought. But drought’s a relative thing – not how dry it is in absolute terms, but in comparison to what you’re used to. Take New Orleans, for example, which received 2.75 inches in rain in November. Here in Albuquerque, that would …
To Emily Green’s monthly dirge to document as well as accompany the declining levels of Lake Mead, I would add this: Mead’s end-of-October surface elevation, 1081.94 feet above sea level, was 1.31 feet below the level forecast just a month ago. Recall that 1075 is the trigger level for the first lower basin shortage declaration, …
Via Patricia McBroom, a fascinating look at a group studying tree rings in the redwoods along the Northern California coast for clues about climate: The plan is to chart the health of the trees over time and use laboratory analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes to figure out how the trees have reacted in the …
As we enter a new era of U.S. fiscal austerity, in which some members of Congress push to foreswear the dreaded “earmark” (pork barrel funding), Kitty Felde points out the importance of the practice in western water development: In Congress, seniority is power. Senate historian Donald Ritchie says small states re-elect incumbents more often than …
When I was in Nevada last month, I heard from a number of lay people that the answer to a shrinking Lake Mead was simple: stop hoarding water upstream in Lake Powell. Henry Brean did a nice job today of explaining why it ain’t that simple – that the current lake levels (as of today …
Continue reading ‘It’s not as simple as just releasing more water from Lake Powell’ »
Related to my post the other day about the Drop 2 reservoir in southeastern California, and the increasing use of marginal (and frequently more expensive) water, Mike Hightower at Sandia Labs shared this graphic showing the expansion of wastewater reuse and desalination in the United States, current and projected:
So I appear to have jumped the gun last week in pronouncing the end of Lake Mead’s seasonal decline for 2010. As I write this morning, the lake surface is at 1081.92 feet above sea level, having fluttered below the 1082 mark during the past week for the first time since 1937. It’s now more …