Lake Mead, Water Supply For Las Vegas, SoCal and Mexico, Hits Lowest Levels Since Filling In 1930s

[hatrack]

The nation’s largest reservoir has broken a record, declining to the lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s. /Lake Mead reached the new all-time low on Wednesday night, slipping below a previous record set in June 2015. The downward march of the reservoir near Las Vegas reflects enormous strains on the over-allocated Colorado River. Its flows have decreased during 16 years of drought, and climate change is adding to the stresses on the river.

As the levels of Lake Mead continue to fall, the odds are increasing for the federal government to declare a shortage in 2018, a step that would trigger cutbacks in the amounts flowing from the reservoir to Arizona and Nevada. With that threshold looming, political pressures are building for California, Arizona and Nevada to reach an agreement to share in the cutbacks in order to avert an even more severe shortage.

EDIT

Government records show that the level of Lake Mead hasn’t been this low since 1937, when the reservoir was being filled. Scientists have estimated that rising temperatures and the resulting declines in runoff across the Colorado River Basin could reduce the river’s flow by between 5 percent and 35 percent by the middle of the century.

“Human-caused climate warming will drive larger and larger flow reductions as long as emissions of greenhouse gases continue,” said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. “The river is over-allocated even before climate change is factored in,” Overpeck said in an email. He said he thinks the negotiations will probably “focus on how to reduce the over-allocation, but will eventually have to focus on sharing the pain as climate change continues to reduce the flows.”

EDIT/END

http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2016/05/19/lake-mead-declines-new-record-low/84597120/

[libdem4life]

1. If I'm not mistaken, isn't that the water that goes to the Central Valley

that grows 25% of the nations produce? It got ugly before...the farmers against the urban dwellers. And there just isn't much of an answer to each.

Water, in the form of lawn, keep property values up. But water, in the form of growing food to eat, keeps the food growing. Once during another similar crisis, the Santa Rosa City Council was pressed to ration lawn watering and the community reaction was swift and decisive...no way.

Climate change is inadvertently political.

[hatrack]

2. Much of it - also to LA for drinking water

Lots of the Central Valley is irrigated with groundwater, however, and with diversions from farther north in the state - big dams like Oroville, Shasta, New Melones and so on.

[libdem4life]

3. Now I remember. The whole of So Cal, including the Central Valley,

is pretty much a desert. Talk about the social and political costs of climate change...at least we have Jerry Brown there. That's one plus. But the costs of the millions upon millions that depend on the No Cal/Colorado River water is daunting.

[jeff47]

5. No.

Lake Mead drains into the Colorado river, which passes between CA and AZ. California's aqueduct that goes to the Colorado river goes through the Mohave desert to Southern California. It feeds some farmland but not the central valley. The central valley is far away from the aqueduct

The central valley gets it's water primarily from two other aqueducts, which get their water from the Sierra Nevada mountains.

[hunter]

10. California's share goes to the Imperial Valley and Southern California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Valley

That's one of the places growing lettuce in the winter.

Southern California also draws water from the Northern California.

The Colorado River rarely reaches the sea, and any trickle of water that does is too salty for agriculture. That's why the Mexican border is visible in the picture above, as a diagonal line across the lower left-hand corner. There's simply not much good water left in the river when it reaches Mexico.

[jeff47]

4. Pedantic: It's not that much of a water supply for SoCal anymore

Arizona built an aqueduct to the Colorado river upstream from California's aqueduct. So while Lake Mead used to be SoCal's largest source of water, that changed a couple decades ago.

[libdem4life]

6. Thanks for the info...I think I remember that. Pray for rain. Lots of it.

[jeff47]

7. Pray for snow.

The rain flows into the ocean relatively quickly. It's snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains that California really needs to fill the reservoirs.

[libdem4life]

9. Yep. Pray for ski weather. My son counts the days.

[mountain grammy]

12. and yet, even with el Nino I read your snowpack is only 62% of average this year..

going to be a tough summer. I hope it keeps raining.

[hatrack]

8. True lots of the old agricultural land that Mead (and the Owens Valley before that) irrigated . .

. . . has long since been converted to subdivisions and malls.

[libdem4life]

11. The results of people-fueled climate change. Create greater need for what

just got diminished/literally covered up.

[mountain grammy]

13. Up here, at the headwaters of the Colorado River,

the snow pack is 100% of normal, and our reservoirs should fill quickly. We'll be sending water downstream. Unfortunately, not enough to fill Lake Mead.

[Nihil]

14. "We'll be sending water downstream. Unfortunately, not enough to fill Lake Mead."

Quick! Drink more beer!