Rolling snake-eyes in Las Vegas. When does the water run out?

[Dr.Phool]

I used to enjoy going out to Vegas a couple of times a year, when I was younger and single. I started going in the mid-'70s, and it was nowhere near the sprawling megopolis it is today. Hell, I was in the original MGM Grande about a week before it burned down, killing hundreds. We flew over the ash cloud from Mount St. Helens on the way there. But thats another story.

Fifty years ago Las Vegas had a population of 25,000. Today it stands at 2.4 million. It's projected to hit 3.5 million in 5 years. They get all their water from the Colorado River. The Southwest has been in a drought for 7 years, and climate change-global warming are going to make the dust bowl conditions of the '30s the norm.

Here's what they have to look forward to.


Southwestern U.S. Becoming a Dust Bowl
Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 5 (IPS) - The severe seven-year drought in the Southwestern United States is just the beginning of a new and even drier climate for the region due to climate change, scientists say.

The infamous "dust bowl" conditions of the 1930s will be the norm, with the possibility that the aridity will be unlike anything in the past, according to research published Thursday in Science -- one day before the release of another key report by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, which also warns that drought-prone areas are likely to become even drier due to global warming.

According to Ming Fang Ting, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-author of the Science study, the current drought in the U.S. Southwest is not part of the natural variability in climactic conditions.

"The causes of drought now, and in the future, are different with climate change," Ting told IPS.

Using 19 computer climate models, researchers determined that the U.S. Southwest and parts of Northern Mexico are expected to become much drier. Unlike previous historical droughts that were caused by changes in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, the models reveal that climate change will dramatically increase the size of the sub-tropical dry zone around the planet.

(snip) more

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37239

[WinkyDink]

1. Humans weren't meant to live in certain climates and topographies.

[htuttle]

3. Sure they were -- but only a few at a time

...Not 3+ million all in one place!

[wtmusic]

2. Not soon enough in Vegas

WADR to Nevadan DUers, the sooner Vegas runs out of water the sooner it can be bulldozed back to pristine desert. IMHO.

[Solo_in_MD]

10. WADR to SoCal DUers, I would support the bulldozing of most of LA before LV

[earth mom]

14. Southern California has been ruined by the wall to wall concrete & cars & smog & people...

It was nice in the 60s and 70s when I was growning up, but as soon as the greed infested 80s kicked in, it became a hellhole. So sad because it had a certain charm way back when. :(

[Solo_in_MD]

19. Many forget that there are some seriously polluted spots in LA, it is the better choice to bulldoze

[Little Wing]

12. Cold, but unless changes are made, inevitable

Whether it's by bulldozer or sand in the wind

[Bluebear]

20. And what part of CA do you live in that we can bulldoze to its pristine state? nt

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Yet another reminder: Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" ... read it and learn...

just how thin a thread Las Vegas, and even Los Angeles, is hanging by.

[kestrel91316]

5. We'd be doing fine here in LA if we just gave up the friggin tropical

landscaping and the front lawns(which really only make sense in the eastern US).

[Solo_in_MD]

8. Not true

cut the aqueducts and LA would dry away. The Owens Vally is never going to be close to recovery until LA draw from there is shutdown for 5-10 YEARS. California is also overdrawing on the Colorado River. Cut of the MWD from that and see what happens.

[kestrel91316]

18. They will not shut down the aqueducts in my lifetime. We still get

a LOT of our local water here in the SF Valley from the aquifers fed by the San Gabriels, too.

We have enough water to drink. We DON'T have enough for the lush landscaping. Period. We should have laws like in Tucson, where you can't have anything in the front that requires ANY water once established.

Oh, and people are going to have to come around to the idea of using reclaimed water. They panic over the idea right now.

[Solo_in_MD]

22. The local LA area aquifers are starting to show more and more contaminate

CA getting less water from the Colorado and with the inadequate recovery of the Owens Valley, a non western president could well have the fortitude to force SoCal to cut back. I can hear the squealing now.

[enid602]

25. LA

80% of the water from the Colorado goes to agriculture in California; much of that going to the very arrid Imperial County, with a population of about 35,000 people. Los Angeles has added more than 800 miles of heavy rail in the last 20 years, more than any other city on the planet. They permitted integration after the last riots by doing away with red-lining. I was in Washington for a few very muggy days last July, and was taken aback by the large number of air-conditioned motorists hurrying between their segregated homes and cushy defense jobs.

[Solo_in_MD]

27. You need to read up some about LA and its water issues

- The Colorado is over subscribed. SoCal will be losing some of its water from there soon
- A deal was already struck to give a fair amount of the Imperial valley water to MWD, which DOES NOT serve LA City but does cover San Diego etc.
- The water going to Imperial County was also used to grow food, something that is also required
- Attempts to minimize water losses along the border canal were fought in court but were futile. Ecological and political reasons were citied in trying to block it.
- Adding more rail lines has nothing to do with water. Overall use of rail lines in SoCal have diminished over time partially in concern to safety and cost.
- Riots had nothing to do with water or integration. Red lining continues, and there are articles about ethnic cleansing in the LAT recently. Race relations are worse not better in the greater LA area, though its mostly between minorities than whites.
- The mid atlantic region does get muggy, but I am not sure what or Wash DC has to do with any of this, other that being the seat of national government which may force LA to cut back sharply. However since LA really is a large numbers of small cities, expect it to be piecemeal at best. DC segregation is not better or worse than other areas, though the real issue for many is gentrification.

You failed to address the lack of progress in the Owens Valley where DWP fights every move, even after they have agreed to it. When that gets turned off by the courts (who do not consider the impact on LA relevant) is when the mud is going to hit the fan.

[SheilaT]

16. I was going to suggest that book.

But you beat me to it. It's incredible, should be required reading for anyone living in or wanting to move to the deserts of this country. I've lived in Tucson and Phoenix, and I know first hand how oblivious people there are to the precariousness of their water supplies.

[Matariki]

6. If Vegas is like Phoenix, people live as if they weren't in the desert

watering lawns, artificial lakes, golf courses. it's almost hard to feel sympathetic.

edit: oops, spelling.

[Canuckistanian]

11. I'm afraid Phoenix is doomed

It has always been a geographic anomaly in terms of sustainability. I remember National Geographic articles showing aerial photos of Phoenix suburbs in the 70s. Green lawns and swimming pools, surrounded by the driest deserts in the US.

Global Warming will make that obvious in the next 10 years, unless some serious solutions are found.

And I'm not sure they SHOULD be.

[Bluebear]

21. Golf courses & water features use grey water.

Xeriscaping is encouraged and the water authority actually pays you to relandscape using desert materials instead of sod.

[Matariki]

23. That's good. I was there in the 80's and there was much less awareness.

[cliss]

7. Wars of the future: Water Wars.

I've read that water is going to be a more dire issue than even petroleum, which is what we're trying to secure right now in Iraq.

Water - and Lack of it.

Thirsty planet.

This is going to hit the rest of the world in ways that petroleum problems can't. A lot of these smaller villages don't use gas anyway. But when the well runs dry - it will impact them. Expect millions of deaths from this.
Also expect the Multinational corporations to be 10 steps ahead on this. They have already been making plans to own the world's water supplies.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. The saying in the west is "Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting"

[nealmhughes]

13. And at the same time, the Utah state legislature and their congressional delegation

wants to make St. George the "New Las Vegas" without the gamblin', drinkin', whorin', and cussin' that make Vegas "special." They want GOLF, in the midst of the Zion-Mojave Wilderness. . . utility corridors and aqueducts from the Colorado down to St. George and an expressway from Vegas to there.

I wrote the copy for PDA's newsletter on this one, here is the link:

http://screechingrats.wordpress.com/2006/12/10/whistling-dixie-in-congress-and-on-the-golf-links/

If you find the funny typo, you get a bright shiny copper penny!

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. All they have to do to solve this problem is to empty Lake Mead and Lake Powell

Half of all the water in the Colorado river evaporates from these monstrous lakes, which have also flooded half the Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon (the parts you didn't know existed) including legendary formations that have not been exposed to air in decades.

Other parts of the lake system have been silted up, some with radioactive debris from nearby nuclear testing sites, so the underwater canyon saytems have been fundamentally altered.

Build a gravitational aqueduct system through the Lake Mead / lower Grand canyon valley to provide all the power that is needed out of the Hoover Dam. Half of the Colorado can be sent through such an aqueduct starting at an intake point on the west end of Grand Canyon national park. This aqueduct would also supply and be supplied by waste water from Las Vegas. The remaining half of the Colorado River would run as a wild river through what is now Lake Mead. The Glen Canyon dam would be decommissioned.

[htuttle]

17. "Just one precision earthquake...that's all I ask." -- G.W. Hayduke

[ToeBot]

24. "If you don't drink, don't drive."

"If you drink, drive like hell."

"It's Freedom, baby. Yeah!!" -Austin Powers

[Jim Lane]

26. I suspect Vegas won't run out of water

I think it was Hal Rothman who wrote that, in the American West, "water flows uphill to money."

Vegas, like Phoenix, will see more xeriscaping, etc., and may have to curb its growth -- but it will get the water it needs, at the expense of other users if necessary.

[Solo_in_MD]

28. Its already looking north and east and running into some issues there

No one will tolerate another Owen Valley fiasco ala the LA DWP