Pretentious Snobby Bastard Fly Fishing!

Fly Fishing BS => The Gravel Bar => Topic started by: Woolly Bugger on March 04, 2019, 11:37:47 AM

Title: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 04, 2019, 11:37:47 AM
It's going to be all about the water, sooner than later.


https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/a-future-no-one-could-see-capped-nevadas-share-of-colorado-river-water-1603391/

QuoteWhen representatives from seven Western states met in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to divvy up the Colorado River in 1922, Las Vegas was a dusty railroad stop with fewer than 2,500 residents.
No one could have imagined this isolated desert community would one day become an international destination with more than 2 million residents and 40 million annual visitors.
No one thought Nevada would ever need more water than it eventually got from those early Colorado River negotiations.

“It strikes me as a forgivable failure of imagination,” said historian Christian Harrison, who earned his doctorate from UNLV. “They probably thought they would land people on Mars before we had so many people living in this valley.”

QuoteWhen construction of Hoover Dam began in 1931, fewer than 100,000 people lived in Nevada, and most of them were in the northern half of the state, far beyond the river’s reach. Clark County, population 8,500, was home to some mines, a few modest farming operations and a newly legal gaming industry, but nothing that seemed to require a major new source of water or the means of delivering it.

Current estimated population 2.2 Million in Clark County 3.1 Million for the state.

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 04, 2019, 11:46:29 AM
Colorado River’s decline poses long-term risks for Southern Nevada


QuoteIt supplies water and power to 40 million people from Wyoming to Mexico and irrigates billions of dollars in cropland used to feed millions more.
No wonder so many people are worried about the Colorado River. Punishing drought has ravaged the system for almost 20 years, shrinking its two largest reservoirs to a record low 40 percent of combined capacity.

A bleached bathtub ring 130 feet tall marks the decline of Lake Mead, which supplies 90 percent of the water used by nearly three-quarters of Nevada residents. That white stripe on the
cliffs surrounding the nation’s largest reservoir is expected to grow another 30 feet over the next two years as farms and cities downstream continue to divert more water than the Colorado can reliably provide.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/colorado-rivers-decline-poses-long-term-risks-for-southern-nevada-1603454/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 08, 2019, 04:11:17 AM
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/india-diverting-30-rivers-to-solve-historic-water-crisis/

QuoteIndia today faces a water emergency of historic proportions, with an estimated 600 million peopleâ€"about half the populationâ€"grappling with either severe water shortages or polluted water supplies. Government engineers propose to ease the crisis by shunting “excess” water from one riverbed to another, a colossal refit of nature’s designs that also could help control monsoon flooding, boost irrigation, and generate hydropower for the country’s water-thirsty citizens.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on March 08, 2019, 05:43:57 AM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on March 08, 2019, 04:11:17 AMhttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/india-diverting-30-rivers-to-solve-historic-water-crisis/

QuoteIndia today faces a water emergency of historic proportions, with an estimated 600 million peopleâ€"about half the populationâ€"grappling with either severe water shortages or polluted water supplies. Government engineers propose to ease the crisis by shunting “excess” water from one riverbed to another, a colossal refit of nature’s designs that also could help control monsoon flooding, boost irrigation, and generate hydropower for the country’s water-thirsty citizens.

Why, so they can double their population in the next 30 years, and export another 500,000,000 to Europe and the US? They don't have a water problem, they have a population management problem!
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on March 08, 2019, 07:08:27 AM
Quote from: Onslow on March 08, 2019, 05:43:57 AMWhy, so they can double their population in the next 30 years, and export another 500,000,000 to Europe and the US? They don't have a water problem, they have a population management problem!


Corrected: “They don't have a water problem, we have a population management problem!

From my colonized county of 4500 souls, I say, insular reasoning will get us nowhere

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthieu-ricard/we-are-all-responsible_b_8201790.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on March 08, 2019, 07:33:37 AM
Man, that scenario would be about as crazy as saying someone could lay pipes through mountains and other obstacles to move water to New York City. Or, we could rob headwaters of a river that flows southwest to the Pacific and pipe it east over the western continental divide so people in Denver can water their lawns.
Dang, we would never be so stupid as to do that!
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 09, 2019, 13:16:21 PM
Plans to pump the Mojave desert aquafer dry in order to supplement water need of Los Angeles!


QuoteCADIZ VALLEY, Calif. â€" The landscape here is more Martian than Earthly, rust and tan plains that rise in the distance to form the Old Woman Mountains to the east and the Bristols and Marbles to the north and west.
Almost everything here is protected by the federal government. The opportunity or threat, depending on your point of view, lies beneath the dusty surface that, after a recent rain, blooms with sprays of yellow desert dandelion.
There is water here in the Mojave Desert. A lot of it.
Whether to tap it on a commercial scale or leave it alone is a decades-old question the Trump administration has revived and the California legislature is visiting anew. The debate will help resolve whether private enterprise can effectively manage a public necessity in a state where who gets water and where it originates endures as the most volatile political issue.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-massive-aquifer-lies-beneath-the-mojave-desert-could-it-help-solve-californias-water-problem/2019/03/03/a5d8fe14-354e-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.b2f658a3b04e
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on March 09, 2019, 15:22:32 PM
I saw an ad for miracle water from this prophet last week on late night TV.  His "Biblical point of contact" H2O might just save the world from total annihilation.

https://peterpopoff.org/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 13, 2019, 11:04:33 AM
Quote from: undefinedPHOENIX â€" A major Southern California water agency is trying to push the state through a final hurdle in joining a larger plan to preserve a key river in the U.S. West that serves 40 million people.
Most of the seven states that get water from the Colorado River have signed off on plans to keep the waterway from crashing amid a prolonged drought, climate change and increased demands. But California and Arizona have not, missing deadlines from the federal government.

Arizona has some work to do but nothing major holding it back. California, however, has two powerful water agencies fighting over how to get the drought contingency plan approved before U.S. officials possibly impose their own rules for water going to California, Arizona and Nevada.

QuoteThat agency, the Imperial Irrigation District, has said it won't approve the plan unless the federal government agrees to commit $200 million to address the Salton Sea, a massive, briny lake southeast of Los Angeles that has become an environmental and health hazard in the Imperial and Coachella valleys
.

wait, CA needs Federal money...


https://www.abc15.com/news/state/california-agencies-at-odds-over-colorado-river-drought-plan
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 16, 2019, 12:19:46 PM
QuoteFor the moment, Mother Nature is smiling on the Colorado River.
Enough snow has piled up in the mountains that feed the river to stave off a dreaded shortage declaration for one more year, according to federal projections released Friday afternoon.

Just a month ago, forecasters expected Lake Mead to start 2020 about 17 feet lower than it is now, below the trigger point for a first-ever federal shortage declaration on the drought-stricken river.

But several weeks of winter storms across the Mountain States have cut the lake’s expected decline by Jan. 1 roughly in half, leaving the reservoir east of Las Vegas safely above the shortage line, according to the new figures from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

QuoteIn January, they were predicting another dry year, with just 64 percent of the average flow during the river’s peak April through July snowmelt period. By mid-February, that runoff forecast had increased to 74 percent. It hit 102 percent in the Bureau of Reclamation’s latest batch of monthly projections, and Miller said it could climb as high as 130 percent a month from now.

If the latest forecast holds, it would mark just the sixth year of above average flows since 2000 for the river system that supplies 90 percent of the Las Vegas Valley’s drinking water.

“It’s been a much better year than last year. It’s still not enough to break the drought, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction,” Miller said. “My guess is it will get even better. I’m not sure if it will be enough to keep Lake Mead out of shortage.”

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/wet-winter-likely-to-keep-colorado-river-out-of-shortage-next-year-1619331/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 18, 2019, 14:55:57 PM
Regional snowmaking expansions a growing concern


An environmental group is raising concerns that the cumulative impacts of numerous snowmaking expansion projects proposed or underway at ski areas throughout the region are not being adequately evaluated by the U.S. Forest Service.

Snowmaking is both a cause of and a response to climate change, Wilderness Workshop argues in an objection filed in response to the White River National Forest’s approval of Aspen Skiing Co.’s project to expand snowmaking and terrain on Aspen Mountain.

The Carbondale-based nonprofit’s objection requested the Forest Service withdraw its November decision in support of the Aspen Mountain project so that a “programmatic environmental impact statement” (EIS) can be drafted looking at the bigger picture. The objection focuses on impacts of increased river depletions to endangered fish in the Colorado River, changes to runoff patterns and increased energy use associated with the system expansions.

https://www.aspendailynews.com/news/regional-snowmaking-expansions-a-growing-concern/article_ffc1a42c-492f-11e9-a5ec-af32490855b3.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 25, 2019, 17:41:36 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia

Saudi-based Almarai owns 15,000 acres of an irrigated valley â€" but what business does a foreign food production company have drawing resources from a US desert?

Four hours east of Los Angeles, in a drought-stricken area of a drought-afflicted state, is a small town called Blythe where alfalfa is king. More than half of the town’s 94,000 acres are bushy blue-green fields growing the crop.

Massive industrial storehouses line the southern end of town, packed with thousands upon thousands of stacks of alfalfa bales ready to be fed to dairy cows â€" but not cows in California’s Central Valley or Montana’s rangelands.

Instead, the alfalfa will be fed to cows in Saudi Arabia.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 25, 2019, 17:48:18 PM
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/kalw/audio/2019/03/03-25-19yc.mp3

One Planet: Climate change and the Colorado River Podcast
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on March 25, 2019, 17:52:33 PM
Quotehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia

Saudi-based Almarai owns 15,000 acres of an irrigated valley â€" but what business does a foreign food production company have drawing resources from a US desert?

Four hours east of Los Angeles, in a drought-stricken area of a drought-afflicted state, is a small town called Blythe where alfalfa is king. More than half of the town’s 94,000 acres are bushy blue-green fields growing the crop.

Massive industrial storehouses line the southern end of town, packed with thousands upon thousands of stacks of alfalfa bales ready to be fed to dairy cows â€" but not cows in California’s Central Valley or Montana’s rangelands.

Instead, the alfalfa will be fed to cows in Saudi Arabia.
This is the kind of shit that makes me crazy.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: rbphoto on March 26, 2019, 13:34:35 PM
Quote from: Dougfish on March 25, 2019, 17:52:33 PM
Quotehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia

Saudi-based Almarai owns 15,000 acres of an irrigated valley â€" but what business does a foreign food production company have drawing resources from a US desert?

Four hours east of Los Angeles, in a drought-stricken area of a drought-afflicted state, is a small town called Blythe where alfalfa is king. More than half of the town’s 94,000 acres are bushy blue-green fields growing the crop.

Massive industrial storehouses line the southern end of town, packed with thousands upon thousands of stacks of alfalfa bales ready to be fed to dairy cows â€" but not cows in California’s Central Valley or Montana’s rangelands.

Instead, the alfalfa will be fed to cows in Saudi Arabia.
This is the kind of shit that makes me crazy.

There is a ton of money in the Middle East, and they don't mind spending it.  They just do it in ways that most of us don't think about.

My brother-in-law flies over there a few times a year as a dairy consultant.  He attempted to broker some U.S. based feed deals to supply them since they can't grow what they need over there. 

Your example above is exactly they mindset they have about how to supply their needs.

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 06, 2019, 16:58:43 PM
https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/where-the-rivers-join/article_f0f2809c-582a-11e9-bd02-20677ce85d90.html

Brian Mahoney has been eyeing public access for properties along the Colorado riverfront since 1986, but he's always had his sights set on an elusive, high-rising parcel that just happens to include the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers.

There have been notable overtures by Mahoney and others in the past to buy the property — owned for years by salvage yard operator Dean Van Gundy, and now owned by his son Randy — but a confluence of factors may be stirring together now to make some sort of sale of the property a reality.

93F1CF10-8840-4177-8980-0D156DD91DC0.jpeg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 09, 2019, 15:34:52 PM
In Colorado River's Final Hundred Miles, Small Signs Of Life Return

QuoteLAGUNA GRANDE, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO — It's mid-morning in the Sonoran desert and already the temperature is rising.
Karen Schlatter suggests we find some shade, a relatively easy task at Laguna Grande, a restoration site along the Colorado River's historic channel in Mexico. It's managed by the Sonoran Institute, where Schlatter is associate director of the binational environmental group's Colorado River Delta program.

Read the rest:
https://www.kunc.org/post/colorado-rivers-final-hundred-miles-small-signs-life-return#stream/1

or listen:
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/kunc/audio/2019/04/lr_deltaseries3_web.mp3

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 09, 2019, 15:57:24 PM
As The Colorado River Basin Dries, Can An Accidental Oasis Survive?

QuoteJuan Butrón-Méndez navigates a small metal motorboat through a maze of tall reeds here in the Mexican state of Sonora. It's nearing sunset, and the sky is turning shades of light blue and purple.
The air smells of wet earth, an unfamiliar scent in the desert.
 

Luke Runyon reports from the Colorado River's "accidental wetland." Butrón-Méndez lives nearby and works for the conservation group Pronatura Noroeste as a bird monitor. (Pronatura's work receives financial support from the Walton Family Foundation, which also funds KUNC's Colorado River coverage.)

Read the rest: https://www.kunc.org/post/colorado-river-basin-dries-can-accidental-oasis-survive#stream/1

or listen: https://cpa.ds.npr.org/kunc/audio/2019/04/lr_deltaseries2_web.mp3

associated reading: A Sand County Almanac (https://amzn.to/2I7jPE5)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 09, 2019, 16:35:00 PM
Five Years Later, Effects Of Colorado River Pulse Flow Still Linger

QuoteAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, MEXICO — From inside a small airplane, tracing the Colorado River along the Arizona-California border, it's easy to see how it happened.
As the river bends and weaves through the American Southwest, its contents are slowly drained. Concrete canals send water to millions of people in Phoenix and Tucson, Los Angeles and San Diego. Farms, ribbons of green contrasted against the desert's shades of brown, line the waterway.

Further downstream, near Yuma, Arizona, the river splits into threads, like a frayed piece of yarn.

read the rest: https://www.kunc.org/post/five-years-later-effects-colorado-river-pulse-flow-still-linger#stream/1

or listen: https://cpa.ds.npr.org/kunc/audio/2019/04/lr_deltaseries1_web.mp3

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 06, 2019, 13:45:17 PM
Changing water flow leads to more bugs in the Grand Canyon

QuoteLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Ted Kennedy sums up what he sees along the river in the Grand Canyon: "It's buggy out there."
That is to say, an experiment to change the flow of water from a dam near the Arizona-Utah state line appeared to boost the number of aquatic insects that fish in the Colorado River eat.
 
Scientists are hoping to better understand those results with a second bug flow experiment that started this month and will run through August. They found that releasing low, steady flows of water from Glen Canyon Dam over the weekend gives the eggs that bugs lay on rocks, wood or cattails just below the water's surface a better chance of survival. Otherwise, they might dry out and die within an hour.

"It's a powerful reminder that flows really matter, that just a couple days a week of steady flow can illicit massive emergence," said Kennedy, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

https://www.bendbulletin.com/nation/7137813-151/changing-water-flow-leads-to-more-bugs-in
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 06, 2019, 13:53:08 PM
50 years of restoring Donegal Creek wild trout stream heartbreakingly undone in hours


QuoteNature is a great healer. It also can be achingly fragile, as fly fishers who love Donegal Creek in East Donegal Township found out last weekend.

One minute, the spring-fed stream that has been lovingly restored into a wild trout stream over five decades was flowing peacefully through rolling Lancaster County farmland. Then something toxic came barreling downstream near the stream's confluence with Musser Run, wiping out, within hours, nearly every kind of fish, crayfish and aquatic insect along a 4.5-mile stretch.

On Sunday, when fly anglers who had caught rising trout only days before drove over to see the damage for themselves, they were dumbstruck and broken-hearted by what they saw. Wild and stocked trout, their beautiful stripes and colorful specks already bleached from their bodies, lay on sandy banks or bobbed in unnatural positions in the water. The carnage also included sculpin, dace, chubs, minnows, salamanders and all manner of aquatic insects.

https://lancasteronline.com/sports/outdoors/years-of-restoring-donegal-creek-wild-trout-stream-heartbreakingly-undone/article_2949e584-6d07-11e9-ace1-0bd7f7e295e0.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on May 06, 2019, 15:27:22 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on May 06, 2019, 13:45:17 PMChanging water flow leads to more bugs in the Grand Canyon

QuoteLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Ted Kennedy sums up what he sees along the river in the Grand Canyon: "It's buggy out there."
That is to say, an experiment to change the flow of water from a dam near the Arizona-Utah state line appeared to boost the number of aquatic insects that fish in the Colorado River eat.
 
Scientists are hoping to better understand those results with a second bug flow experiment that started this month and will run through August. They found that releasing low, steady flows of water from Glen Canyon Dam over the weekend gives the eggs that bugs lay on rocks, wood or cattails just below the water's surface a better chance of survival. Otherwise, they might dry out and die within an hour.

"It's a powerful reminder that flows really matter, that just a couple days a week of steady flow can illicit massive emergence," said Kennedy, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

https://www.bendbulletin.com/nation/7137813-151/changing-water-flow-leads-to-more-bugs-in

Hmmm. Sounds like the Smiff.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 14, 2019, 15:14:02 PM
https://www.nrdc.org/media/2019/190514

Fishing and Conservation Groups Sue Country's Largest Agricultural Water District Over Illegal Plot to Raise Shasta Dam

Dam Raise Would Flood the Protected Wild and scenic McCloud River, Tribe's Remaining Sacred Sites and Harm Fisheries
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 22, 2019, 09:22:59 AM
https://www.capeandislands.org/post/trout-mill-brook-indicator-struggling-ecosystem

The Mill Brook in West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard used to run "thick with fish," but that's no longer the case. As its waters warm from pollution and climate change, the trout, which require cool water temperatures, are becoming less and less numerous. Environmentalists say the trout are indicator of a challenged ecosystem.


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 03, 2019, 12:30:11 PM
John Wesley Powell First Descended the Grand Canyon 150 Years Ago, Here's How It's Changed Since

QuoteThe completion of the Glen Canyon Dam upstream of the Grand Canyon in 1963 resulted in reverberating changes to the canyon's water and sediment flows. These changes have altered the evolution and morphology, or the physical shape, of the Colorado River, along with the surrounding landscapes and the living things that evolved along the riverway.

Well-documented changes to the river system include variation in water temperature, the timing and duration of flood events and lack of replenishing sediment, all resulting from the regulated releases of cold, sediment-free water from Lake Powell.


https://www.brfff.com/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=15529.0;last_msg=162294
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on July 08, 2019, 11:02:54 AM
I never really enjoyed the beach, any beach.  It is a flatland/salt/sand thing, but these photos are alarming. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/heres-what-pollution-has-done-to-these-once-pristine-beaches/ss-AACFl4u?ocid=spartandhp
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 08, 2019, 11:24:30 AM
Quote from: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on July 08, 2019, 11:02:54 AMI never really enjoyed the beach, any beach.  It is a flatland/salt/sand thing, but these photos are alarming. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/heres-what-pollution-has-done-to-these-once-pristine-beaches/ss-AACFl4u?ocid=spartandhp


yup we're shitting plastic all over the world at an alarming rate... try and buy anything without excess plastic packaging... but i read recently that Pepsi will be canning water to reduce reliance on plasti bottles...
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 09, 2019, 11:28:35 AM

Environment Report: The Earthquake Risk No One's Talking About
A quake, even one so far away that nobody in San Diego feels it, could cause an emergency and force mandatory water-use restrictions.


QuoteIn one worst-case scenario identified by the system's operator, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a tunnel near Palm Springs would collapse during a quake and cut off flows for six months.

https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/science-environment/environment-report-the-earthquake-risk-no-ones-talking-about/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 21, 2019, 11:21:54 AM
Battlefields part of drinking water protection effort


QuoteAbout two miles from the heart of Shepherdstown is the site of the bloodiest battle in West Virginia during the American Civil War. More than 600 Union and Confederate soldiers died in a two-day battle in September 1862.

The Battle of Shepherdstown may have been small in comparison to other battles of the Civil War, but historians agree, the battle not only halted the Confederates' northern invasion, but it also opened the door for President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Since 2011, the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown has been a protected historic landmark. The battle site also happens to be at a unique location — along the Potomac River. The Potomac provides drinking water to Shepherdstown residents, and other nearby areas.

https://www.wral.com/battlefields-part-of-drinking-water-protection-effort/18518550/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 21, 2019, 15:39:41 PM
https://kutv.com/news/local/51-foot-difference-in-water-level-at-lake-powell-from-increased-runoff-in-last-3-months

5C0EB1ED-64B2-49C0-95DE-879248469F4D.jpeg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on July 21, 2019, 18:49:36 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on July 21, 2019, 11:21:54 AMBattlefields part of drinking water protection effort


QuoteAbout two miles from the heart of Shepherdstown is the site of the bloodiest battle in West Virginia during the American Civil War. More than 600 Union and Confederate soldiers died in a two-day battle in September 1862.

The Battle of Shepherdstown may have been small in comparison to other battles of the Civil War, but historians agree, the battle not only halted the Confederates' northern invasion, but it also opened the door for President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Since 2011, the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown has been a protected historic landmark. The battle site also happens to be at a unique location — along the Potomac River. The Potomac provides drinking water to Shepherdstown residents, and other nearby areas.

https://www.wral.com/battlefields-part-of-drinking-water-protection-effort/18518550/

Sharpsburg/Antietum is just across the river. Real bloodshed.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 24, 2019, 09:53:07 AM
The Murder and Resurrection of the Colorado River, Part One - Six

https://pagosadailypost.com/2019/10/15/editorial-the-murder-and-resurrection-of-the-colorado-river-part-one/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 02, 2019, 12:14:27 PM
Controversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

https://www.wfdd.org/story/controversial-pesticides-are-suspected-starving-fish
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on November 02, 2019, 12:48:20 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on November 02, 2019, 12:14:27 PMControversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

https://www.wfdd.org/story/controversial-pesticides-are-suspected-starving-fish

Many people do not understand the secondary impacts of herbicides on insects.  It may not be the chemicals that are diminishing the populations.  I'm of the opinion removing various varieties of vegetation diminish the nectar, resins, and pollen, insects need to survive.  Insects need a continuous flow of food throughout the course of the active season.  Once cannot expect a human to live off of mac and cheese for 6 months, and starve the remaining six months....and this is what some insects are having to contend with in heavy ag areas down east.

That being said, no till farming has been a boon for my bees.  Fields around my bee yard are covered with chickweed, deadnettle, and gillflower during the Winter months.  When the fields are sprayed, other sources of nectar such as poplars, apple trees, and clover, and hedge are available.  That being said, the latter are becoming less available due to deforestation and field sanitizing.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 04, 2019, 12:36:14 PM
 n!n

SEATTLE -- In a report released this week, a national group highlighted Chinook salmon as one of the top 10 species imperiled by pesticides.
The Endangered Species Coalition released its 2019 report, Poisoned by Pesticides, which included Chinook salmon. The report said pesticides sprayed nearby reach rivers and enter salmon streams through contaminated runoff, killing salmon prey and impacting salmon's ability to swim and evade predators.
The report also linked the toxic salmon to the critically-endangered southern resident orcas, which primarily rely on fatty Chinook salmon to survive and are impacted by toxins when the whales are nutritionally deficient and access fat storage, where toxins are also stored.

https://q13fox.com/2019/11/01/national-group-says-pesticides-poisoning-pacific-northwest-salmon/

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on November 04, 2019, 15:15:52 PM
Humans suck.  n!n  :;!  p;-
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 18, 2019, 13:38:31 PM
QuoteThe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday is expected to rule on a company's request to pursue a permit to build two hydroelectric dams on the Little Colorado River not far upstream from the main Colorado River as it flows into Grand Canyon National Park.
The plan envisioned by Pumped Hydro Storage, LLC, of Phoenix, is to construct one dam rising 240 feet above the Little Colorado and another 140 feet high. The proposed Navajo National Salt Trail Canyon Pumped Storage Project would also include six 250-megawatt, turbine-generator units, for a total installed capacity of 1,500 megawatts, a 20-mile-long, 500-kilovolt transmission line from the powerhouse to the existing Moenkopi switchyard, and related facilities.
At peak capacity, such a setup would have an average annual generation of 3,300 gigawatt-hours, according to FERC.
The current filing, if approved by FERC, would not allow the company to begin construction. Rather, it would "grant the permit holder priority to file a license application during the permit term."
Opponents fear that if the project is eventually approved, it would harm the endangered humpback chub and most definitely disrupt the ecosystem within Grand Canyon National Park.

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2019/11/dams-proposed-little-colorado-river-upstream-grand-canyon-national-park

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 03, 2019, 15:26:55 PM
New book out on the history of the Colorado water rights mismanagement!
https://amzn.to/2rUUxly



Politicians knew the inconvenient truth about the Colorado River 100 years ago — and ignored it


QuoteEarlier this year, the seven states that depend on the Colorado River made history. For the first time, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico agreed to find ways to reduce the amount of water they draw from the river as levels drop further at Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country.
The Colorado River provides water for 40 million people. But its flows are shrinking as the planet heats up, reducing the snowpack that feeds the river and causing more water to evaporate as the river snakes its way from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California.

But even if climate change weren't an issue, the Colorado would probably still be in trouble. Back in 1922, when states originally divvied up water from the river, they grossly overestimated the amount of water flowing through it. This set in motion a series of decisions that led to the shortages today. States are dipping into Lake Mead's reserves, overdrawing 1.2 million acre feet of water annually — enough to quench the thirst of a couple million households for a year.

https://grist.org/climate/politicians-knew-the-inconvenient-truth-about-the-colorado-river-100-years-ago-and-ignored-it/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 07, 2019, 17:06:15 PM
read the full story  (https://therevelator.org/edwards-dam-removal/?fbclid=IwAR0hlGIYj5Jv83J0yl1Dd_2U-TjYPSlKDaMZU-s2IRiHogxOhPaBFckDlFY&utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=American%20Rivers&utm_content=How%20Removing%20One%20Maine%20Dam%2020%20Years%20Ago%20Changed%20Everything%20%E2%80%A2%20The%20Revelato)

How Removing One Maine Dam 20 Years Ago Changed Everything


Welcome to the first edition of "Turning Points," our new column examining critical moments in environmental history when change occurred for the better — or worse.

More than 1,000 people lined the banks of the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine, on July 1, 1999. They were there to witness a rebirth.

The ringing of a bell signaled a backhoe on the opposite bank to dig into a retaining wall. Water trickled, then gushed. The crowd erupted in cheers as the Edwards Dam, which had stretched 900 feet across the river, was breached. Soon the whole dam would be removed.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 20, 2020, 18:08:39 PM
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/01/mayfly-insect-populations-in-decline/


38AFD4BF-F414-49F9-8155-DB0551847604.jpeg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 16, 2020, 11:18:27 AM
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/podcast/2020-02-16-national-parks-traveler-episode-53-special-report-colorado-river-grand-portage-nm
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 25, 2020, 10:29:47 AM
This dam is damned



Key California reservoir to be drained due to earthquake risk

https://www.bakersfield.com/ap/national/key-california-reservoir-to-be-drained-due-to-earthquake-risk/article_24654552-0272-5057-80bf-033b1d3f7099.html

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 29, 2020, 10:29:35 AM
For first time in 20 years, feds take deep look at hydroelectric dam removal on Lower Snake River


QuoteThe futures of hydropower, salmon and orcas in the Pacific Northwest are at stake in the first assessment in 20 years of the environmental effects of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Federal agencies are set to release a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) of dam operations on Friday, opening a 45-day public comment period. On the table will be a range of alternatives for operation of 14 dams in the federal Columbia River hydropower system, including a preferred alternative.

The review was required by a federal judge in 2016, and must, among other things, assess dam removal on the Lower Snake.
It's the first new look at river operations across the entire Columbia Basin since new challenges have emerged for endangered species and the region's power grid.

A warming climate has made both ocean conditions and the freshwater river environment tougher for salmon. Another endangered species has also been listed since the last EIS: the endangered southern resident orcas that frequent Puget Sound.


https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/for-first-time-in-20-years-feds-take-deep-look-at-hydrodam-removal-on-lower-snake-river/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 24, 2020, 08:35:07 AM
World Water Day: 11 Rivers Facing a Danger of Drying Up in America
These 11 rivers in the United States are at risk of drying up very soon.

https://interestingengineering.com/world-water-day-11-rivers-facing-a-danger-of-drying-up-in-america
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 29, 2020, 11:43:33 AM
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062829919

A1C2A789-01C7-428C-BBA6-BF3629ED3118.png
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 04, 2020, 10:40:41 AM
Battle Over Pebble Mine About to Hit a Turning Point

The world's most controversial mine is up for a significant permit. Here's why critics say they shouldn't get it and what you can do about it

https://www.fieldandstream.com/story/fishing/battle-over-pebble-mine-hitting-a-major-turning-point/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 08, 2020, 11:37:36 AM
WORLD OCEAN DAY: ALTERNATIVE SEAFOOD OFFERS TWIN SOLUTION TO ADDRESS FOOD SECURITY, PLANET'S HEALTH

>>>Northern Harvest Sea Farms is a Canadian division of the Norwegian salmon fishing giant Mowi. In October 2019, Northern Harvest made a shocking announcement. A month earlier, they had lost 2.6 million Atlantic salmon – about 5000 metric tonnes – from their aquaculture operations on the coast of Canada. The fish had died due to a few weeks of excessively warm waters in early September. After a month of cleaning up dead fish in Fortune Bay, contracting a large number of divers and vessels to assist, the Managing Director of the company said they had finished 87 percent of the task – "The salmon mortalities comprise approximately half of all Northern Harvest fish in the water." Half of the entire company's inventory – gone.


https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/world-ocean-day-alternative-seafood-offers-twin-solution-to-address-food-security-planets-health-8460921.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 22, 2020, 15:58:18 PM
>>> The historic dam at the Ward's Mill along Watauga River near Sugar Grove is being removed this year.

"That is the plan," said Virginia Ward, adding that the future removal will be bittersweet.

"You know it will be okay to let it go. It will open the river and I believe that will be good ... but it's a bit sad, too. We have multiple emotions. Let's put it that way."


https://onthewatauga.com/news/ward-dam-on-watauga-river-in-sugar-grove-to-be-removed/

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 16, 2020, 16:23:18 PM
We now know how many billions of gallons of water Colorado will save by closing coal-fired power plants

By 2031 water use for coal-fired power plants in Colorado will drop to 3.7 billion gallons – a 68% reduction, according to the Energy and Policy Institute.

https://coloradosun.com/2020/07/16/water-saved-closing-coal-power-plants-colorado/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 17, 2020, 11:45:24 AM
Grays Creek in Surry County is now part of Virginia's Scenic Rivers Program.

https://m.smithfieldtimes.com/2020/07/16/grays-creek-named-state-scenic-river/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 17, 2020, 12:21:49 PM


>>> Sudan and Egypt have hit out at Ethiopia, which has started filling a reservoir behind a controversial new dam on the Blue Nile.
Satellite images show water backing up on the Grand Renaissance Dam and now Sudan has reported reduced water flow in its section of the Nile River. Both Sudan and Egypt are downstream and are worried the dam will reduce their access to water.
A deal between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over the reservoir is proving elusive. Instead there's a fraught stand-off with national pride, regional power and economic development at stake.

Why can't Egypt and Ethiopia agree on the Nile dam? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53441396
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 24, 2020, 10:26:27 AM
Conditions 'pretty grim' for endangered fish locally due to falling river flows


>>>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has begun asking for water releases from high-country reservoirs to boost water flows in the Colorado River upstream of the Gunnison River confluence and aid endangered fish, while being careful not to exhaust available water that may be needed for the species later in the year.

The agency is seeing what U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hydrologist Don Anderson on Wednesday said are "quickly deteriorating flow conditions" on what's called the 15-Mile Reach of the river between the Gunnison confluence and where Grand Valley irrigation diversions occur upstream.

Speaking in a conference call with upstream reservoir operators, local irrigation officials and others who work to cooperatively manage Colorado River flow levels, he said flows in the stretch Wednesday were around 450 cubic feet per second. The longterm median flow at Palisade below where Grand Valley diversions occur is 1,780 cfs for July 23, according to U.S. Geological Survey streamflow data.


https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/conditions-pretty-grim-for-endangered-fish-locally-due-to-falling-river-flows/article_d5cdd57a-cc5d-11ea-8786-abca954679f1.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 27, 2020, 12:13:51 PM
'World's longest art gallery' makes Nine Mile Canyon unique

>>>The team of archaeologists and students who arrived in Utah from Harvard University's Peabody Museum in 1931 were familiar with the abundance of prehistoric ruins and images throughout the region. Even so, Nine Mile Canyon surprised them.

In field notes, Donald Scott, the leader of the expedition, described the canyon as "almost a continuous picture gallery."

Guide and photographer David Rust was a Utah native who had led archaeologists and others to ancient sites across much of the Colorado Plateau. But the extent of such sites in Nine Mile Canyon caused him to write several journal entries such as "ruins everywhere" and "ruins all around."

https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/world-s-longest-art-gallery-makes-nine-mile-canyon-unique/article_64b3cf4e-cddd-11ea-8481-9b0b803b0547.html

This is the book in the article

and a podcast too... APEX Hour at SUU Check it out here:

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 11, 2020, 07:12:54 AM
Ran across this yesterday while walking around Reynolda

37B30660-C56D-498A-8B19-DEF53DD14F73.jpeg

CA7DD124-510F-414B-962B-A51A6B24ACBA.jpeg

http://www.crowdhydrology.com/


Professor Chris Lowry needed to collect information on stream levels in Western New York but didn't have enough funding for the traditional methods, so he turned to a more creative option: crowdsourcing. Guest host Linda Wertheimer speaks with him about his research and the future of crowdsourcing in scientific inquiries.

CRONKITENEWS · KUNC: The Colorado River Basin's worsening dryness in 5 numbers
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 06, 2021, 09:27:43 AM
A $5-billion water project could drill through Anza-Borrego park. Is it a pipe dream?

>>>It would be arguably the most ambitious public works project in San Diego history.

The envisioned pipeline would carry Colorado River water more than 130 miles from the Imperial Valley — through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, tunneling under the Cuyamaca Mountains, and passing through the Cleveland National Forest — to eventually connect with a water-treatment plant in San Marcos.

An alternative route would run through the desert to the south, boring under Mt. Laguna before emptying into the San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside.

Estimated cost: roughly $5 billion. New water delivered: None.



https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-05/water-pipeline-anza-borrego-desert-state-park
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 06, 2021, 09:30:01 AM
Utah to stake claims to Colorado River water

>>>Water is becoming a bigger issues as Utah continues to grow. Now, the Utah State Legislature is wading into the issue with a new bill that asserts the state's claims on the Colorado River.

"Water can be a pretty contentious issue and we just want to make sure we're really well prepared," House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, said in an interview with FOX 13.

House Bill 297 creates an authority to represent Utah's interests when it comes to the river, which supplies water to Utah and six surrounding states.

"It's designed protect our share of the water we negotiated 100 years ago," said Speaker Wilson.

Utah is only using 54% of the Colorado River water it is able to, he said. That is expected to change as the state continues to grow.

"As we grow, we would probably like to use more of that. But the other thing that's happening, which is here in the state we're doing much better on conservation. So the amount we're using isn't growing as the same rate of our population. That's a good thing. But we do need to protect the water rights we have," he told FOX 13.


>>>Zach Frankel with the Utah Rivers Council blasted the bill and said it was more about advancing the Lake Powell Pipeline project.

"This bill is not about water. This bill is about money. This bill is about special-interest politicking. It's about climate change denial. It's about limiting public government," he told the House Natural Resources committee.

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-to-stake-claims-to-colorado-river-water
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on February 06, 2021, 17:33:04 PM
Jeebus.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 07, 2021, 10:24:15 AM
Colorado River outlook darkens dramatically in new study


>>>In the gloomiest long-term forecast yet for the drought-stricken Colorado River, a new study warns that lower river basin states including Arizona may have to slash their take from the river up to 40% by the 2050s to keep reservoirs from falling too low.

Such a cut would amount to about twice as much as the three Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — agreed to absorb under the drought contingency plan they approved in early 2019.

Overall, the study warned that managing the river sustainably will require substantially larger cuts in use by Lower Basin states than currently envisioned, along with curbs on future diversions by Upper Basin states.

While climate change's impacts on the river have been repeatedly studied, this is the first study that seeks to pinpoint how warming temperatures would translate into reductions in water that river basin states could take over the long term.

Carrying out the study's recommendations, under the most likely conditions of climate change, almost certainly would mean more  supply curbs for the $4 billion Central Arizona Project.

The CAP is already slated to lose nearly half its total allocation under the worst case, shorter-term scenarios envisioned under the 2019 drought plan.

Tucson and Phoenix-area cities and tribes, along with Central Arizona farmers, all depend on the CAP for water for drinking or irrigation.


https://tucson.com/news/local/colorado-river-outlook-darkens-dramatically-in-new-study/article_15e0185d-60d7-597d-ba7f-366b8e69920e.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 07, 2021, 10:28:53 AM
New report confronts tough choices for the future of the Colorado River
It's time for hard conversations about what kind of future we want for the Colorado River and all who depend upon it.

>>>The Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University recently published a preprint edition of their new white paper titled, "Alternative Management Paradigms for the Future of the Colorado and Green Rivers." The authors of the paper include Kevin Wheeler, Jack Schmidt, Brad Udall, and former Colorado River District General Manager, Eric Kuhn, among a few notable others in the climate modeling and Colorado River management space (Disclosure: Jack Schmidt and Eric Kuhn both serve voluntarily on American Rivers' Science and Technical Advisory Committee.) The new publication builds upon a 2020 white paper, "Strategies for Managing the Colorado River in an Uncertain Future." Wheeler et. al ran scenarios for various planning strategies on one of the most managed rivers in the world, the Colorado, to better understand the implications of those decisions in a hotter and drier future. Using the same computer modeling tools used by basin managers (the Bureau of Reclamation CRSS model), they integrated new climate and river flow data and looked out decades into the future to explore and predict water supply conditions under various scenarios.


>>>The outcome of the study, in short: we've got to be more creative, and we need to have some hard conversations about what kind of future we want for the Colorado River and all who depend upon it.  American Rivers has been engaged with the authors of the study, and we're coming up to speed with its prescient findings. But even more important than that, our desire is to spark a conversation with you about what kind of future lies before us, what this new science tell us about various realities on the river, and how can we design solutions for the river, together.

John Fleck, author of a pair of recent books on western water, recently posted his take on the study, including some of the key highlights. He underscored that "Under a relatively optimistic scenario (things don't get any drier than they've been in the first two decades of the 21st century), stabilizing the system would require:

The Upper Basin to not increase its uses beyond its current ~4-million-acre feet per year of water use.
The Lower Basin to adjust to routinely only getting ~6-million-acre feet of water."

Basically, that means adapting to living in a 10-12 million-acre-foot (MAF) river, rather than a 17 MAF river as the Colorado River Compact assumes. Obviously, this stuck out to us too. While the Law of the River (the Colorado River Compact) essentially promised 7.5 MAF for the Upper Basin and 8.5 MAF for the Lower Basin (then added in Mexico's allocation later), the Alternative Management Paradigms study makes clear that this is now an unattainable, and unwise, ambition.

https://www.americanrivers.org/2021/02/new-report-confronts-tough-choices-for-the-future-of-the-colorado-river/?fbclid=IwAR2257RuyeTL1sLH21ARg7GQVXN8PEpzqbaqaqz03DYQ8vQCgLM3dMYGKXg

Unrealistic future depletion projections for the Upper Basin confound planning. There simply isn't enough water to meet the aspirations for growth of the Upper Basin. "Unreasonable and unjustified estimations create the impression that compact delivery violations...are inevitable. Such distortions mislead the public about the magnitude of the impending water supply crisis and make identifying solutions to an already difficult problem even harder."
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 28, 2021, 11:48:42 AM
Utah is a leader in cloud seeding. Is it working?
As drought deepens in the Colorado River Basin, the state's program could serve as a model for boosting West's water supplies.

>>>Utah's winter sports industry may claim the greatest snow on Earth, but for skiers and water watchers alike, there is hardly ever enough powder.

For nearly 50 years, the second-driest state in the nation has been giving natural winter storms an engineered boost to help deepen its snowpack through a program largely funded by state taxpayers, local governments and water conservancy districts. More recently, the states that rely on water from the lower Colorado River — California, Arizona and Nevada — have been paying for additional cloud seeding in Utah.

Thanks to the steady funding stream, Utah's program has developed into one of the most comprehensive weather modification efforts in the West, and, after decades of expansion, every major mountain range in the state now sees extensive cloud seeding.

But that doesn't mean aircraft are buzzing overhead, creating precipitation. Seeding — which in Utah is done mostly by stationary, propane-powered generators on the ground — is possible only under a narrow range of conditions, usually when snow is already in the forecast, explained Jake Serago, an engineer with the Utah Division of Water Resources.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/03/28/utah-is-leader-cloud/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 22, 2021, 12:18:02 PM
The US May Be About to Declare Its First-Ever Water Shortage
Nevada, California, and especially Arizona could be affected by a shortfall of water beginning this coming August.


>>>This coming August, for the first time in its history, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is likely to issue a Level 1 Water Shortage Declaration which would trigger mandatory cuts in water consumption primarily in two states — Arizona and Nevada.

This past week, the bureau released its 24-month projection for water contained in the 1,450-mile-long (2,333 km) Colorado River. The river originates on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains in northern Colorado and is fed by the Green, Gunnison, and San Juan rivers.


https://interestingengineering.com/us-about-to-declare-its-first-water-shortage
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on April 22, 2021, 12:23:48 PM
When shit gets real, maybe a few folks will wake up.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on April 22, 2021, 17:45:21 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on April 22, 2021, 12:18:02 PMThe US May Be About to Declare Its First-Ever Water Shortage
Nevada, California, and especially Arizona could be affected by a shortfall of water beginning this coming August.


>>>This coming August, for the first time in its history, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is likely to issue a Level 1 Water Shortage Declaration which would trigger mandatory cuts in water consumption primarily in two states — Arizona and Nevada.

This past week, the bureau released its 24-month projection for water contained in the 1,450-mile-long (2,333 km) Colorado River. The river originates on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains in northern Colorado and is fed by the Green, Gunnison, and San Juan rivers.
https://interestingengineering.com/us-about-to-declare-its-first-water-shortage

This should've happened 5 years ago.  I cannot figure out how grass lawns are allowed in areas that tap the Colorado for water.


Dear Climate refugee, NC is full.  Piss off, and haul your asses VA.

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 07, 2021, 08:07:36 AM


Western tribes already lacked water access. Now there's a megadrought.

Why some tribal advocates and water experts are feeling hopeful.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login


>>>On paper, the 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin have access to 20 percent of the river's annual flow. But in practice, tribes in the basin only have access to a tiny fraction of the river's water, despite the federal government's fiduciary responsibility to protect tribal treaty rights and resources. In order to turn paper rights into permanent wet water rights, tribes have to enter into a complicated legal process called a water settlement with the federal government, states, water districts, and private users. Such settlements take years; they're expensive, complicated, and have to be authorized by Congress. "If the federal government were to do the settlements, they'd have to provide the infrastructure, provide the pipelines to actually move the water to the tribe," Berggren said. "If they were to, overnight, sign settlements with all 30 tribes for all 20 percent of water, there's concern that that would further 'break the system,' so to speak."

https://grist.org/politics/why-hope-might-be-on-the-horizon-for-western-tribes-water-woes/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 24, 2021, 07:43:37 AM
   
Melting Snow Usually Means Water For The West. But This Year, It Might Not Be Enough


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 30, 2021, 11:55:55 AM
What Happens When The Colorado River Runs Dry?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/scifri-segments/scifri202105283.mp3
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 08, 2021, 08:18:06 AM
"Mega-drought" takes dramatic toll on Colorado River system that provides water to 40 million people

>>>For more than eight decades, the iconic Hoover Dam has relied on water from Nevada's Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But now, at age 85, it finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of the water the dam is supposed to be holding back is gone.

"This is like a different world," said Pat Mulroy, the former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. She told CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy that Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, is on track to soon hit its lowest level ever recorded.

This part of the Colorado River system is a crucial water supply for Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California. It makes the vast agricultural land of the desert Southwest possible.

Watch the video on the link below

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mega-drought-colorado-river-system-water-40-million-people/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 08, 2021, 08:31:13 AM
Hoover Dam, a symbol of the modern West, faces an epic water shortage
The effects of drought and climate change are seen at Hoover Dam, which will soon hold the smallest amount of water since it was filled in the 1930s.

>>>BOULDER CITY, Nev. – Hoover Dam towers more than 700 feet above Black Canyon on the Arizona-Nevada state line, holding back the waters of the Colorado River. On top of the dam, where visitors peer down the graceful white arc of its face, one of its art deco-style towers is adorned with a work of art that memorializes the purposes of the dam.

In five relief sculptures by Oskar Hansen, muscular men grip a boat's wheel, harvest an armful of wheat, stand beside cascading water and lift a heavy weight overhead. Words encapsulate why the dam was built, as laid out in a 1928 law: FLOOD CONTROL, NAVIGATION, IRRIGATION, WATER STORAGE and POWER.

Eighty-six years after its completion in 1935, the infrastructure at Hoover Dam continues doing what it was designed to do: holding water and sending it coursing through intake tunnels, spinning turbines and generating electricity. The rules for managing the river and dividing up its water – which were laid down nearly a century ago in the 1922 Colorado River Compact and repeatedly tweaked – face the greatest strains since the dam was built.

The effects of years of severe drought and temperatures pushed higher by climate change are striking along Lake Mead's retreating shorelines near Las Vegas, where the growing "bathtub ring" of whitish minerals coats the rocky desert slopes.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/06/06/hoover-dam-drought-water-levels-lake-mead/5291323001/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 08, 2021, 18:04:35 PM
Amid mega-drought, rightwing militia stokes water rebellion in US west
Demonstrations have sparked fears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing anti-government activist

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/08/klamath-falls-oregon-protests-ammon-bundy
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 11, 2021, 07:00:27 AM
Take a short quizz...

How Much Do You Know About U.S. Rivers?
They benefit people, wildlife, ecosystems, and economies—but many face serious threats


https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2021/06/09/how-much-do-you-know-about-us-rivers
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 11, 2021, 09:08:46 AM
With new law, Las Vegas water agency bets on 'aggressive municipal water conservation measure' to remove decorative turf, conserve Colorado River supply

>>>With Lake Mead approaching critically-low levels, the Southern Nevada Water Authority recently turned to the Legislature to double-down on its existing strategy for using less water: turf removal.

Earlier this year, Las Vegas water planners asked the Legislature to pass a new law that prohibits water-intensive decorative turf within medians, along roads and in business parks. Lawmakers approved it with little opposition and Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the bill on Friday.

Now, the water authority, which serves the Las Vegas metro area, is tasked with implementing what its general manager, John Entsminger, described as probably "the most aggressive municipal water conservation measure that's been taken in the western United States."

For decades, the water authority has been looking at the prolonged drought and preparing for shortages. Officials with the agency stress that they are able to weather the expected cuts because Las Vegas is already consuming less water than it is entitled to use.


https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/with-new-law-las-vegas-water-agency-bets-on-aggressive-municipal-water-conservation-measure-to-remove-decorative-turf-conserve-colorado-river-supply

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 17, 2021, 10:09:49 AM
Regulators approve emergency rules to allow halt of Russian River diversions for thousands of water right holders

>>>The state water board has unanimously approved emergency regulations behind a move to halt Russian River diversions for up to 2,400 water right holders, part of a wider effort to conserve dwindling supplies in Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino.

The 5-0 vote of the State Water Resources Control Board late Tuesday came over the objections raised by agricultural interests and allies who argued the new rule was too blunt a tool to use to address the worsening drought.

Hundreds of Sonoma and Mendocino county grape growers, ranchers, rural residents and even some municipal suppliers are on notice that they could have their rights suspended under the move.

Already, about 930 water right holders in the upper river, north of Healdsburg, have been told there is insufficient water in the system for them to take any this year.

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/regulators-approve-emergency-rules-to-allow-halt-of-russian-river-diversion/amp/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 20, 2021, 08:57:34 AM

https://californianewstimes.com/the-west-is-the-driest-its-been-in-1200-years/391330/



The West Is The Driest Its Been In 1200 Years



>>>Trees are dying. Riverbeds are empty. Lake Mead's water level dropped to its lowest point in history, and Utah's governor asked residents to pray for rain.Water is increasingly scarce in the Western U.S. — where 72 percent of the region is in "severe" drought, 26 percent is in exceptional drought, and populations are booming.Insufficient monsoon rains last summer and low snowpacks over the winter left states like Arizona, Utah and Nevada without the typical amount of water they need, and forecasts for the rainy summer season don't show promise.This year's aridity is happening against the backdrop of a 20-year-long drought. The past two decades have been the driest or the second driest in the last 1,200 years in the West, posing existential questions about how to secure a livable future in the region.It's time to ask, "Is this a drought, or is it just the way the hydrology of the Colorado River is going to be?" said John Entsminger, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.A parched Sin CityGreater Las Vegas is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, home to more than 2.2 million people, and it gets just over 4 inches of rain in a good year.Around 90 percent of the water comes from Lake Mead, the reservoir on the Colorado River formed by the Hoover Dam, which is currently 36 percent full.The drought has been so persistent that the Southern Nevada Water Authority and many other groups in the region have spent the last 20 years preparing for a drier future."It isn't sneaking up on us," Entsminger said. "Since 2002, our population has increased close to 50 percent, about 750,000 people in the last 19 years or so, and over that same time our aggregated depletions from the Colorado River have gone down 23 percent."
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Yallerhammer on June 23, 2021, 11:07:17 AM
I have a great idea. Let's build a bunch of huge cities in the middle of a desert.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on June 23, 2021, 11:33:13 AM
Vegas needs to go bye bye. It is an utterly useless black hole of excess and gluttony. Cruise ships as well.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 24, 2021, 13:15:00 PM
Quote from: Onslow on June 23, 2021, 11:33:13 AMVegas needs to go bye bye. It is an utterly useless black hole of excess and gluttony. Cruise ships as well.

I nominate Gatlinburg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 24, 2021, 23:51:13 PM
'Less water means more gas': how drought will test California's stressed power grid
California's diminishing water supply is cutting down hydropower, causing the state to rely more on fossil fuels


>>> Earlier this month, the water level in Lake Oroville – California's second-largest reservoir – was so low that dozens of houseboats were hauled out. There wasn't enough water to hold them.
In a few weeks, officials say, the lake's water levels are likely to dip even lower – forcing them to shut down one of the state's largest hydroelectric power plants for the first time since it was built in 1967.
Amid a historic megadrought, the climate crisis and energy crisis in California are about to collide, and set off a vicious cycle. The state's diminishing water supply is cutting down hydropower, and California is relying more on fossil fuels as extreme summer heat drives up electricity use.

https://apple.news/AVSRAMEB6SFmoD3qGiDuceQ
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 27, 2021, 08:11:31 AM
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/26/1010521100/population-is-booming-in-the-west-but-theres-not-enough-water-to-keep-up-with-it


The real estate market is hot. So what happens if there's not enough water to build new homes? Colorado Public Radio's Michael Elizabeth Sakas reports on one city's struggles to grow in a dry state.

On the east side of Colorado Springs, flags and billboards line the roads advertising homes for sale - turn here. Hundreds of new units are under construction, and each requires water.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 09, 2021, 08:40:13 AM
Trout habitat will be lost in western Colorado drought
Most of a trout fishery on the Dolores river is expected to be lost in this years drought.



https://www.9news.com/article/weather/weather-colorado/trout-habitat-will-be-lost-western-colorado-drought/73-0e10cff3-9c9e-47a9-971b-245370c77fa1
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 09, 2021, 08:43:36 AM
Drought, heat, fire force fishing ban on Colorado River

DENVER (AP) — Colorado wildlife officials on Wednesday urged anglers to avoid fishing along a stretch of the Colorado River because low flows during a historic drought in the U.S. West, critically warm water temperatures and sediment runoff from wildfire burn scars are all starving trout of oxygen.

The move along a 120-mile (193-kilometer) stretch of the river — unusual so early in the summer — is another consequence of the record heat and drought that's afflicted the American West. The voluntary fishing ban runs from the town of Kremmling in north-central Colorado to Rifle in the western part of the state.

"The extreme drought on the Western Slope, plus the sediment and debris in the waterway, have created a really challenging situation for fish," said Travis Duncan, spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

https://apnews.com/article/colorado-colorado-river-fish-fires-business-673c886864667cac4d3076195b9a976f
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on July 09, 2021, 09:46:16 AM
The Yampa shut down after I left.
 -p-
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 11, 2021, 10:47:25 AM

'Unrecognizable.' Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis

>>>LAKE MEAD, Nev. — Eric Richins looked out from his pontoon boat to the shallows on the lake's western edge. He squinted and paused as if he had come upon a foreign shore. For the first time in a career navigating the waters of the American West, he didn't know where he was.
"I could have sworn I was here just six weeks ago catching smallmouth and bigmouth bass," said the 35-year-old fisherman who runs tours on this 247-square-mile basin where the Colorado River meets the Hoover Dam to form the nation's largest reservoir.

He pointed ahead to what looked like dozens of tiny steps made from successive layers of dried mud now covered in tall grass and weeds — the effect of rapidly creeping vegetation over a shoreline that has been dropping by nearly a foot a week.

"Now it looks like a lawn. I knew the drought was bad. I didn't realize it was this bad," he said. "This place is unrecognizable."



https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-07-11/lake-mead-hoover-dam-drought-nevada-arizona-california
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 20, 2021, 08:08:26 AM
Extreme actions underway to ensure Glen Canyon Dam can continue to generate power
Flaming Gorge will drop by 4 feet to keep water levels at Lake Powell above critical threshold for power generation

>>>The growing crisis on the Colorado River came into sharper focus last week when the Bureau of Reclamation began emergency releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to shore up Lake Powell's declining levels, now at historic lows.

The move will bolster Powell's level by 3 feet in hopes of preventing it from dropping to a point where Glen Canyon Dam would not be able to generate electrical power, according to the agency's Upper Colorado regional director Wayne Pullan.

These releases from Flaming Gorge and two other reservoirs were triggered by interstate agreements crafted in response to historic drought conditions that are stressing water supplies across the West.

>>>The releases will lower Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Green River, by 4 feet. Additionally, New Mexico's Navajo Lake on the San Juan River will give up 2 feet, while Colorado's Blue Mesa Reservoir on the Gunnison River will forfeit 8 feet.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2021/07/19/feds-release-water-down/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 24, 2021, 08:42:45 AM
Western Slope braces for Blue Mesa Reservoir drawdown

>>>The day water managers never hoped to see has arrived: Blue Mesa Reservoir will contribute water to keep the hydropower turbines at Lake Powell operational, as called for under the Upper Basin Drought Response Operations Agreement.

"This is a drastic time. We've never seen this before," State Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, said.

"This is one of the things we had agreed upon, that this would be the first action the Bureau (of Reclamation) took."

https://www.montrosepress.com/news/western-slope-braces-for-blue-mesa-reservoir-drawdown/article_e830a01c-eb65-11eb-bb4b-43f45e51adf9.html






Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: troutrus on July 25, 2021, 06:45:51 AM
https://youtu.be/04Kpkg1d6BE
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 27, 2021, 08:43:26 AM
Listen to a postcast; Arizona Edition

>>>The threats to the Colorado River are many – climate change, overuse, invasive species, dozens of planned diversion projects, pollution – and that has motivated action up and down the river's shores by a variety committed activists and regular people.

On this week's Arizona Edition we talk with Gary Wockner, Executive Director and co-founder of the group SAVE THE COLORADO, out of Fort Collins, Colorado.

audio link in this page...

https://www.kawc.org/post/arizona-edition-saving-colorado-river
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: troutrus on July 27, 2021, 11:10:39 AM
Great Salt Lake at historic low.

https://news.yahoo.com/low-levels-great-salt-lake-120347357.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 12, 2021, 08:12:14 AM
Gov. Jared Polis tours damage to Gwood Canyon after recent debris slides

https://www.postindependent.com/news/photos-gov-jared-polis-tours-damage-to-gwood-canyon-after-recent-debris-slides/

https://youtu.be/3k03YQHhZ68
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 12, 2021, 08:32:30 AM
New plan slows Lake Mead decline by paying farms not to plant crops


>>>Officials in Lower Colorado River Basin states want to slow the decline of Lake Mead's water levels over the next few years by paying Southern California farmers not to plant crops.

It's not a plan that Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, considers a "drought buster," but it will reduce lake level decline by up to 3 feet over the next three years, he said.


https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/new-plan-slows-lake-mead-decline-by-paying-farms-not-to-plant-crops-2418280/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: troutrus on August 12, 2021, 09:52:17 AM
"First water cuts in US West supply to hammer Arizona farmers"


https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-water-cuts-us-west-041104562.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 15, 2021, 09:02:25 AM
Before-and-after satellite photos show just how terrible the drought is in the West



https://www.wspa.com/news/national/before-and-after-satellite-photos-show-just-how-terrible-the-drought-is-in-the-west/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 07, 2021, 08:28:16 AM
Colorado River Flows Once Again to Gulf of California


>>>On May 1, 2021, the river once again flowed in its delta thanks to an agreement between the United States and Mexico dubbed Minute 323. Through Oct. 11, a total of 35,000 acre-feet of water (11.4 billion gallons) will be released downstream from Morelos Dam on the U.S.-Mexico border to quench the thirst of this long-withered ecosystem.

The mammoth endeavor to rejuvenate the river delta was years in the making and involved dozens of people, including water managers, policymakers, scientists, conservationists, and nonprofits from both sides of the border.

"We provide a lot of brainpower and blood, sweat, and tears, and commitment to this," says Nancy Smith, Colorado River Program conservation director at the Nature Conservancy.

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https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2021-09-07/water/colorado-river-flows-once-again-to-gulf-of-california/a75603-1
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 07, 2021, 08:33:02 AM

These images from space show how much the reservoirs and lakes of the West have dried up
Satellite views four years apart from a chronicler of the world's largest lakes show the startling effects of the Western mega-drought.


Slide right, and create a new island. Slide left, and go back to a recent time when the West had enough water to actually fill its lakes.



A self-described lakes geek currently living in the European Union likes to teach people about their wild surroundings by creating before-and-after views of the world's great bodies of water, using satellite photos taken years apart. Catalin Trif and his lakepedia.com site compile a wealth of information about big lakes, and he reached out to The Colorado Sun after a seemingly unending series of Western drought stories caught his eye.




https://coloradosun.com/2021/09/06/western-drought-biggest-lakes-dry-up/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 10, 2021, 08:13:44 AM
The Colorado River Basin is experiencing its 22nd year of drought. Its reservoirs are at their lowest-ever levels. The water stored in the system is at just 40 percent of its capacity. How did the situation on the Colorado become so dire? And what does the shortage mean for the 40 million people who rely on its waters?


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 21, 2021, 09:33:09 AM
Cottages of Boone Wastewater Tank Overflows Due to Mechanical Error

The Cottages of Boone, located at 615 Fallview Lane in Boone, North Carolina, experienced a discharge of untreated domestic wastewater. The housing development operates an on-site wastewater treatment system that is permitted through the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Water Resources and serves 894 bedrooms and ancillary facilities.

The Cottage of Boone WWTP facility's equalization tank overflowed as the result of an emergent mechanical error that occurred at the treatment facility. The discharge is believed to have started late Monday, September 13, and ended at approximately 8:00 p.m. It is estimated that approximately 4,725 gallons of untreated wastewater were discharged to Laurel Fork stream within the Watauga River Basin during the event. A local sludge hauling company arrived on-site and pumped 12,000 gallons of raw wastewater from the equalization tank, stopping the overflow.


https://www.hcpress.com/front-page/cottages-of-boone-wastewater-tank-overflows-due-to-mechanical-error.html?fbclid=IwAR2J2Il7CQm4kmcd493KgEBv8gsmwzcDWNeKjtoOY-X-lrNfc4EJVroCYto

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 28, 2021, 08:14:17 AM
The Bad News Keeps Flowing For The Colorado River

>>>Federal officials project more bad news for the drought-stressed Colorado River, which provides water to Las Vegas and much of the Southwest.

The Bureau of Reclamation issued a report last week saying there is a high likelihood over the next few years that California, the river's largest water user, will join Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico in seeing cuts to its allocation.

"This is not breaking in the way that something just changed to make it happen," said Alex Hager, who covers the river for KUNC, "but it is incredibly serious news."

"The projections are not painting a particularly rosy picture for years to come," he told State of Nevada, "but I will say, in talking to folks around the basin, it seems like there is a lot of contingency planning for this. But no one is creating more water. No one is bringing more water into this basin."


Listen to the discussion

https://knpr.org/knpr/2021-09/bad-news-keeps-flowing-colorado-river

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 02, 2021, 08:16:41 AM
The Colorado River Is in Crisis. The Walton Family Is Pushing a Solution.
Walmart heirs have spent heavily to promote their view that water markets are the best way to deal with a dwindling supply

>>>A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that a charitable foundation controlled by the Waltons, the Walton Family Foundation, has given about $200 million over the past decade to a variety of advocacy groups, universities and media outlets involved in the river. No other donor comes close. Two federal officials once affiliated with the foundation have been named to key Biden administration posts overseeing the river.

Putting a monetary value on water has raised concerns among those who benefit from guaranteed access to water and those who believe markets benefit investors while hurting farmers and the poor. Water markets in Australia have been blamed for helping dry up waterways due to overuse by a handful of wealthy farmers and investors.

"Any time that the water starts becoming more valuable than the land, you end up with the possibility of outside speculators," said Andrew Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River District, a public planning and policy agency that oversees water use in western Colorado. Mr. Mueller said his state has been seeing continued interest in agricultural water and lands by outside investment groups.

The Walton foundation has for years held that water markets are among the best ways to distribute and conserve the water that flows along the 1,450-mile river. A number of environmental groups that take Walton money are prominent water-market boosters


https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-colorado-river-is-in-crisis-the-walton-family-is-pushing-a-solution-11633167002

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 04, 2021, 20:23:30 PM
This discussion covers a lot of the complicated water rights issues in Montana.

David Brooks on Saving Water for Trout
The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

QuoteIn this week's podcast, my guest is David Brooks [43:45], executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited. With prevailing drought conditions in the western United Sates and increased demand from many users, from agriculture to municipalities to recreational angling, how can we balance the use of water? David explains the difference between the riparian doctrine used mostly in the eastern United Sates, and the prior appropriation doctrine used in western states, and explains how users have come together to apportion water for human use and for keeping enough water in rivers to support healthy trout populations. It's not easy and often contentious but it's a fascinating issue and there is hope that with wise use of water by all stakeholders we can support ranchers, farmers, cities, and healthy trout populations.


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-brooks-on-saving-water-for-trout/id278930814?i=1000537177346
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on October 04, 2021, 23:05:25 PM
Never though about water until I lived in Southern Cal, I knew then as the population expanded it was going to be more and more of a problem. It's complicated, it's more than just weather cycles.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 07, 2021, 08:32:17 AM
Native American tribes plea for help as Colorado River dries up
ABC News' Kayna Whitworth reports on the drought in the southwest, where over 40 million people, including 29 Native American tribes, are forced to ration water as the Colorado River dries up.

Watch a video report:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/native-american-tribes-plea-colorado-river-dries-80446169
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Yallerhammer on October 09, 2021, 15:28:39 PM
Maybe in retrospect, it's not a good idea to keep building mondo cities full of millions of people in the middle of a desert?
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 25, 2021, 08:23:45 AM
Ancient groundwater: Why the water you're drinking may be thousands of years old

>>>As rising temperatures and drought dry up rivers and melt mountain glaciers, people are increasingly dependent on the water under their feet. Groundwater resources currently supply drinking water to nearly half the world's population and roughly 40% of water used for irrigation globally.

What many people don't realize is how old – and how vulnerable – much of that water is.

Most water stored underground has been there for decades, and much of it has sat for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. Older groundwater tends to reside deep underground, where it is less easily affected by surface conditions such as drought and pollution.

As shallower wells dry out under the pressure of urban development, population growth and climate change, old groundwater is becoming increasingly important.

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https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2021/10/24/ancient-groundwater-why-the-water-youre-drinking-may-be-thousands-of-years-old/


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 02, 2021, 08:28:21 AM
The sand is there, but low water levels halt a controlled flood to restore Grand Canyon's beaches

The Southwest's active monsoon season this year washed tons of sand into the Colorado River, where it could have helped shore up the Grand Canyon's withering beaches, if not for one big problem: The water stored behind Glen Canyon Dam is at an all-time low after more than two decades of drought.

As a result, the federal government's dam managers have hit pause on an environmental program that calls for controlled floods out of Lake Powell when there's enough sand for the water to push up and rebuild sandbars and beaches, preserving the national park's ecology, river trip campsites and archaeological sites.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/11/01/feds-say-theres-too-little-water-spare-grand-canyons-beaches/6201263001/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 03, 2021, 08:18:56 AM
Colorado's Dolores River should be raging through canyons — instead it's nearly dry



>>>Fish have been around and on the landscape and in these rivers for over a million years - we know that - up to 2 million years. These fish have evolved with low and high flows. So they can handle a certain amount of that. But what they can't handle is essentially a dry channel.


https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051363365/colorados-dolores-river-should-be-raging-through-canyons-instead-its-nearly-dry
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 03, 2021, 08:21:25 AM
Climate change is having an adverse effect on South Carolina's Low Country



https://www.npr.org/2021/11/01/1051036131/climate-change-is-having-an-adverse-effect-on-south-carolinas-low-country
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on November 03, 2021, 18:02:55 PM
I was doubtful about a 3 or 4 foot rise, but NPR let's some people say anything. No doubt sea level is rising. I found this interesting article when I was looking at data about sea level rises in the last 2000 years.   https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/why-is-sea-level-rising-higher-in-some-places-along-u-s-east-coast-than-others/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 05, 2021, 08:18:47 AM
https://youtu.be/RjU40VX7NXQ
Live in 5 days
November 10, 7:00 PM



The Colorado River runs nearly fifteen hundred miles, winding through seven states and
Mexico. It supplies drinking water to nearly 40 million people, irrigates nearly 4 million
acres of farmland and attracts millions of nature lovers to scenic Grand Canyon vistas.
And it is on the brink.
A 20 year mega-drought -- exacerbated by climate change -- is squeezing the Colorado dry. It's
a crisis for the people of the Southwest and a "canary in the coal mine" for us all.

Join PBS NewsHour's Miles O'Brien for a special hour-long live event exploring the relationship between climate change and the fate of the Colorado River Basin.
Hosted live from Phoenix, the program will foster a
solutions-based dialog with leaders in areas of science, agriculture, municipal water,
Native American communities and conservation.

The event is sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation.

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 28, 2021, 09:10:38 AM
https://youtu.be/Tu32N_Lwk5M
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 28, 2021, 09:18:17 AM
Investors are buying AZ farmland to sell Colorado River water allotment to PHX area home developers

>>>An investment company has purchased nearly 500 acres of farmland along the Arizona-California border with plans to take its water allotment and send it to the Phoenix area for new housing developments.

AZCentral reports the investment company Greenstone bought the farmland and is awaiting federal approval to sell most of its water entitlement to the town of Queen Creek, north of Phoenix. It's one of the fastest-growing suburbs in Arizona.

If approved, the purchase could pave the way for similar deals as water demand in the Southwest outpaces supply.

https://www.knau.org/knau-and-arizona-news/2021-11-26/investors-are-buying-az-farmland-to-sell-colorado-river-water-allotment-to-phx-area-home-developers

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 30, 2021, 09:01:38 AM
Scientists working to understand record of mine-related contamination in sediment below Lake Powell
Initial data from a 2018 research project is now being released.


>>>The goal was to understand not just the potential impacts of the Gold King Mine disaster but also to analyze the record of sediment that is trapped in the upper reaches of Lake Powell and is 50 feet thick in places.

The initial data gathered on the project is just now being released, and Hynek gave a public presentation on the preliminary results earlier this month. His hope is that the project will be useful to scientists working across the river basin on a variety of projects. The sediment record, he explained, "is like the ultimate ground truth on what has happened in the upper Colorado River Basin on a very large scale over 70 years."

Cores taken in the San Juan arm of the reservoir show spikes of lead and zinc that may have been deposited from the Gold King Mine spill in 2015, but there are much bigger — and more concerning — spikes of the metals that were likely deposited in the 1970s when larger mine waste-related disasters occurred in the watershed.

"Bigger things happened in the 70s in the San Juan than the Gold King," Hynek said.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login



https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/11/26/scientists-working/

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 10, 2021, 10:10:40 AM
https://www.circleofblue.org/2021/world/the-year-in-water-2021/


The Year in Water, 2021
Water Crises Take Center Stage


>>>Too much. Too little. Too polluted.

For years these compact phrases, mantra-like in their repetition, have come to define the world's water problems.

Now add a fourth: too frequent.

If nothing else, the last 12 months of floods, fires, droughts, and other meteorological torments delivered an uncomfortable message. Extreme events are happening more often. And they are happening almost everywhere.

Communities rich and poor bore witness to horrific devastation in 2021. In July, floods in China's Henan province trapped commuters in subway tunnels in the city of Zhengzhou, which received as much rain in three days as it does in an average year. That same month, raging waters in Germany's Ahr Valley scoured farmland into canyons and submerged riverside towns. Herders in northern Kenya today are lamenting the decimation of their livestock as seasonal rains failed yet again to nourish the ochre earth.

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 22, 2021, 09:26:51 AM
Drought-stricken Las Vegas proposes grass ban for new homes

>>>Grassy yards would be banned at all new housing and commercial developments in the Las Vegas metro area as officials try to expand water use limitations and the region prepares for a hotter and drier future.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority passed resolutions on Monday to prohibit the yards and the use of evaporative cooling machines, also known as "swamp coolers," at the new developments. Swamp coolers are used by many people instead of traditional air conditioners, but use more water.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/drought-stricken-las-vegas-proposes-grass-ban-for-new-homes/2021/12/21/b30a77b8-628f-11ec-9b51-7131fa190c5e_story.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 22, 2021, 09:29:26 AM
3 states and Washington agree to keep more water in Lake Mead amid dropping levels

Three western states and the federal government have signed a $200 million deal to keep Lake Mead viable. Millions depend on it for water and electricity. It's at a historic low due to climate change.

Listen to the 4-minute story here...
https://news.wjct.org/national-news/2021-12-22/3-states-and-washington-agree-to-keep-more-water-in-lake-mead-amid-dropping-levels

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 27, 2021, 10:50:53 AM
https://youtu.be/tLkv6n1KEJ0
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 11, 2022, 10:01:26 AM
Nebraska announces $500M plan to claim water from Colorado

>>>Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced a $500 million plan Monday to divert water out of Colorado under a 99-year-old compact between the states that allows Nebraska to seize access to Colorado land along the South Platte River and build canals.

Ricketts said Nebraska would invoke its rights under the South Platte River Compact amid concerns that Colorado's plans for the river could reduce water flows into his state by as much as 90%, taking a potentially huge toll on Nebraska's agricultural and power industries and likely affecting water supplies in the state's two largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln.

"We are very concerned about what is going to happen with these projects," Ricketts, a Republican, said at a news conference. The reduced streamflows "are going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to feed the world."


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nebraska-announces-500m-plan-to-claim-water-from-colorado/2022/01/10/bc54a67a-7263-11ec-a26d-1c21c16b1c93_story.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 11, 2022, 10:05:06 AM
Gov. Ducey wants Arizona to invest $1B in desalination, other water infrastructure

>>>Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday proposed spending $1 billion from the state's general fund over three years to help "secure Arizona's water future for the next 100 years."

In his final State of the State address, the governor said the budget he sends to lawmakers will prioritize water infrastructure including desalination.

"Instead of just talking about desalination, the technology that made Israel the world's water superpower," he said, "how about we pave the way to make it actually happen?"


https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2022/01/10/gov-doug-ducey-proposes-spending-1-billion-water-infrastructure/9164946002/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 26, 2022, 09:34:30 AM
Q&A: David Arend talks Colorado River basin challenges

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's newly-appointed deputy regional director for the lower basin speaks about the road ahead for the shrinking river.

As the Colorado River shrinks at the hands of a two-decades-long drought, there's a lot on the line. The water supply for 40 million people, agriculture, wildlife and hydropower generation are all hanging in the balance as the region grapples with a dwindling river.

https://www.kunc.org/environment/2022-01-25/q-a-david-arend-talks-colorado-river-basin-challenges
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 16, 2022, 10:04:15 AM
Study finds Western megadrought is the worst in 1,200 years

>>>Shrunk reservoirs. Depleted aquifers. Low rivers. Raging wildfires. It's no secret that the Western U.S. is in a severe drought. New research published Monday shows just how extreme the situation has become.

The Western U.S. and northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to the new study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The last comparable — though not as severe — multidecade megadrought occurred in the 1500s, when the West was still largely inhabited by Native Americans tribes.

https://wamu.org/story/22/02/14/study-finds-western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1200-years/

My son is bummed that there hasn't been much snow in Park City, but he is going to Aspin for a week during Ski Break (Spring Break)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on February 17, 2022, 18:48:05 PM
https://www.microsoftnewskids.com/en-us/kids/science-tech/a-new-discovery-could-help-save-this-10-foot-long-living-fossil-fish/ar-AATXVMd?ocid=msedgntp
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 04, 2022, 09:20:18 AM

Natural bridge, long hidden by Glen Canyon damming, resurfaces as Lake Powell dries up

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>>>len Canyon is revealing itself.

David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra Club and a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, once said flooding Glen Canyon would be "America's most regretted environmental mistake." But almost 60 years after the fact, the full extent of that "mistake" remains mysterious.

Archaeologists and naturalists hastened to detail the canyon's contents even as the Glen Canyon Dam was under construction. By the time the waters of Lake Powell began to rise in 1963, their photos and notebooks salvaged accounts of petroglyphs, natural bridges and extensive, pristine ecosystems in the Glen Canyon area. But their work was far from complete.

They documented just enough to guess at the grand total of what would be drowned under Lake Powell. William Lipe, one of the leading archaeologists of this effort, reflected that "there was an awareness that a lot was being lost."

Now, long-term drought has brought water levels in Lake Powell to historic lows. As the shores recede, they unveil Glen Canyon's lost wonders, allowing the consequences to resurface.

https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/natural-bridge-long-hidden-by-glen-canyon-damming-resurfaces-as-lake-powell-dries-up/article_0905e62e-653d-5013-b71b-ca16b00f1172.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 23, 2022, 12:04:11 PM
https://youtu.be/NztEGvofkPE
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 17, 2022, 13:14:38 PM
Lake Powell is critically low, and still shrinking. Here's what happens next
The future of the reservoir is largely uncertain, but climate science and recent actions by the government are providing some hints as to what might happen in the near future.


>>>Lake Powell is in crisis.

The nation's second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low.

In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. Water levels dipped below 3,525 feet – the last major milestone before a serious threat to hydropower generation at the Glen Canyon Dam.

The future of the reservoir is largely uncertain, but climate science and recent actions by the government are providing some hints as to what might happen in the near future.

https://www.azpm.org/p/headlines/2022/4/16/209205-lake-powell-is-critically-low-and-still-shrinking-heres-what-happens-next/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 19, 2022, 08:12:11 AM
America's Most Endangered Rivers of 2022 Spotlights Rivers in Crisis Modeb]
Today we are announcing America's Most Endangered Rivers® of 2022 and sounding the alarm that our nation's rivers and clean water are in crisis.

Catastrophic drought. Disastrous floods. Fish and other freshwater species nearing extinction, as rivers heat up.

Many people in the United States have imagined climate change as a problem in the future. But it is here now, and the primary way that each of us is experiencing climate change is through water. The climate crisis is a water crisis.

Today we are announcing America's Most Endangered Rivers® of 2022 and sounding the alarm that our nation's rivers and clean water are in crisis.  Topping the list this year is the Colorado River, which is threatened by climate change and outdated water management. Thirty federally-recognized Tribal Nations, seven states, Mexico and 40 million people who rely on the river for drinking water are being impacted by this crisis. Also threatened is vital habitat for wildlife, as the Basin is home to 30 native fish species, two-thirds of which are threatened or endangered, and more than 400 bird species.


https://www.americanrivers.org/2022/04/americas-most-endangered-rivers-of-2022-spotlights-rivers-in-crisis-mode/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 04, 2022, 08:35:11 AM
Colorado River managers announce "extraordinary actions" to prop up Lake Powell

>>>The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has announced what its water managers call "urgent, extraordinary actions" to prop up Lake Powell's plummeting elevation. KNAU's Melissa Sevigny reports.

The agency will release 500 thousand acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir into Lake Powell this year. It also will hold back 480 thousand acre-feet that normally would be released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead.

Tanya Trujillo of the U.S. Department of the Interior said at a press conference yesterday, "We have never taken this step before in the Colorado River Basin, but the conditions we see today and the potential risks we see on the horizon demand that we take prompt action."

The two steps are expected to raise Lake Powell's level by sixteen feet. The goal is to preserve hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam, and water supply to the City of Page and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation.

Trujillo says the seven Colorado River Basin states, tribes, and Mexico agreed to the unprecedented move. She adds, it's also necessary to conserve and recycle water. "We need to immediately engage in the development of additional conservation measures, if we continue to see the dry hydrology we've seen for some time



https://www.knau.org/knau-and-arizona-news/2022-05-04/colorado-river-managers-announce-extraordinary-actions-to-prop-up-lake-powell


https://www.fox5vegas.com/2022/05/03/bureau-reclamation-makes-colorado-river-water-release-changes-sending-lake-mead-even-lower/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 04, 2022, 08:42:40 AM
What's the Matter With the Colorado River?
Is the water-supply issue caused by climate change or population growth?

>>>The shrinking Colorado River is only the beginning of what will be a major global shortage of fresh water in the next decades ("Shrinking Colorado River Starts to Trim Arizona's Water Supply," U.S. News, April 25). Despite our efforts at carbon reduction, warming oceans and atmosphere will continue due to the accumulated energy in the ecosystem, allowing the atmosphere to hold more water, resulting in less rainfall. When it does rain, it will tend to be torrential, resulting in flooding that we aren't equipped to capture in reservoirs or aquifers. The real challenge is the development of massive desalination capacity to refill reservoirs and aquifers, combined with new infrastructure to capture and transport torrential rainfall.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/colorado-river-water-supply-climate-change-reservoir-population-11651522340
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 09, 2022, 08:37:38 AM
https://youtu.be/UDiJLUK0CIo

New Law in Las Vegas Mandates Removal of 'Nonfunctional' Grass to Save Water

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/new-law-in-las-vegas-mandates-removal-of-nonfunctional-grass-to-save-water/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on May 09, 2022, 13:43:31 PM
Look at the bright side.
Unsolved cases may become solved thanks to the low levels.

" A week after a decades-old body was found in receding Lake Mead, authorities in Las Vegas are trying to identify a second set of newly discovered human remains."

https://news.yahoo.com/investigators-try-id-2nd-set-144616933.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 17, 2022, 08:44:36 AM
For this summer's water forecast, climate experts are looking back to winter

>>>n the middle of a parched summer in the arid West, any amount of rain can feel like a gift. But in reality, those precious summer showers barely move the needle when it comes to water.

"Regardless of what you get in the summer," said Becky Bolinger, Colorado's assistant state climatologist, "what really impacts the water availability in the Colorado River is what happens in the winter."

As a drought-stricken region looks ahead to the summer, climate scientists are keeping an eye on high-mountain snowpack and its path to streams and rivers. Snow at high altitudes makes up the majority of the water in the Colorado River – where this past winter has left low totals. On top of that, warm temperatures and dry soil mean that snow is likely to melt early and soak into the ground before it can get to the Colorado River.


https://knpr.org/knpr/2022-05/summers-water-forecast-climate-experts-are-looking-back-winter
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 17, 2022, 09:08:55 AM
https://youtu.be/U4TtPWYjxN8
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 17, 2022, 09:33:36 AM
Lengthy Multimedia Presentation at the WAPO -- Follow the river from the headwaters to the Sea of Cortez

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/colorado-river-crisis/?itid=hp-top-table-main&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

THE COLORADO
RIVER IS IN
CRISIS, AND IT'S
GETTING WORSE
EVERY DAY


>>>The Colorado River is in crisis — one deepening by the day.
It is a powerhouse: a 1,450-mile waterway that stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez, serving 40 million people in seven U.S. states, 30 federally recognized tribes and Mexico. It hydrates 5 million acres of agricultural land and provides critical habitat for rare fish, birds and plants.

 

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 21, 2022, 07:38:57 AM
Major changes ahead for the Colorado River Basin

New research shows that snow will melt earlier in the Colorado River Basin, filling streams sooner and changing how reservoirs and irrigation are managed.

"Because of global climate change, areas of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming could have much less water, and future hydrologic conditions may more closely resemble those of the arid Southwest regions of the basin today," said study co-author Katrina Bennett, a hydrologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Colorado River Basin is massive, encompassing 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado to sea level deserts near the Gulf of California. Water from the basin is channeled to supply cities such as Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego and Santa Fe.


https://www.earth.com/news/major-changes-ahead-for-the-colorado-river-basin/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 27, 2022, 08:39:39 AM
Lake Mead now down 180 feet from its 'full pool'

>>>The last time Lake Mead was at its maximum depth, or 'full pool' was the summer of 1983. Since then the depletion of Lake Mead water has continued on and off over the last 39 years, and increased dramatically over the last 20 years during a historic drought and increased growth in the southwest United States.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login


https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/lake-mead-now-down-180-feet-from-its-full-pool/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 01, 2022, 11:05:07 AM
New drought rules go into effect today. Here's what you need to know

Get ready for short showers and brown lawns: More than 6 million Southern Californians will be placed under new drought rules today in an unprecedented effort to conserve water.
The restrictions are a response to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's urgent call for a 35% reduction in water use following California's driest-ever start to the year. MWD's board has never before issued such severe cuts, but said they were left with little recourse after state officials slashed deliveries from the State Water Project to just 5%

https://apple.news/Ai6Apcv-hTUOfw37Enb7ghw
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on June 01, 2022, 17:00:47 PM
Heard yesterday the demand for water from Powell/Mead is at a record high.  With fertilizer prices through the roof, California produce industry facing a reckoning, it seems a perfect storm for widespread food shortages for most items is just around the corner.

I believe it is time to start whacking stockers, and filling the freezer.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 13, 2022, 20:25:13 PM
Holy cloudburst

[instagram]https://www.instagram.com/p/Cew00epJJYA/?igshid=NmZiMzY2Mjc=[/instagram]

Yellowstone flooding
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 14, 2022, 10:18:20 AM
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CeydR_7AkBJ/?igshid=NmZiMzY2Mjc=

Gallatin flowing high and mighty
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 14, 2022, 12:29:06 PM
From the Drake

"What a flood!

The N and NE entrance to the Park are unlikely to open thru summer, maybe not even this year. The road is gone in spots along the Soda Butte and Gardiner Rivers. Gardiner is cut off with damage to the 89 bridge at Point of Rock along with washouts on E. River Rd - the old road going up over the hill to Mammoth is being repaired so they should be able to evacuate Gardiner by week end, at least. The entire northern loop of the Park is unlikely to reopen this year, and the southern loop is currently closed with assessments being made on how to limit visitors.

There are bridges and roads out on the Stillwater around Nye. The bridge over Rosebud to Fishtail south of Absarokee is gone. Bridges out over Rock Creek around Red Lodge.

A ton of damage thru Paradise Valley and around Livingston from flooding, tho none of it as bad as in the Gardiner area.

Going to be a strange summer around here."
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 15, 2022, 08:32:08 AM
Only way home....


https://youtu.be/itiLhF_CN9k
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 16, 2022, 11:50:49 AM
View this post on Instagram

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 21, 2022, 09:07:04 AM
As water crisis worsens on Colorado River, an urgent call for Western states to 'act now'


>>>With the Colorado River's depleted reservoirs continuing to drop to new lows, the federal government has taken the unprecedented step of telling the seven Western states that rely on the river to find ways of drastically cutting the amount of water they take in the next two months.

The Interior Department is seeking the emergency cuts to reduce the risks of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country's two largest reservoirs, declining to dangerously low levels next year.

"We have urgent needs to act now," Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for water and science, said during a speech on Thursday. "We need to be taking action in all states, in all sectors, and in all available ways."



>>>"We are facing the growing reality that water supplies for agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems, industry and cities are no longer stable due to climate change," Trujillo said.

Last year, the federal government declared a shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering cutbacks in water deliveries to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. Farmers in parts of Arizona have left some fields dry and fallow, and have turned to pumping more groundwater.

The cuts have yet to limit supplies for California, which uses the largest share of Colorado River water. But that could soon change as federal officials push all seven states to participate in diverting less water.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-06-20/as-colorado-river-reservoirs-drop-states-urged-to-act-now
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on June 21, 2022, 18:43:25 PM
There is much more to the Colorado story than the headlines suggest.

In recent months, the flow in the Grand Canyon is been around 10K.  The flow in the Colorado does not change significantly until it reaches Yuma.  That is several dams down from Lake Mead.  A cursory look at satellite imagery  tells the real story.  As the acreage of land irrigated land increases as the land flattens out near the Salton Sea, so does the flow.

The news coverage I've seen thus far has sounded like a broken record.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 23, 2022, 12:59:55 PM
https://youtu.be/SMRvzniRZnM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on June 24, 2022, 07:53:15 AM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on June 23, 2022, 12:59:55 PMhttps://youtu.be/SMRvzniRZnM

A literal display of the trickle down theory. 😡
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 24, 2022, 09:07:22 AM
https://youtu.be/1hzsQiLIuJw
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 25, 2022, 09:39:50 AM
Colorado's drought is bad. Tree ring history shows it could get a lot worse. 

A new study finds a scorching spell 1,800 years ago robbed the Colorado River of more than one-third of its water.

>>>hat two stooped and warped sentinels in the Great Basin are telling us is a scary story, with a twist of possible redemption.

Approximately 1,800 years after popping out of the ground as seedlings, live bristlecone pines are still talking to us nearly two millennia later. They offer warnings and insight into long-term drought in the West, according to researchers from the Bureau of Reclamation and University of Arizona.

Rings from trees that were alive in the west's Great Basin in the second century A.D. show a devastating 24-year drought back then that makes our current 22-year Western drought look positively moist, the research shows.

The tree rings and other evidence from caves and bogs show the drought cut 32% from the average flow of the Colorado River at Lees Ferry, in northern Arizona near the beginning of the Grand Canyon.

The drought we're living through? It's bad, forcing changes to water use in seven Western states. But by comparison the current drought has cut "only" 16% from recent average flows at Lees Ferry.


https://coloradosun.com/2022/06/24/tree-rings-drought-colorado-river-basin/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 27, 2022, 16:01:10 PM
Jamie Oliver decided it was time to talk about the Colorado River

https://youtu.be/jtxew5XUVbQ
John Oliver discusses the water shortage in the American west, how it's already impacting the people who live there, and what God has to say about it.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on June 27, 2022, 17:46:34 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on June 27, 2022, 16:01:10 PMJamie Oliver decided it was time to talk about the Colorado River

https://youtu.be/jtxew5XUVbQ
John Oliver discusses the water shortage in the American west, how it's already impacting the people who live there, and what God has to say about it.

Wow!  I don't know which god that was at the end, but he seems really pissed. 😳
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Dougfish on June 27, 2022, 18:55:04 PM
Oliver delivers.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on June 30, 2022, 06:24:34 AM
So there is a lot of talk about drought in the Colorado watershed.

The link below shows the flow of the Colorado at the Utah line.  While I'm sure there is water diversion above this point, the flow here lackss major distortions in terms of diversion.  Yes it is dry now, but this is not unprecedented.  Once again, this is the reminder it isn't so much a supply issue, but a demand challenge.   Too much story fabrication, and not enough data being presented to the public.

There were a few wet years in the 80s, and for some reason, the output during those years seem to be the benchmark for normal. Well it ain't.


https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/annual?referred_module=sw&site_no=09163500&por_09163500_19083=345733,00060,19083,1951,2022&start_dt=1952&end_dt=2021&year_type=W&format=html_table&date_format=YYYY-MM-DD&rdb_compression=file&submitted_form=parameter_selection_list

Number years with an annual average output below 5000 cfs per decade.  There is been a lack of blockbuster high water years.  The quarter century drought narrative is complete bullshit imo.

1950s > at least 4

1960s > 5

1970s > 3

1980s >  3

1990s > 4

2000s > 5

2010s > 3


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on July 01, 2022, 06:45:32 AM
We are not alone. Italians are fearing food and power shortages.

https://youtu.be/H_8RqzqR-oo
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on July 01, 2022, 07:00:16 AM
And then there is the region many refer to as the Cradle of Civilization.

https://youtu.be/XPc-amd0uVA
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 05, 2022, 08:21:13 AM
https://youtu.be/NdizZI_CgTI
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 09, 2022, 10:07:05 AM

Wyoming Ag Producers Fight Back Against Feds Telling Them To Use Less Water

>>>Historic drought conditions across the West have prompted a federal call for Wyoming and other western states to reduce their consumption of Colorado River Basin waters this year.

Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhart met this week with representatives from six states, collectively known as "basin states," in Las Vegas.

The meeting was the first of several to determine how the states could voluntarily reduce their use of Colorado River Basin water by 2 million oto 4 million acre-feet to increase flows into lakes Mead and Powell, which are at critically low levels, said Jeff Cowley, the State Engineer's Office administrator of interstate streams.

An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land with 1 foot of water, almost 326,000 gallons.

The basin states include Wyoming, California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and  Arizona.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has given the states until mid-August to come up with a water consumption reduction plan, Cowley said.

"If we can't come up with a plan," he added, "the Bureau of Reclamation is going to step in and do it for us.


https://cowboystatedaily.com/2022/07/08/in-light-of-historic-drought-feds-tell-wyoming-to-reduce-colorado-river-water-consumption/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Big J on July 13, 2022, 17:32:33 PM
https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/buchanan-county-impacted-by-major-flooding-power-outages-after-heavy-rain/amp/ (https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/buchanan-county-impacted-by-major-flooding-power-outages-after-heavy-rain/amp/)

Dismal Creek area in VA doesn't need any more rain  :o
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 16, 2022, 09:00:35 AM
They sounded alarms about a coming Colorado River crisis. But warnings went unheeded

>>>The Colorado River is approaching a breaking point, its reservoirs depleted and Western states under pressure to drastically cut water use.

It's a crisis that scientists have long warned was coming. Years before the current shortage, scientists repeatedly alerted public officials who manage water supplies that the chronic overuse of the river combined with the effects of climate change would likely drain the Colorado's reservoirs to dangerously low levels.

But these warnings by various researchers — though discussed and considered by water managers — went largely unheeded.

Now, many of the scientists' dire predictions are coming to pass, with Lake Mead and Lake Powell nearly three-fourths empty and their water levels continuing to fall. Some researchers say the seven states that depend on the river would have been better prepared had they acted years ago.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-15/scientists-have-long-warned-of-a-colorado-river-crisis
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 21, 2022, 11:22:17 AM
NASA releases new Lake Mead satellite images, shows dramatic water loss since 2000

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login


https://myfox8.com/news/nasa-releases-new-lake-mead-satellite-images-shows-dramatic-water-loss-since-2000/

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on July 21, 2022, 17:37:29 PM
They need to make up their mind if they are going to dig the ditch from the upper Mississippi or the Pacific Ocean.https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/ced/1927 (https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/ced/1927)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on July 24, 2022, 06:28:48 AM
"Taps have run dry in Monterrey, Mexico, where there is water for factories but not for residents"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/taps-run-dry-monterrey-mexico-090054182.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on July 24, 2022, 07:13:46 AM
Quote from: Trout Maharishi on July 21, 2022, 17:37:29 PMThey need to make up their mind if they are going to dig the ditch from the upper Missippi or the Pacific Ocean.https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/ced/1927 (https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/ced/1927)

This is the dumbest shit.

Fuck these entitled people who move to the desert who think the basic common sense is not needed to survive on earth.  Perhaps they should decide to move to Michigan, just not NC! Git!
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 27, 2022, 11:58:58 AM
https://youtu.be/9b9L0-Iy3Ig
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 28, 2022, 08:27:37 AM
Upper Colorado River leaders push back against federal ask for conservation


>>>One of Colorado's top water officials says he cannot enforce recent federal demands to start conserving more on the Colorado River.

State engineer Kevin Rein oversees the state's water rights system. In a meeting with the Colorado River District board on Jul. 19, Rein assured members he would not be mandating conservation among their municipal, industrial and agricultural users. The district covers 15 counties in Western Colorado.

"There is nothing telling me to curtail water rights. There's nothing telling me that I should encourage people to conserve," Rein said.


https://knpr.org/knpr/2022-07/upper-colorado-river-leaders-push-back-against-federal-ask-conservation


Note: my bold...


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 01, 2022, 10:38:25 AM
VIDEO: 'One-in-1200-years' drought threatens Colorado River in US



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-01/one-in-1200-years-drought-threaten-colorado-river/13997926?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 01, 2022, 10:45:22 AM
Colorado River basin farms stunted by megadrought, as more sacrifice lies ahead

>>>Colorado River basin farms stunted by megadrought, as more sacrifice lies ahead

The irrigation canal that serves her property was shut down amid a 22-year megadrought that has hurt growers across the seven states that comprise the basin.

Vultures gathered in the muddy pools of her canal, feasting on the dying fish, a week after her hay was cut in early June, likely for the last time this year. At the same time, the bills from Caywood's irrigation district are going up to cover increased energy costs to pump water.

Turning Point - 4  minute video in the link...

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/colorado-river-basin-farms-stunted-by-megadrought-as-more-sacrifice-lies-ahead/article_21986fd5-833f-50b9-9ab9-a976f8e9a111.html

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on August 02, 2022, 07:09:26 AM
What drought?

https://youtu.be/6Gv3QbpxooQ
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 07, 2022, 11:35:51 AM

Human remains discovered at Lake Mead Saturday morning

>>>More human remains have been located at Lake Mead National Recreation Area as water levels continue to drop.

The National Park Service said rangers received a call reporting the human skeletal remains at Swim Beach at about 11:15 a.m. Aug. 6

Rangers responded and recovered the remains with help from Las Vegas Metropolitan Police's dive team. The Clark County Coroner also responded and will determine the cause of death.

NPS said the investigation is ongoing.

It's the fourth set of remains found at Lake Mead in the past couple months.


https://www.fox5vegas.com/2022/08/07/human-remains-discovered-lake-mead-saturday-morning/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 19, 2022, 08:44:27 AM
Drastic Cuts to Colorado River Water Use Show Depth of West's Drought
Cuts to states' use of Colorado River water are needed to prevent levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell from dropping below a critical point

>>>The precarious status of the Colorado River was brought into sharper focus today with the release of a federal study that determines how the basin's big reservoirs will be operated in the coming year — and which states will be required to limit their water withdrawals from the shrinking river.

With key water supply reservoirs Mead and Powell near record low levels, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico will shoulder the largest cuts from the Colorado River to date, forgoing a combined 721,000 acre-feet of water next year. The largest burden falls on Arizona, which will see its allocation reduced by 21 percent. Under the voluntary agreement signed in 2019 that governs the cuts, no other basin state is required to limit its withdrawals.

Federal officials have requested additional reductions in order to protect Mead and Powell, but the seven basin states did not meet a federal deadline to present a plan to conserve between two million and four million acre-feet of water next year. At the high end, that amount of conservation is nearly five times the cuts announced today and roughly equal to a third of the river's recent annual flow.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drastic-cuts-to-colorado-river-water-use-show-depth-of-wests-drought/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on August 20, 2022, 06:50:33 AM
The drought to some extent is being overblown.  It is consumption that is the problem.

The mouthpieces in our land are too cowardly to assign blame where it deserves to be placed.  It is not big oil and climate change that is to blame for the current situation, but rather Joe public.

No one is force people move to the desert.

No one is forcing people to buy gas.

No one is forcing people to purchase food from the store grown by big ag.

No one is forcing people to purchase electricity.

No one is forcing people to waste food.

People are not forced to get drunk, take fentanyl, heroin.

People should know what the facts are, make careful calculations regarding where they live, work, and what they consume.  Humans are endowed with great brains, but to often fail to use it. More to the point, Americans have generally become dumb entitled spoiled brats that deserve a good bitch slap.

The latest trend is people turning the AC down to 68, and the heat up to 74. WTF.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 20, 2022, 09:23:56 AM

States dependent on Colorado River wonder if desalination could help the water supply

Severe drought has states dependent on the Colorado River looking at alternatives. Desalinating seawater may be a viable supplement to some areas, but likely can't fix much of the river's deficit.

The Colorado River is shrinking. That prompted federal managers this week to issue mandatory cutbacks for some who use its water. And more are needed. As states that rely on the Colorado River look for other ways to bolster their supply, some are asking if a process called desalination could help. But as Alex Hager of member station KUNC reports, that technology comes with big tradeoffs.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/19/1118519149/states-dependent-on-colorado-river-wonder-if-desalination-could-help-the-water-s
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 21, 2022, 08:15:14 AM


In California's water crisis, neighbors turn in neighbors and even celebrities aren't spared
Water authorities have been installing flow restrictors on the homes of the region's wealthiest residents for using too much water


From working-class neighborhoods to the celebrity haunts of Malibu, residents in the Los Angeles area have been getting visits from what is essentially the water police as California remains in a near constant state of drought.

Six million Southern California residents are under the toughest water restrictions in the nation. And because of the patchwork of different agencies overseeing different areas, that means different rules for everyone, sometimes even neighbors who live across the street from each other.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/21/california-drought-water-restriction-enforcement/10174631002/?gnt-cfr=1

or

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-california-s-water-crisis-neighbors-turn-in-neighbors-and-even-celebrities-aren-t-spared/ar-AA10TDG3?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7fbef18d58214db6e687b478dc27988e
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 22, 2022, 10:25:48 AM
https://youtu.be/4tmzX_TXH_I
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 22, 2022, 10:29:11 AM
Inherit the Dust
The Colorado River is running out of water. No place will be more affected than the arid metropolis of Phoenix.


Not far from the constant roar of Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport and just a few miles from the massive, air-conditioned stadium of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team lies what might be the quietest enclave in the United States' fastest-growing city. Pueblo Grande, the "big house," was settled around AD 450 and for close to 1,000 years was continuously inhabited by the Hohokam people. Home to hundreds of families at any one time, Pueblo Grande was but a single outpost in a sprawling, thriving civilization of as many as 300,000 people at its height. While the Roman Empire was falling into decay, the Hohokam culture was building one of the greatest cities in what would eventually be called the Americas. 

The key to the Hohokam's success in the blistering climate of the Sonoran Desert was a complex network of canals that, at its zenith, was some 500 miles in length, crisscrossing what is now affectionately referred to as the Valley of the Sun. The canals diverted water from the Salt River to irrigate the Hohokam's fields of maize, melons, squash, and beans. No other ancient civilization in the Americas—not even the Inca or the Maya—built a more extensive water conveyance system. Nineteenth- and early-20th-century white settlers marveled at the perfect design of the canals, which, in the words of one observer, were "an engineering triumph." 

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/inherit-the-dust-colorado-river-phoenix-arizona-drought-climate-crisis
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on August 22, 2022, 19:08:09 PM
The region is having the best rainy season in many years, they need to find a way to curb population growth in the region.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 23, 2022, 10:32:06 AM
One Planet: The West's unprecedented drought leads to Colorado River cuts -- experts say this is just the beginning


On this edition of Your Call's One Planet Series, we're discussing the declining water levels in the Colorado River and the federal government's new mandatory water cuts for Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. The Colorado River provides water for 40 million people.

Under Tier two shortage conditions, Arizona's annual water allocation will be reduced by 21 percentage, Nevada's by 8 percentage and Mexico's by 7 percent.

The verdict is especially high-stakes for Southern California, where the river provides a quarter or a third of the region's water supply. Seven Southern California counties rely on the river for water and hydroelectric power, and 600,000 acres of farmland draw on it for irrigation, according to CALMatters.


LISTEN HERE: https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2022-08-22/one-planet-the-wests-unprecedented-drought-leads-to-colorado-river-cuts-experts-say-this-is-just-the-beginning
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 23, 2022, 12:02:24 PM
As drought dries up the Yangtze river, China loses hydropower

A historic drought in the southwest of China is drying up rivers, intensifying forest fires, damaging crops, and severely curtailing electricity in a region highly dependent on hydropower.

The Yangtze River, the third largest in the world, has dropped to half its average water levels, affecting shipping routes, limiting drinking water supplies, causing rolling blackouts, and even exposing long-submerged Buddhist statues. Some 66 rivers across 34 counties in Chongqing were dried up as of last week, Reuters reported. Also last week, the province of Sichuan, which gets more than 80 percent of its energy from hydropower, cut or limited electricity to thousands of factories in an effort to "leave power for the people." Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, is just a quarter of its normal size for this time of year.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/as-drought-dries-up-the-yangtze-river-china-loses-hydropower/ar-AA10Zfsd
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 23, 2022, 15:27:35 PM
Two-thirds of Europe is under some sort of drought warning, in what is likely the worst such event in 500 years.

Europe's drought the worst in 500 years - report https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62648912
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on August 24, 2022, 19:13:58 PM
QuoteChina's southwestern Sichuan province has extended its factory shutdowns to Thursday due to a one-month-long heatwave and drought, marking the latest big global supply chain disruption to emanate from the crisis-hit country.

Foreign manufacturers including Apple and Toyota as well as Chinese solar power product cell makers had originally planned to resume production on Sunday after their six-day shutdowns ended on Saturday. However, the provincial government on Sunday released a Level 1 emergency response due to the extreme weather and ordered factories to stop work.

About 16,500 companies in Sichuan have reportedly been affected by the power shortage after reservoirs' water levels dropped and halved the province's hydropower output.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/08/drought-roiling-chinas-already-evaporating-economy/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on August 26, 2022, 08:50:57 AM
"Kim Kardashian, Kevin Hart, Dwyane Wade repeatedly used over 150% of their water budget amid California drought, officials say"


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kim-kardashian-kevin-hart-dwyane-wade-repeatedly-used-150-water-budget-rcna44488
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on August 26, 2022, 14:25:23 PM
"Roman ruins reappear from river in drought-stricken Europe almost 2,000 years later"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/roman-ruins-reappear-river-drought-171733576.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 28, 2022, 10:34:48 AM
California to install solar panels over canals to fight drought, a first in the U.S.

In an effort to combat the devastating drought conditions hitting California, the Golden State will become the first in the nation to install solar panel canopies over canals.

The $20 million pilot project funded by the state has been dubbed "Project Nexus." It will consist of an estimated 8,500 feet of solar panels installed over three sections of Turlock Irrigation District (TID) canals in Central California. It is expected to break ground in the fall, and be completed by 2023. The project was first announced back in February.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login



https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-solar-panels-canals-drought/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 29, 2022, 09:11:21 AM
Editorial: The Colorado River's catastrophe is upon us


If you've ever seen the Grand Canyon, you understand. The breadth and spectacle of one of the great wonders of the natural world is hard to describe: 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and over a mile deep. All of it carved by the steady and ceaseless flow of a river. Over some 6 million years, the Colorado River has quite literally shaped the West.

Today, it is facing catastrophe.

The Colorado River, which serves the needs of some 40 million people throughout the Southwest and provides vital water to millions of acres of agriculture, is running dry. Overuse, climate change and drought have combined to put the river — and all of us who, to some degree, depend on it — into crisis.

Earlier this year, the seven states that rely on the Colorado River were asked to come up with a plan to save trillions of gallons of water by Aug. 15. If a plan could not be created and agreed upon, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation threatened to take control. The 15th has passed without a plan and without a takeover.


https://www.dailycamera.com/2022/08/28/editorial-the-colorado-rivers-catastrophe-is-upon-us/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 29, 2022, 09:14:40 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 30, 2022, 09:31:53 AM
different type of water crisis..

https://youtu.be/_DP3aH4Cb6Y
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on August 30, 2022, 10:15:24 AM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on August 30, 2022, 09:31:53 AMdifferent type of water crisis..

https://youtu.be/_DP3aH4Cb6Y

This falls under the category of nail banger/bolt turning shortage.  Five years from now, America will implode.  This is just the start.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 31, 2022, 13:23:00 PM
It's not just the Colorado River drying up. It's the Rhine, the Volga, the Danube ...
Opinion: It may be small comfort for those along the Colorado River, but rapidly dwindling water levels across the globe offer a lesson for us all.

In Arizona, we have been lately hyper-focused on our diminishing Colorado River water supply and what it means for our future.

We've watched the receding water lines that reveal historic relics and what may be the hidden skeletons of the Vegas mob families.

We've been so hyperfocused, many of us have failed to see the bigger picture – the bigger and more disturbing picture.

Many of the great rivers of the world are starting to dry up – at once.             

From the Yangtze to the Rhine to the Danube to the Tiber and Po to the Elbe and the Volga – spanning not just continents but much of the globe.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/philboas/2022/08/29/colorado-danube-yangtze-rhine-rivers-drying-up-climate-change/7931115001/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Mudwall Gatewood 3.0 on August 31, 2022, 16:55:38 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on August 31, 2022, 13:23:00 PMIt's not just the Colorado River drying up. It's the Rhine, the Volga, the Danube ...

We've been so hyperfocused, many of us have failed to see the bigger picture – the bigger and more disturbing picture.



No shit Sherlock! 

The global climate catastrophes and misfortunes, likely not anomalies, worry the hell out of me.  I'd really enjoy another grandkid, but their future on this blue dot terrifies me. 
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Phil on August 31, 2022, 18:15:26 PM
The future for my new granddaughter terrifies me as well.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on September 01, 2022, 20:54:25 PM
Where is the water going? I mean isn't there a fixed amount of water in the hydrologic cycle? If the water isn't in the rivers it's somewhere in the cycle right? Wasn't much more of the earth covered by oceans at one time? How are all the rivers going dry and yet the oceans are rising? I know the Amazon has had record highs the last few years, why is that? The water came from somewhere in the hydrologic cycle? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-02/brazil-floods-amazon-manaus/100183242 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-02/brazil-floods-amazon-manaus/100183242)
If my understanding is right the hydrologic cycle has a fixed amount of water in it, it simply takes one form or the other right but it remains a fixed amount of moisture? What am I missing?
https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/water-cycle/hydrologic-cycle (https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/water-cycle/hydrologic-cycle)

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on September 02, 2022, 08:29:43 AM
My chief concerns concerning climate.

1.  Ignorance. Most do not understand the the difference/effects of UHI and CO2 driven warming. Climate policies cannot be driven by politics, hysteria, and flavor of the day fashion. It must be science and data driven.  Not 50% of data, but All of it.

2. Famine. Seeds and young plants/crops cannot handle deluges.  We all know about droughts but few understand the impacts of deluges, and famine.  The world is increasingly at risk of widespread hunger. This seemed unthinkable a decade ago.  Now it seems it could happen at any time. This is avoidable. There is enough land wasted for yards that could be arable/orchard land in the US to feed probably 1/3 of the population.

3. Reducing CO2 seems to be the fashionable easy button.  It is overconsumption, stupid. There is no easy button, or scapegoat. https://www.newsweek.com/want-fight-climate-change-do-it-yourself-opinion-1737101

4. Trees please.  Trees are the earth's terrestrial sweat glands. The roots tap into moisture trapped in soil which is a water reservoir. When trees are eliminated, well, there is nothing to pull the moisture from the soil to cool things.  Just basic stuff here...Eat less beef, and eat more stocked trout and flatheads.


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 02, 2022, 08:38:24 AM
https://youtu.be/J20IfvbH0-4
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 02, 2022, 08:46:26 AM
Quote from: Trout Maharishi on September 01, 2022, 20:54:25 PMWhere is the water going?

A third of Pakistan is underwater amid its worst floods in history. Here's what you need to know

More than one third of Pakistan is underwater, according to satellite images from the European Space Agency (ESA), as deadly floodwaters threaten to create secondary disasters.

Food is in short supply after water covered millions of acres of crops and wiped out hundreds of thousands of livestock. Meanwhile, aid agencies have warned of an uptick in infectious diseases, leaving millions vulnerable to illness caused by what the United Nations has called a "monsoon on steroids."

More than 1,100 people have died from the floods since mid-June, nearly 400 of them children, while millions have been displaced, according to Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Pakistan, which was already grappling with political and economic turmoil, has been thrown into the front line of the human-induced climate crisis.

Here's what you need to know.

Why are the floods so bad?
Pakistan's monsoon season usually brings heavy downpours, but this year's has been the wettest since records began in 1961, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department

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Torrential monsoon rainfall – 10 times heavier than usual – has caused the Indus River to overflow, effectively creating a long lake, tens of kilometers wide, according to images from the ESA on August 30.

In the southern Sindh and Balochistan provinces, rainfall has been 500% above average as of August 30, according to the NDMA, engulfing entire villages and farmland, razing buildings and wiping out crops.



Homes are surrounded by floodwaters in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province, on September 1, 2022. - Zahid Hussain/AP










The Alkhidmat Foundation distributes food bags at a makeshift camp in Sindh Province, Pakistan on September 1, 2022. - Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images





Newborn babies lie in their beds after their homes were hit by floods in Sindh Province of Pakistan, on September 1, 2022. - Fareed Khan/AP


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-third-of-pakistan-is-underwater-amid-its-worst-floods-in-history-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ar-AA11nS1p







 
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: greg on September 02, 2022, 16:03:26 PM
I'm with Ken on the tree thing. Developers have got to stop cutting every fucking tree down I live in subdivision about 25 years old. Builder came in and bough5 last 5 lots. First thing they did was cut every damn tree down.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 07, 2022, 11:07:53 AM
The Fight Over Water in the West
The Journal Podcasst...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fight-over-water-in-the-west/id1469394914?i=1000577135390

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 11, 2022, 09:43:20 AM
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login


"You're looking at the most endangered fish in North America," Zane Olsen, the manager of the Ouray National Fish Hatchery tells me as he points to a deep open-topped water tank. Inside are dozens of juvenile bonytail, the rarest of four endangered native Colorado River fish species and one Olsen and his colleagues are trying to bring  back from the brink of extinction.

When I arrived at the hatchery one clear morning in May, Olsen was already soggy. Fish eggs mottled his pink polo shirt, and the tall, rangy fellow didn't seem to have a moment to stand still. The hatchery essentially functions like a fertility clinic for fish, and this was the one day a year that it spawns the razorback sucker, another endangered fish that makes up the bulk of the hatchery work. (The Colorado pikeminnow and the humpback chub, the other two endangered Colorado River basin fish, are raised elsewhere. ) Three days earlier, hatchery workers had injected the razorback with hormones to ripen their eggs, and now they had a short window for capturing them. I'd come to help with the spawning and to learn more about how the endangered fish are faring after more than two decades of drought in the West.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/colorado-river-dying-can-its-aquatic-dinosaurs-be-saved/


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 16, 2022, 10:37:18 AM
Tucson has 5.5 years of excess Colorado River water stowed in a "secret" reservoir

Arizona is facing dramatic cuts in water deliveries from the drought-imperiled Colorado River. But many water managers there aren't that worried due to a long in the works conservation strategy.


https://www.npr.org/2022/09/15/1123289459/arizona-has-5-5-years-of-excess-colorado-river-water-stowed-in-a-secret-reservoi
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on September 23, 2022, 12:16:29 PM
NPR report --

LAS VEGAS — These days it can feel almost cliche to throw around the word "dystopian." But it's hard not to use it while standing on the narrow road crossing the Hoover Dam as tourists gawk at the hulking structure's exposed columns that for decades were underwater.

"It's amazing to see the water so low," says Arthur Murzeau, who's on holiday in Las Vegas from Belgium.

Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, is so low it's getting perilously close to what's known as "deadpool," the level where the dam's hydropower turbines would be shut off for the first time in its 86 year history.


Audio Story... 20220922_me_where_the_colorado_river_crisis_is_hitting_home.mp3

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/22/1124150368/where-the-colorado-river-crisis-is-hitting-home
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 24, 2022, 08:26:35 AM
Colorado to reuse water for drinking, creating new supply


CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — When Eric Seufert brewed a test batch of beer in 2017 with water from recycled sewage, he wasn't too concerned about the outcome. The engineering firm that approached him about the test explained the process, and together they sipped samples of recycled water. Seufert quickly understood it wasn't too different from how water is normally handled.

"Every stream and river in this country has someone putting in their wastewater after they've treated it," he said.

After tapping the keg and having a taste, the owner of 105 West Brewing Co. here served it at his bar. Brewing beer, cooking food, and refilling water bottles with recycled wastewater could soon become standard practice in this state.

Earlier this month, Colorado's water quality agency gave unanimous preliminary approval to regulate direct potable reuse — the process of treating sewage and sending it directly to taps without first being dispersed in a larger water body. Pending a final vote in November, the state would become the first to adopt direct potable reuse regulations, officials say.

"Having well-developed regulations ... helps ensure projects are safe and that project proponents know what will be required of them," said Laura Belanger, water resources engineer with the nonprofit Western Resource Advocates.


https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/colorado-to-reuse-water-for-drinking-creating-new-supply/article_f438f7f2-f814-5752-995b-57ff46f41ab0.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 24, 2022, 08:36:15 AM
https://youtu.be/jCu6puWt6JU
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 27, 2022, 08:40:55 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 29, 2022, 11:41:00 AM
Feds begin 'expedited' process to help save drought-stricken Colorado River

>>>The US Department of Interior announced Friday it is launching an "expedited" process to potentially change water-flow operations on the drought-stricken Colorado River, as Lake Mead and Lake Powell have fallen to alarming new lows.

In the possible actions it laid out, Interior said it will consider using its federal authority to restrict water releases through the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams to help maintain water in Mead and Powell – the nation's two largest reservoirs – and prevent the dams from losing the ability to generate hydroelectricity.

Hydropower from the two dams is distributed to customers across eight Western states, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, and the levels of each reservoir are declining so much, experts fear they could stop producing power in the coming years.


>>>Interior said Friday it would soon issue a notice of intent saying the Bureau of Reclamation may need to modify the current operations of Glen Canyon Dam and reduce its water releases downstream – which could cause water levels at Mead to drop further. This would be done in order to make sure the Glen Canyon Dam can continue operating and generating power.

It also said Reclamation may also need to restrict downstream water releases from the Hoover Dam itself "in order to protect Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/us/colorado-river-lake-mead-powell-drought-plan-climate



Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 04, 2022, 10:24:01 AM
https://youtu.be/1-kIGNCYfMw

Residents in eligible areas can apply for the Utah Water Savers Landscape Rebate pilot program starting on Friday, October 28, 2022. Applications will be limited as this is a pilot program. We will announce additional application periods as spaces open up. You may receive up to $1 per square foot for replacing lawn with drought-resistant landscaping, maximum rebate of $50,000.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 06, 2022, 08:59:26 AM
This will be interesting; will the United States once again cheat the Native Americans and renig on a treaty.

Supreme Court will reconsider Navajos' claim for more water from the Colorado River

With California and the Southwest facing a historic drought, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a 9th Circuit Court decision that held the Navajo Nation has a right to take more water from the Colorado River.
The appeals court had pointed to the 1868 treaty in which the U.S. government agreed the Navajos would have a "permanent home" on their reservation, ruling the treaty "necessarily implied rights" to an adequate amount of water to live and farm.

"It is clear that the Reservation cannot exist as a viable homeland for the Nation without an adequate water supply," wrote Judge Ronald M. Gould, yet "many homes on the Reservation lack running water."



https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-11-04/supreme-court-will-reconsider-navajos-claim-for-more-water-from-the-colorado-river


https://youtu.be/AQRTirco4Mg

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 06, 2022, 09:34:52 AM
Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas

>>>>Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town's well: The water was moving.

But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it's a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.

Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.

Al Dahra did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

"The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before," Saiter told CNN. The farm was "pumping and it was sucking the water through the aquifer."

Groundwater is the lifeblood of the rural Southwest, but just as the Colorado River Basin is in crisis, aquifers are rapidly depleting from decades of overuse, worsening drought and rampant agricultural growth


>>>Now frustration is growing in Arizona's La Paz County, as shallower wells run dry amid the Southwest's worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the frustration is pointed at the area's huge, foreign-owned farms growing thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately get shipped to feed cattle and other livestock overseas.

"You can't take water and export it out of the state, there's laws about that," said Arizona geohydrologist Marvin Glotfelty, a well-drilling expert. "But you can take 'virtual' water and export it; alfalfa, cotton, electricity or anything created in part from the use of water."

Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/us/arizona-water-foreign-owned-farms-climate/index.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 17, 2022, 10:00:32 AM
https://youtu.be/52U__iVilkg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 19, 2022, 08:41:16 AM
Page, Arizona has a front row seat to the Colorado River crisis


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>>>Tobyn Pilot took a few crunchy footsteps through the rough red dirt near the edge of a towering cliff. Pilot, an operator at the water plant in Page, Arizona, pulled out a hefty collection of keys and unlocked a tiny plywood-paneled shed just a few feet from the brink. The building is barely bigger than an outhouse, but it's a pivotal part of keeping the taps flowing.

"The town's water comes right through this shack," Pilot said, revealing a small setup of pumps behind the creaking shed door. "Isn't that crazy to think?"

Hundreds of feet below, the Colorado River calmly chugged along. It's here, on the dusty precipice, that water from that river is redirected into the Page's city pipes.

As the once-mighty Colorado dries up at the hands of a changing climate, communities that rely on it are starting to feel the pinch. Many large cities in the Southwest are well-positioned to weather the growing crisis, but some smaller ones have a perilous front row seat as the shrinking river threatens to cut off their water supply completely. Page is one of them.


https://www.kuer.org/health-science-environment/2022-11-18/page-arizona-has-a-front-row-seat-to-the-colorado-river-crisis

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 04, 2022, 16:24:34 PM
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CldoN_ljvHZ/?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ=
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on December 05, 2022, 16:03:16 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on December 04, 2022, 16:24:34 PMhttps://www.instagram.com/reel/CldoN_ljvHZ/?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ=

He poses the question like it's a new idea. 🤣🤣
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 05, 2022, 16:40:46 PM
Quote from: trout-r-us on December 05, 2022, 16:03:16 PMHe poses the question like it's a new idea. 🤣🤣

Dude, it's just the money
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 18, 2022, 10:26:37 AM
Growing fears of 'dead pool' on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water


Outlining their latest projections for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the nation's two largest reservoirs, federal water managers said there is a risk Lake Mead could reach "dead pool" levels in 2025. If that were to happen, water would no longer flow downstream from Hoover Dam.

"We are in a crisis. Both lakes could be two years away from either dead pool or so close to dead pool that the flow out of those dams is going to be a horribly small number. And it just keeps getting worse," said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

He said there is a real danger that if the coming year is extremely dry, "it might be too late to save the lakes."

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-dead-pool-colorado-river-drought.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 27, 2022, 09:40:10 AM
https://youtu.be/6sidQzMicXY
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 29, 2022, 16:30:52 PM
https://youtu.be/SlxCjwDRhGU

https://coyotegulch.blog/2022/12/28/a-river-out-of-time-nrs-greenriver-coloradoriver-coriver-aridification/

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Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 30, 2022, 09:54:20 AM
https://youtu.be/kOqJSlKFJxY

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the Interior Dept's implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act earlier this month, and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) questioned Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Tommy Beaudreau, about solutions to drought impacts on the Colorado River.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on December 30, 2022, 11:27:48 AM
Thousands Will Live Here One Day (as Long as They Can Find Water)
In the increasingly dry Southwest, drought and climate change pose a challenge for developers, who need to find creative ways to provide water supply to new communities.

Surrounded by miles of creosote and ocotillo in the Sonoran Desert, state officials and business leaders gathered in October against the backdrop of the ragged peaks of the White Tank Mountains to applaud a plan to turn 37,000 acres of arid land west of Phoenix into the largest planned community ever proposed in Arizona.

The development, Teravalis, is expected to have 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space. But to make it happen, the project's developer, the Howard Hughes Corporation, will need to gain access to enough water for its projected 300,000 residents and 450,000 workers.

Teravalis is seen by local and state leaders as a crowning achievement in a booming real estate market, but it also represents the intensifying challenge in Arizona and other fast-growing Southwestern states: to build huge mixed-use projects in an era of water scarcity.

"You can't grow and grow on these far-flung lands and put industries anywhere you want," said Kathleen Ferris, former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. "You have to be smarter about where and how we grow."

Read the article (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/business/water-development-west.html?unlocked_article_code=dcUkTBsEZaRPnk3h4Xqj3XeVcFT2CdhwBBNxYcIvQ14wzyGgGO0dKb9pfd-0VbT-uM68gf9uuXZ31HnD-azlj2cxFGbKOCgk__1RY-mzzygDkU1sqzUoUFL4hnt9LV1va0eielogDEWhWhhsajVM23xBJMWefF6AvExHuAMYpDwn3yTxPcehDMp2thYHMSR3Cph9Hg87xVq_zGIOoZpW00OjJkL03rfcyhdHPAv_n3fcLot4dv8HFVh0Y9UsFquq3rT2-QhUUljCjwFN4yDHZL_HNh-HyRlRNRJaLD5LfC4oSI8gH2zy-1jJvvvy7UloC3kbrh-4O3kZgBK3t7Y_Mg7h&smid=share-url)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 08, 2023, 11:38:57 AM
The Times podcast: Colorado River in Crisis, Part 1: A Dying River

https://www.latimes.com/podcasts/story/2023-01-06/the-times-podcast-crisis-on-the-colorado-ep-1-a-dying-river




People have been warning about the breakdown of the Colorado River for decades. It's now at a tipping point. Today, we kick off our six-part special on this vital source of water for the American Southwest.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 12, 2023, 09:29:00 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 14, 2023, 12:26:00 PM

The Times podcast: Colorado River in Crisis, Part 2: The Source



https://www.latimes.com/podcasts/story/2023-01-13/the-times-podcast-podcast-colorado-river-snowpack
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 16, 2023, 20:59:49 PM
Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood's water supply amid drought


SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The survival — or at least the basic sustenance — of hundreds in a desert community amid the horse ranches and golf courses outside Phoenix now rests on a 54-year-old man with a plastic bucket of quarters.
John Hornewer picked up a quarter and put it in the slot. The lone water hose at a remote public filling station sputtered to life and splashed 73 gallons into the steel tank of Hornewer's water hauling truck. After two minutes, it stopped. Hornewer, one of two main suppliers responsible for delivering water to a community of more than 2,000 homes known as Rio Verde Foothills, fished out another quarter.
"It so shouldn't be like this," Hornewer said.
Some living here amid the cactus and creosote bushes see themselves as the first domino to fall as the Colorado River tips further into crisis. On Jan. 1, the city of Scottsdale, which gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River, cut off Rio Verde Foothills from the municipal water supply that it has relied on for decades. The result is a disorienting and frightening lack of certainty about how residents will find enough water as their tanks run down in coming weeks, with a bitter political feud impacting possible solutions


https://wapo.st/3QJFXVu
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 20, 2023, 10:04:16 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 21, 2023, 09:24:20 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 22, 2023, 09:32:14 AM
How to Save the Colorado River? Use Less Water
Audubon submits comments to Bureau of Reclamation as they develop new operating rules.

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The massive dams on the Colorado River were supposed to protect us.

At the dedication of Hoover Dam, the colossus just outside of Las Vegas created Lake Mead, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt celebrated "its contribution to the health and comfort of the people of America who live in the Southwest." The Glen Canyon Dam was built in the 1960's into the red rocks of Glen Canyon to form Lake Powell. Floyd Dominy, the Reclamation Commissioner who presided over its construction extolled that "you wouldn't have anywhere near the number of people living comfortably in the West if you hadn't developed the projects, if you hadn't managed the water."

Today, the water stored behind them is so diminished that the federal government has warned of "system collapse." The two reservoirs are dangerously close to dead pool, the point at which the water level sinks below the dams' intakes. At risk are the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River water supply and a substantial share of the U.S. agricultural economy, not to mention the hundreds of bird species and every other living thing that depends on the basin's rivers as habitat.

How did this happen? The river is legally overallocated, the basin is experiencing extended drought conditions, and climate warming is exacerbating the drought. Perhaps most significantly, consumptive water uses in the past 20 years have exceeded supply. Rather than reducing water uses a little bit year over year, those who control the river (water users, state and federal agencies) largely sustained consumptive uses by draining those reservoirs. Now that they are nearly emptied, that strategy won't work anymore, and the region is in for a rough transition.

https://www.audubon.org/news/how-save-colorado-river-use-less-water

Downloadable Resources
https://media.audubon.org/file-attachments/article/audubon_coriverguidelinesseiscomment_12_22.pdf
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 23, 2023, 09:39:05 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 23, 2023, 09:42:38 AM
Leaving Lake Mead: Water for California, Arizona a drain on stressed supply

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Southern Nevada residents are laser-focused on Lake Mead as worries over water supplies grow. And rightfully so — that's the source of almost all of the Las Vegas valley's water.

But as Lake Mead shrinks even more over the next two years, a reality will come clearly into focus: There's more demand for the water flowing out of Hoover Dam than there is for the water that stays in Lake Mead.

Lake Mead forecast to drop nearly 20 feet by September while other reservoirs rise
Water supplies for California and Arizona are pulled out of the Colorado River as it flows out of Lake Havasu. Both states have rights to amounts of water that dwarf Nevada's allocation.

Biggest users
Under the Colorado River Compact, California gets 4.4 million acre-feet from the river. Drought restrictions that just went into place cut Arizona's allocation to 2.2 million acre-feet — a 21% cut from the 2.8 million acre-feet under the terms of the compact. Nevada gets 275,000 acre-feet this year — a reduction of 25,000 acre-feet because of the drought.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/leaving-lake-mead-water-for-california-arizona-a-drain-on-stressed-supply/ar-AA16CRHI?ocid=weather-verthp-feeds
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on January 23, 2023, 11:18:23 AM
Could be worse. Not shabby



Screenshot_20230123-111140.jpg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 27, 2023, 19:21:52 PM
As the Colorado River Shrinks, Washington Prepares to Spread the Pain

The seven states that rely on the river for water are not expected to reach a deal on cuts. It appears the Biden administration will have to impose reductions.


The seven states that rely on water from the shrinking Colorado River are unlikely to agree to voluntarily make deep reductions in their water use, negotiators say, which would force the federal government to impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for 40 million Americans.

The Interior Department had asked the states to voluntarily come up with a plan by Jan. 31 to collectively cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. The demand for those cuts, on a scale without parallel in American history, was prompted by precipitous declines in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which provide water and electricity for Arizona, Nevada and Southern California. Drought, climate change and population growth have caused water levels in the lakes to plummet.

Full NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/climate/colorado-river-biden-cuts.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqIhkSVUZBCbeWdkipwGLwvPIxLsmj3P5aTKUVztYiu4UD4WGvkzQebElZ8c2237TYu59B4IVZa44yP5DbQsqQhO0o5CAldNee3xso9q6ACY70srAGO0yr2evZzngeaIimOHv4Bjab2LuCKTPwDZ2clYe1JhmdFyu0HULxqrXQKUiipQlg6BXVt0tTiwAZSKLo_DrFx50XdyEZRre4QE3MPpLDXCRxZXPruJdL3gBTA7OX3h94mwj6dhDONtxPa_3LBcoeMeWkqxX4dP2IsehCfU1je8IfiRE&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 27, 2023, 20:43:20 PM
https://youtu.be/sy18hkeXWgo
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 30, 2023, 10:42:51 AM
How Las Vegas declared war on thirsty grass and set an example for the desert Southwest

Fountains still shimmer opulently at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, but lush carpets of grass are gradually disappearing along the streets of Sin City.
Despite its reputation for excess, the Mojave Desert metropolis has been factoring climate change into its water plans for years, declaring war on thirsty lawns, patrolling the streets for water wasters and preparing for worst-case scenarios on the Colorado River, which supplies 90% of the area's water.

Las Vegas has emerged as a leader in water conservation, and some of its initiatives have spread to other cities and states that rely on the shrinking river. Its drive to get rid of grass in particular could reshape the look of landscapes in public and private spaces throughout the Southwest.

So how did Las Vegas become a water-saving model to emulate? It began with an initial phase of the Colorado River crisis two decades ago.

Lake Mead had been nearly full and lapping at the spillway gates of Hoover Dam in early 2000. Then extreme drought and heavy water use sent the reservoir into a rapid decline.

In 2002, as the reservoir level dropped, the Southern Nevada Water Authority used more than its allocation of Colorado River water. At that point, the agency's leaders decided to pivot quickly toward conservation.

They focused on promoting cash rebates to help customers rip out lawns and put in landscaping with desert plants.
In 2003, the Las Vegas area's consumption of Colorado River water shrank more than 16%. Those conservation gains continued as the area's water suppliers strengthened their rules, targeting grass.

In 2004, frontyard lawns were prohibited for new subdivisions. Golf courses were given water budgets. The water authority adopted seasonal watering restrictions.

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In 2004, frontyard lawns were prohibited for new subdivisions in the Las Vegas area. Above, the suburban community of Mountain's Edge. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-29/colorado-river-in-crisis-cracking-down-on-grass


Note: That subdivision looks like hell on earth to me! jis say'in
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 01, 2023, 11:26:08 AM
How Colorado River Cuts Could Affect California
No other state gets more water from the dwindling river than California does.

The Colorado River, a significant source of water for California and six other Western states, is shrinking.

Over the past century, the river's flow has averaged about 15 million acre-feet of water a year. But from 2000 through 2022, a period of drought conditions, the average was closer to 12 million acre-feet. And in each of the past three years, it's been less than 10 million. (An acre-foot is enough to cover an acre of land with a foot of water. It's about as much water as two typical households use in a year.)

The reduced flow in the river has forced major cutbacks for the states that rely on the river to supply water to as many as 40 million residents of the region. The Interior Department had asked those states — California, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah — to come up with a plan by today to collectively reduce the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. But the odds of such an agreement materializing appear slim, my colleague Christopher Flavelle reports.

The states all have a lot to lose. Water from the Colorado River is essential for drinking water in cities and farm irrigation in the countryside. The stakes are particularly high in California, which currently receives more water from the Colorado than any other state.


Read More at the NYT[/url (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/colorado-river-cuts-california.html?unlocked_article_code=ZsTMyW-PRxpGOmQ6S4CXBHg_G5D6AbYZzn_uLrZ5_PVrVVjDcdRTQEIHU32JPHJ8Xv34Rq9Vynu1mMa8OIErFgZopZoDdmpWKb4BCjMeaFf0bMqH1E0JBoAUARUq1CcEw-UyvZ5n8hIdHQVjZq9eyny-il9WhdkvFacW1vv4qLAXhQalXcNoMvLPp2JAtaQvuNs-7sl8Ap2vuu0FIE4Y7ufIODQtun-IX0CjGp1SRc64JdOQc6rv2nfsrXfJFEw8ycm2KrqV1RdxBYBiZMt0k1QjsPPtQ0qnNClHpN4BvMFuEK_hSM4Z2n6XNatiNH5LG_ugPknE0G9ZRkW3tgInlDPCoKY&smid=share-url)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 01, 2023, 12:02:46 PM
New York investors snapping up Colorado River water rights, betting big on an increasingly scarce resource


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-investors-snapping-up-colorado-river-water-rights-betting-big-on-an-increasingly-scarce-resource/ via @CBSMornings
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 01, 2023, 13:14:38 PM
The river's end: Amid Colorado water cuts, Mexico seeks to restore its lost oasis

When the Colorado River reaches the U.S.-Mexico border, it pushes up against Morelos Dam. Nearly all the remaining water is shunted aside into an immense canal and flows toward the farmlands and cities of Baja California.
South of the dam, the last of the river disappears in the desert.

The sandy riverbed meanders on through fields of wheat, hay, cotton and vegetables, and curves past the town of San Luis Rio Colorado, where for years little or no water has flowed beneath its bridge.

Mexico is entitled to receive 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year under a 1944 treaty. But in recent agreements with the U.S., Mexico has also agreed to take part in reductions when there is a shortage.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-31/colorado-river-in-crisis-the-rivers-end
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 12, 2023, 10:12:40 AM
Endangered Spaces--Colorado River
The Dirtbag Diaries

After two decades of drought, the Colorado River, which supplies water for drinking, power, and agriculture to over 40 million people, was named America's most endangered river. In 2018, river advocates and paddlers Mike and Jenny Fiebig spent five months paddling the Colorado from its source in the Wind River mountains to the Gulf of Mexico to understand the river's challenges firsthand – while collecting stories about change from the people who depend on it most. Today, as the river faces unprecedented shortages from climate change and overconsumption – activists, indigenous leaders, water managers and scientists are working to find solutions to create an equitable future for the river and those who depend on it.  Support comes from Patagonia Athletic Greens Kuat Racks Global Rescue  Learn More American Rivers Water and Tribes Initiative Center for Colorado River Studies
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dirtbag-diaries/id218290471



Sent from my iPhone
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 15, 2023, 22:02:10 PM
Opinion  How to prevent a 'complete doomsday' along the Colorado River

Time is running out for the Colorado River. After more than two decades of drought fueled by climate change, the once-mighty waterway has seen its flow shrink by more than 20 percent. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation's largest reservoirs, are about three-quarters empty. And forecasts for the future are even more dire: Officials warn that, if water levels continue to fall, the river could see a "complete doomsday scenario."


https://wapo.st/40TRvud
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 15, 2023, 22:03:59 PM
After two decades of drought, the Colorado River, which supplies water for drinking, power, and agriculture to over 40 million people, was named America's most endangered river. In 2018, river advocates and paddlers Mike and Jenny Fiebig spent five months paddling the Colorado from its source in the Wind River mountains to the Gulf of Mexico to understand the river's challenges firsthand – while collecting stories about change from the people who depend on it most. Today, as the river faces unprecedented shortages from climate change and overconsumption – activists, indigenous leaders, water managers and scientists are working to find solutions to create an equitable future for the river and those who depend on it.


https://dirtbagdiaries.com/endangered-spaces-colorado-river/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 16, 2023, 08:51:36 AM
Raquel Welch, a Lifetime of Looks
From cave woman to "Woman of the Year," Ms. Welch defied expectations.

NYT Photo Essay (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/style/raquel-welch-photos.html?unlocked_article_code=qHOS1d-pAVe6CZMLwcz1fukdKKvGUGZ0iYTtGm5oD2swow5r2z9w214WKlyK6xi1xy41sAokiqcm5KXrzEqupupcXBzhg65cpfKU025B86id2IvmWe8ISuwtoQHLqevcsfh6tg_xuBA7b_iBcAMySC5qtCHYNPTerP8Ogbtg9Qhw_lIRGDHDCgmHW2KMCSoFOYLsXGKVK5tqOD-noFRq1fBfFWRyrUnZit3WY7NL0vCg7Pjk__WuvZz022mPpGxKAAKpsXbUH6xiMfcsBh8zmcL_8qg-YtoH_Mp9p80mYmJO1PZi9hPZBkNsmXjSiSMcbWWAxQ3b0oF3caEg&smid=url-share)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: trout-r-us on March 09, 2023, 12:05:43 PM
Been hanging out in Tucson taking in some Spring Break college baseball, as the oldest grandson is now a senior and will soon be hanging up the cleats in preparation of joining the workforce. 🥲

With that said, it is becoming more common to see signs of water conservation in both private and public facilities in this water stressed area. Though it's encouraging, it appears they need to work harder on air quality if the ever-present haze over the desert is an indicator. I'm afraid the once clear views of the mountain ranges may be a thing of the past.

But at least the succulents seem to be thriving.

D887E7F2-9F8C-41B5-BEA1-9AE35BB84EF8.jpg2420B1C1-01CD-47E4-AEFA-9ED2F1A9648A.jpg7AD60052-62DE-4218-8FBF-C91E14BB2762.jpg74ADCE8A-2267-41D5-88D9-8D396B17675F.jpg00859EBA-F77E-4A0A-BB2A-031A3DF83E87.jpgB906F654-D7A4-4B83-AF4E-FF458C1D2B7E.jpg4F567507-AE93-45B9-9348-0FFBFBD9162B.jpg36B0683E-9E70-44BA-B3FD-E6E6BAE90920.jpg       
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 14, 2023, 09:23:21 AM
Kansas Is Showing What a Drier Future Looks Like

There are no rivers running through northwest Kansas. But come spring, the region will turn green as farmers and ranchers pump water out of the vast Ogallala Aquifer that sprawls from north Texas to South Dakota. It took thousands of years for water to trickle into the aquifer. Now, thanks to over-pumping, some sections are running dry, and others will suffer the same fate in coming years and decades.

For northwest Kansas and other swaths of the plains states, the threat is existential. "If we exhaust our portion of the Ogallala, life in our part of Kansas is gone," said Shannon Kenyon, a government water manager in Colby, a town in western Kansas, during a recent phone call. "No ag. No towns. No nothing without it."

It's the other US water crisis, often overlooked in favor of the ongoing struggles over the shrinking Colorado River and the future of the desert Southwest. But the shortages in areas dependent on the Ogallala, regions that represent around 30% of irrigated US agriculture, are just as critical.

https://wapo.st/3JDKsPz

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on March 21, 2023, 09:00:11 AM
The Colorado River Is Running Dry, but Nobody Wants to Talk About the Mud

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It's difficult to fathom how the Colorado River could possibly carve the mile-deep chasm that is the Grand Canyon. But if one thinks of the river as a flume of liquid sandpaper rubbing the land over millions of years, it begins to make sense. "The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools," Henry David Thoreau wrote, "but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time."

In 1963, humans stopped time, when the brand new Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border cut off the reddish sediment that naturally eroded the Grand Canyon. Today the river runs vodka clear from the base of the dam.


Rest of the story (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/opinion/colorado-river-lake-powell-glen-canyon-dam.html?unlocked_article_code=RzdnzNNydSwC-xqMDruHewHAuWbo85Kfr6BNazJBiWlxzYHGgTX_sT50QJqdHCVDUDjabNM0rqML4yXgnMYXoIJdBObBJH9QI8i_KcGQ5DOurmYxl3myI4WOPJR0YuPdEhoX25EpPzpBl1sLs74YTDXOnxlrSQQ2B9Xnh38b-xfugW3o8eHzLlJrtyTLp6vGXxSinw4-tO7yvGlDC7q43kX_A_30aP6Ln2_cOp785yTmREmEvg416dVMczFNODfAltGKqCJo9zjiuLqN6S3dtnYoNv3faFob5W1UBKyUgbPaFuqiKX2GhHF2wx2uu8fUKLR_QyF3nKGnPl7_VQQOr_BB6vGJWdYa7elwVUrto__BN_fRpw&smid=em-share)

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 08, 2023, 08:13:20 AM
Groups like the National Forest Foundation are turning to beavers for a lesson on how to protect the Colorado River from drought.  -

https://abcnews.go.com/US/beavers-colorado-river-survive-future-droughts/story?id=98271373

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 13, 2023, 08:29:24 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Trout Maharishi on April 13, 2023, 15:49:08 PM
CA has the highest snow pack ever this year. Still another 6 weeks or so left in the season. Snowfall into mid May isn't uncommon.
https://www.activenorcal.com/california-surpasses-its-largest-snowpack-in-recorded-history/#:~:text=California%20has%20experienced%20a%20record-breaking%20snow%20season%20this,reported%20by%20the%20California%20Department%20of%20Water%20Resources. (https://www.activenorcal.com/california-surpasses-its-largest-snowpack-in-recorded-history/#:~:text=California%20has%20experienced%20a%20record-breaking%20snow%20season%20this,reported%20by%20the%20California%20Department%20of%20Water%20Resources.)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 16, 2023, 08:20:26 AM

Before Western States Suck the Colorado River Dry, We Have One Last Chance to Act

The Interior Department last summer dropped a bomb on the seven states that depend upon the Colorado River for water. It declared an emergency over the two-decade drought that was parching the West and instructed these states, already scrambling to conserve water, to come up with a plan to cut consumption of as much as four million acre-feet, an amount equal to about one-third of the Colorado's annual flow.

Then, after delivering this blow, the agency retreated to the sidelines. Instead of taking the lead, it urged the seven states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to figure out how to make the cuts themselves.

Since then the states have engaged in futile discussions about how much water each must forgo. Tensions have been most acute among Arizona, California and Nevada, the three states that get their water primarily from large reservoirs instead of stream flow and therefore are the only ones who can be ordered to make reductions. Arizona and California, whose allotments are much larger than Nevada's, should make the biggest cuts, but they have been sharply divided over how to carry them out.

This week, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland at last entered the negotiations over how the cuts — revised down to two million acre-feet — should be allocated. Her agency released a draft with three options, but it clearly favors one in which the water delivered to Arizona, California and Nevada is reduced by the same percentage for each state.


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/opinion/colorado-river-california-arizona-cuts.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 16, 2023, 08:23:57 AM
Water cuts could save the Colorado River. Farmers are in the crosshairs.
California's Imperial Valley uses more water than several other states combined. Farmers want to avoid big cuts.

BRAWLEY, Calif. — Alex Jack has spared little expense in the quest to grow vegetables in the desert with less water.

It has cost him $2.5 million over the years to be on the cutting edge of efficiency, installing underground irrigation under alfalfa and lettuce beds, building aerated reservoirs and a network of pipes and pumps to recycle runoff. But his 3,500-acre farm still guzzles more of the Colorado River each year than some midsize cities.

Now, as the Biden administration moves closer to imposing unprecedented cuts in how much water states can pull from the river, Jack and other commercial farmers in the sun-scorched flatlands of the Imperial Valley are in the crosshairs of those reductions.

The Imperial Valley — a wedge of desert farmland in Southern California on the Mexican border — uses more of the Colorado River than the states of Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico combined. To its critics outside California, it is a logical place to cut: The roughly 400 farms served by the Imperial Irrigation District consume the single largest share of a river that is needed by 40 million people. Some of their major crops, such as alfalfa, require lavish amounts of water and are sold for animal feed, including outside the United States.

And yet, these farmers also have some of the oldest legal rights to that water, dating back more than a century to a time before the creation of the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that now oversees how the river is divvied up. And their fields drive a $4 billion industry that employs tens of thousands of people and puts vegetables in supermarkets across the country during the winter.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/04/16/colorado-river-crisis-imperial-valley-california/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 18, 2023, 08:09:39 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 20, 2023, 10:44:20 AM
Ongoing Development Is Part of the Colorado River Problem
Using "slow water" methods can make the Colorado River Basin and its people more resilient


he water shortage in the Colorado River basin threatens 40 million people and five million acres of farmland from Mexico to Wyoming. Many people are calling this a disaster, but that makes it seem like a force majure. It's not just climate change that's causing low flows: industrial agriculture, urban sprawl and the concrete infrastructure designed to control water are worsening the region's water problems. And bringing in water from elsewhere won't fix it.

Summer is coming, and the Biden Administration's recent proposed limits on water draws along the river demonstrates the gravity of the situation; after decades of drought and states' inability to compromise on much needed cuts, the feds may actually step in.

In researching my book Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge, I met people around the world who showed me that, if we respect water's agency and collaborate with it, we can buffer ourselves against these extremes. Because Euro-American culture myopically focuses on human welfare, we tend to view water as either a commodity or a flood threat. We try to fix those problems with single-focus projects like dams and levees, a manifestation of the cultural drive to control our environment. This characteristic, globalized by colonialism and capitalism, has disrupted the water cycle, worsening flooding and drought nearly everywhere. Instead, we need to view water as a living system and ask: What does water want?


>>>We have broken the water cycle; globally we've drained up to 87 percent of wetlands; dammed and diverted about two-thirds of large rivers; and, since 1992, doubled the area of urban pavement. Through this transformation of land and water, plus overpumping, killing beavers, cutting forests, and overgrazing grasslands, we've severed the connection between surface and groundwater. Our development in the Colorado River watershed exemplifies these trends and has dried out the land.





https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ongoing-development-is-part-of-the-colorado-river-problem/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 20, 2023, 11:33:47 AM
Let's talk about the biggest cause of the West's water crisis
The Colorado River is going dry ... to feed cows.[/i


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https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23655640/colorado-river-water-alfalfa-dairy-beef-meat
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 24, 2023, 08:03:42 AM
Water permits for Saudi Arabia-owned farm in Arizona revoked
Attorney General Kris Mayes says her office discovered inconsistencies in the applications for the new wells for the company Fondomonte Arizona LLC.

The state of Arizona has rescinded drilling permits for two water wells for a Saudi Arabia-owned alfalfa farm in the western portion of the state after authorities said they discovered inconsistencies in the company's well applications.

This week, Attorney General Kris Mayes said her office uncovered the inconsistencies in applications for new wells for the company Fondomonte Arizona LLC, which uses sprinklers to grow alfalfa in La Paz County and exports it to feed dairy cattle in Saudi Arabia. The company does not pay for the water it uses. When Mayes brought the inconsistencies in the applications to the attention of state officials, they agreed to rescind the permits, which were approved in August.

AZFamily.com reported that the new wells would have pumped up to 3,000 gallons (11,000 liters) of water per minute. An average Phoenix family of four uses roughly 17,000 gallons (64,000 liters) of water per month, meaning the two new wells would have pumped in just three minutes what a family of four uses in a month.

Several large corporate farms in western and southeastern Arizona have come under criticism for using large amounts of water as the southwestern United States is experiencing a severe drought.

https://www.azpm.org/p/headlines/2023/4/22/215708-water-permits-for-saudi-arabia-owned-farm-in-arizona-revoked/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 25, 2023, 11:19:45 AM
Feds start 3-day flood experiment of the Grand Canyon to improve Colorado River conditions


The Bureau of Reclamation opened the bypass tubes at Glen Canyon Dam early Monday and began three days of high water flows from Lake Powell to help improve environmental conditions on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

It's the first such high-flow experiment at the dam since 2018 and the first during spring runoff season. The goal is to move accumulated sediment downstream and begin to rebuild beaches on the river that have eroded in recent years.

The engineered flood mimics some of the river's pre-dam flows, when snowmelt runoff from the mountains far upstream would raise water levels and redistribute sediment. Since Glen Canyon Dam's completion in 1963, the water flowing into the Grand Canyon has carried less sediment, much of the river's sand and other materials trapped behind the dam.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2023/04/24/feds-start-3-day-flood-of-the-grand-canyon-to-help-the-colorado-river/70138948007/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on April 27, 2023, 09:16:49 AM
https://youtu.be/AzpYHXgfbbI
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 04, 2023, 09:30:43 AM
Snow melt causing flood concerns in northwest Colorado

Flood watches are in effect through Saturday for parts of Moffat, Routt, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. This includes Lower Yampa River Basin, Central Yampa River Basin, Elkhead and Park Mountains, Upper Yampa River Basin, and Flat Tops – including the cities of Rangely, Dinosaur, Craig, Hayden, Meeker, Columbine, Hahns Peak, Toponas, Steamboat Springs, Buford, and Trappers Lake.

The concern is that rapid snowmelt could lead to excessive runoff, which may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations. Be careful if you are traveling in those areas because creeks and streams may rise out of their banks and flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas, low-water crossings may be flooded. Another concern is that storm drains and ditches may become clogged with debris.

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https://kdvr.com/weather/snow-melt-causing-flood-concerns-in-northwest-colorado/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 07, 2023, 14:44:36 PM
Meanwhile in Utah;

IMG_2494.jpg
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Onslow on May 13, 2023, 12:54:13 PM
https://youtu.be/sjfeXSbn7d0
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 16, 2023, 12:41:39 PM
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/thirst-gap-learning-to-live-with-less-on-the-colorado-river/id1681313860


Thirst Gap is a six-part podcast series about how the Southwest is adapting to water shortages as climate change causes the region to warm up and dry out. The series zooms in on people and places grappling with limited water supplies in the Colorado River watershed, and examines the tradeoffs that come with learning to live with less water.
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on May 23, 2023, 09:56:58 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 01, 2023, 15:55:52 PM
Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles

In what could be a glimpse of future as climate change batters the West, officials ruled there's not enough groundwater for projects already approved.

Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the future housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions, a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies.

The decision by state officials marks the beginning of the end to the explosive development that has made the Phoenix metropolitan region the fastest growing in the country.

Full NYT Article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/climate/arizona-phoenix-permits-housing-water.html?unlocked_article_code=Qy2_CDLTLrFR3q1XdiR80hRqfwthckmDaqBHtKus248ustINQ_IoTxNqH8T9yy3RmSI4Oxd3NN0JcP4D8TfXfMCIH-m9SCs-BW3xo5bpP1ijX193E9JS1tE1PGWL2LioD8PcEllS-eH58eA-pGZuBdkn6yuFoK104q3FVTp2mhe4U5p3xfbikDcLStL5ajtc-Qw6PTiiJHQ6p7OhFcmdsNxedWvxMssLF4shLWSrc4gvagyDnqeiquBB0rI7ZRlDLoJ73PEBEDzCQTWgnCetPDxcbgSqj53M_wHuMOBtaXhPGWACJszMfdfDlBNkjkapCL4tVqPWVn815RYIg_7Qqz773t6V4OYtUgrnNTn-x4Y&smid=url-share)


Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on June 10, 2023, 09:59:53 AM
LA Times Today: A water deal offers a short-term fix for the over-tapped Colorado River

After months of negotiations, a deal has been reached on water cuts among seven western states that depend on the Colorado River.

The agreement marks a milestone in the effort to adapt to the river's decline after years of drought and rising temperatures due to climate change.

L.A. Times water reporter Ian James broke down the deal and what the cuts mean for California.


Watch here; https://www.latimes.com/environment/colorado-river-deal-latt-123

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 03, 2023, 09:03:47 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 08, 2023, 08:41:12 AM
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 11, 2023, 11:29:36 AM
A racist past and hotter future are testing Western water like never before

As droughts strain water supplies across Western states, some cities and farmers have struggled with mandatory cutbacks. Determining who gets cut is decided by the foundational pecking order of Western water: the older your claim to water, created as the country expanded westward, the better protected it is.

When there's a shortage, those with newer water rights have to cut back first, sometimes giving up their water completely before older claims lose a single drop.

It's known as "first in time, first in right." But "first" is a relative term.

"First in time, first in right is kind of laughable, because the ones that were here first were the indigenous people," says Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the Winnemem Wintu tribe in Northern California.

As the climate gets hotter and further shrinks strained water supplies, Western states are grappling with whether a century-old water system created by white settlers can equitably handle a future of worsening droughts.

Rights to water have long been seen as sacrosanct by many. But after decades of exclusion, Native American tribes are helping lead the charge both in California and on the Colorado River, arguing for overhauling an arcane system they say is inherently racist.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186771880/west-water-rights-tribes-climate-change-drought
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 11, 2023, 12:30:52 PM
Not enough water in the west, too much in the northeast, Vermont gets pounded.



Northeast storms dump over 2 months' worth of rain on Vermont: Live weather updates
Vermont's capital, Montpelier, closes downtown as river reaches historic levels. National Weather Service warns of more potential flash floods.

Floodwaters continue to rise in some parts of Vermont, creating "historic and catastrophic" flooding, Gov. Phil Scott (R) said Tuesday.

Authorities are rushing to rescue stranded people in hard-hit and remote areas by boat and helicopter, including along rivers that have not yet crested. More than 100 people have been rescued by boat and officials are responding to more reports of people who are trapped. Thousands have lost homes or businesses and "countless" roads have been washed out, authorities said. No deaths had been reported in the state, but officials said search-and-rescue would take at least several days.

Though the rain had stopped by late Tuesday morning - two days after it started lashing the state - some rivers could be slow to recede or could rise again, officials warned. More rain is expected Thursday and Friday, Scott said, holding the potential for another wave of flooding and damage.

https://wapo.st/43jJEG7
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 13, 2023, 19:52:39 PM
Vermont

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CujwRdQt6Jo/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 16, 2023, 11:28:11 AM
This has always pissed me off, and we've know about it for decades...

n!n  n!n  n!n  n!n  n!n


How a Saudi firm tapped a gusher of water in drought-stricken Arizona
Lax rules let the foreign-owned company pump water from state land to grow alfalfa for the kingdom's cattle. After almost a decade, the deal is in jeopardy.[]


A megadrought has seared Arizona, stressing its rivers and reservoirs and reducing water to a trickle in the homes of farmworkers near this desert valley.

But green fields of alfalfa stretch across thousands of acres of the desert land, shimmering in the burning sunlight. Wells draw water from deep underground, turning the parched earth into verdant farmland.

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For nearly a decade, the state of Arizona has leased this rural terrain west of Phoenix to a Saudi-owned company, allowing it to pump all the water it needs to grow the alfalfa hay — a crop it exports to feed the kingdom's dairy cows. And, for years, the state did not know how much water the company was consuming.

The lack of information was a choice.

https://wapo.st/3rvgPtc
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: jwgnc on July 18, 2023, 13:49:20 PM
Quote from: Woolly Bugger on July 13, 2023, 19:52:39 PMVermont
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CujwRdQt6Jo/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 31, 2023, 08:22:46 AM
The Mystery of the Colorado River's Missing Water
Snow is falling—but it doesn't show up to replenish the river. In a drying West, researchers are racing to find out where it goes.

High winds tore at Gothic Mountain as the sleeping giant watched over the cabins nestled in Gothic, Colorado, a remote outpost accessible only by skis during the valley's harsh alpine winters. The plumes of snow that lifted from the peak briefly appeared to form a cloud and then disappeared.

To many, the snow that seemed to vanish into thin air would go unnoticed. But in a region where water availability has slowly begun to diminish, every snowflake counts. Each winter, an unknown percentage of the Rocky Mountain West's snowpack disappears into the atmosphere, as it was doing on Gothic Mountain, just outside the ski resort town of Crested Butte.

In the East River watershed, located at the highest reaches of the Colorado River Basin, a group of researchers at Gothic's Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) are trying to solve the mystery by focusing on a process called sublimation. Snow in the high country sometimes skips the liquid phase entirely, turning straight from a solid into a vapor. The phenomenon is responsible for anywhere between 10 percent to 90 percent of snow loss. This margin of error is a major source of uncertainty for the water managers trying to predict how much water will enter the system once the snow begins to melt.

Although scientists can measure how much snow falls onto the ground and how quickly it melts, they have no precise way to calculate how much is lost to the atmosphere, said Jessica Lundquist, a researcher focused on spatial patterns of snow and weather in the mountains. With support from the National Science Foundation, Lundquist led the Sublimation of Snow project in Gothic over the 2022-'23 winter season, seeking to understand exactly how much snow goes missing and what environmental conditions drive that disappearance.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-mystery-of-the-colorado-rivers-missing-water/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 31, 2023, 08:39:20 AM
Here's A Mind-Boggling Calculation For The Colorado River Basin

Climate-change is being blamed for the loss of roughly 10 trillion gallons of water — an amount roughly equal to the capacity of Lake Mead — from the Colorado River Basin from 2000 to 2021. With climate change deepening, that calculation, made by researchers at UCLA, portends increasingly dire times for the river basin, and the National Park System units along its path.

Issues already have developed due to climate-change's impacts on the Colorado River. In a series of stories the National Parks Traveler has documented impacts to Canyonlands National Park, reported on less water and more invasive species at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and discussed growing impacts to Grand Canyon National Park with Superintendent Ed Keable and his staff.

The research led by UCLA's Benjamin Bass, who specializes in hydrological modeling, says the Colorado River Basin lost more than 10 trillion gallons of water due to climate-change effects during the first two decades of the 21st century.

"The significance of the findings cannot be overlooked, as the study serves as a wake-up call to the severe impact of climate change on the availability of water in the Colorado River Basin," said a release announcing the findings. "The removal of such a vast amount of water from the basin during the recent megadrought, equivalent to the volume of Lake Mead itself, emphasizes the urgent need to address the consequences of climate change that we are witnessing in the present day."

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2023/07/heres-mind-boggling-calculation-colorado-river-basin
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on July 31, 2023, 12:08:35 PM
https://youtu.be/gmeWydWm2MU
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 04, 2023, 13:03:52 PM
Victory – Eleven Streams in the Watauga River Basin Receive Special Protections

Congratulations!
Thanks to your support and advocacy, eleven streams within the Watauga River Basin will now receive special protections as Outstanding Resource Waters or High-Quality Waters, starting September 1st. This remarkable achievement is a significant step in safeguarding the health of our local rivers, protecting the delicate aquatic ecosystems, and supporting the recreation economy of the High Country.
Your dedication has been instrumental in winning these stronger water-quality designations. Back in April, we called on you to stand up for these beautiful streams by emailing the Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Management Commission (EMC)  and attending a public hearing. Your response was overwhelming, and your passion for preserving our natural treasures was evident.





https://mountaintrue.org/victory-11-streams-in-the-watauga-river-basin-receive-special-protections/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 17, 2023, 07:34:20 AM
Here's where water is running out in the world — and why

A growing population and rising temperatures will strain the world's freshwater supplies over the next 30 years, jeopardizing available water for drinking, bathing and growing food, according to new research.

An analysis of newly released data from the World Resources Institute (WRI) shows that by 2050 an additional billion people will be living in arid areas and regions with high water stress, where at least 40 percent of the renewable water supply is consumed each year. Two-fifths of the world's population — 3.3 billion people in total — currently live in such areas.

water.jpg

water2.jpg

https://wapo.st/3YEH2li 
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 18, 2023, 08:36:44 AM
https://youtu.be/FhKCd3gtA2E
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 30, 2023, 09:58:01 AM
America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There's No Tomorrow
Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.

GLOBAL WARMING HAS FOCUSED concern on land and sky as soaring temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.

Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation's water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world's most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.

The New York Times conducted a months-long examination of groundwater depletion, interviewing more than 100 experts, traveling the country and creating a comprehensive database using millions of readings from monitoring sites. The investigation reveals how America's life-giving resource is being exhausted in much of the country, and in many cases it won't come back. Huge industrial farms and sprawling cities are draining aquifers that could take centuries or millenniums to replenish themselves if they recover at all.



Read the Full NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=SNc0-8FirkupztMztfvnRX9DbKXbVBaFOaIa8Zoi_CiNDBPm5Q5BD6Fo5G4t44RCDiHQaqnNSeHTxItFZs__pTyV332P2_zc6p2mIm7JXKzjWSE9TbvhCGDledM4g-rZ3pXpMNXFeNMnSM0aCpl7IuSfeV7WeqKfBOWRxQfvxGdxnw6JpRfKO3a8l247x0PWJ-7BLKT7aTke-oTs9EfHFeCpeuPNo4he9IUizUmvhufPMa7pe74ZBZxtJ_B24TTP9sXydmZzjWdpSjoPiF5HEQ9tjeOuIl581vl-QbIoRdyCpN0rsn3LAYmDofVC6kCITVU2aNYJV3X0l74NnC4B4WiQnD1AViuNRznyqOvfyUkF685noKDs-diRrpU&smid=url-share)
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on August 30, 2023, 18:36:26 PM

The EPA removes federal protections for most of the country's wetlands

The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country's wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected "waters of the United States" in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency's power to regulate waterways and wetlands.
Developers and environmental groups have for decades argued about the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act in protecting waterways and wetlands.



https://stocks.apple.com/AlDa-_czYQla-yxEi98qlJQ

Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 01, 2023, 10:40:30 AM
Here's where water is running out in the world — and why

A growing population and rising temperatures will strain the world's freshwater supplies over the next 30 years, jeopardizing available water for drinking, bathing and growing food, according to new research.

An analysis of newly released data from the World Resources Institute (WRI) shows that by 2050 an additional billion people will be living in arid areas and regions with high water stress, where at least 40 percent of the renewable water supply is consumed each year. Two-fifths of the world's population — 3.3 billion people in total — currently live in such areas.

water.jpg

https://wapo.st/3LICOny
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 17, 2023, 07:28:00 AM
Amazon rivers fall to lowest levels in 121 years amid a severe drought

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Rivers in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil fell to their lowest levels in over a century on Monday as a record drought upends the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and damages the jungle ecosystem.

The port of Manaus, the region's most populous city, at the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Amazon River, recorded 13.59 meters (44.6 feet) of water on Monday, compared to 17.60 a year ago, according to its website. That is the lowest level since records began in 121 years ago in 1902, passing a previous all-time low set in 2010.

Rapidly drying tributaries to the mighty Amazon have left boats stranded, cutting off food and water supplies to remote villages, while high water temperatures are suspected of killing more than 100 endangered river dolphins.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/17/americas/amazon-river-lowest-levels-drought-climate-intl/index.html
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on October 17, 2023, 09:19:57 AM
https://youtu.be/n12CH1-wimQ
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 15, 2023, 09:45:47 AM
https://youtu.be/k8DovzEMxpY
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 23, 2023, 12:15:33 PM
https://youtu.be/l8T5596Tc_0
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on November 26, 2023, 09:09:18 AM
PART I: COLORADO SQUEEZES WATER FROM URBAN LANDSCAPES, AN OVERVIEW

This is the first of a five-part series by Allen Best, documenting the changing attitudes about water and urban landscapes in the state of Colorado. The series began this week as a collaboration between Big Pivots and Aspen Journalism and as a collaborating news media we have permission to reproduce the series here. Best writes a column that appears periodically in Ark Valley Voice.

Pace of transition has accelerated, deepened, and broadened

Like weekly haircuts for men, a regularly mowed lawn of Kentucky bluegrass was long a prerequisite for civic respectability in Colorado's towns and cities. That expectation has begun shifting.

A growing cultural norm blesses a broader range of respectable landscapes, which require not much more water than what occurs naturally across most of Colorado. Denver, for example, averages 15.6 inches annually.

Native grasses, most prominently buffalo and blue grama, need half to one-third as much of the supplemental water a year required to keep Kentucky bluegrass — a species native to Europe — bright green. In metro Denver, for example,  Westminster and Broomfield estimate that these cool-season grasses require 24 to 29 inches of supplemental water annually in addition to the 15 to 16 inches of average precipitation.  Other water-wise landscape choices can also ratchet down water requirements by at least half.

Many homeowners have the additional goal of installing shrubs, flowers and other plants that attract pollinators.

https://arkvalleyvoice.com/part-i-colorado-squeezes-water-from-urban-landscapes-an-overview/


PART II: AT COLORADO RIVER'S HEADWATERS, QUESTIONS ABOUT WHETHER THERE'S ENOUGH WATER FOR LAWNS

If you've ever slipped and spun your way across Vail Pass through a wet, heavy snowstorm, you can be excused for wondering how Eagle River Valley communities could ever have too little water.

Vail and its neighbors do have that problem, though. It has become evident in the growing frequency of drought years in the 21st century.

First came 2002. Water officials, verging on panic, restricted outdoor water use. The drought was believed to be the most severe in 500 years. Fine, thought water officials as rain and snow resumed, we're off the hook for at least our lifetimes.

In 2012 came another drought, one nearly identical in severity. More bad years followed in 2018 and 2021. The Eagle River normally chatters its way down the valley through Avon and to a confluence with the Colorado River near Glenwood Canyon. In those bad drought years, it sulked. The shallow water was hot enough to endanger fish.

Colorado River flows have declined 20 percent since 2000. Having water rights is not enough. And the future looks even hotter and, because of that heat, drier. Brad Udall, a senior scientist and scholar at Colorado State University, warns of up to 20 percent additional flow loss by midcentury.

Average temperatures in the Colorado River Basin are projected by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to rise 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit during the 21st century. The agency projects slightly greater increases in Colorado and other upper basin states.

https://arkvalleyvoice.com/part-ii-at-colorado-rivers-headwaters-questions-about-whether-theres-enough-water-for-lawns/
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on January 11, 2024, 20:10:37 PM
Drought Touches a Quarter of Humanity, U.N. Says, Disrupting Lives Globally


The crisis, worsened partly by climate change, has been accompanied by soaring food prices and could have consequences for hunger, elections and migration worldwide.

Pandemic. War. Now drought.

Olive groves have shriveled in Tunisia. The Brazilian Amazon faces its driest season in a century. Wheat fields have been decimated in Syria and Iraq, pushing millions more into hunger after years of conflict. The Panama Canal, a vital trade artery, doesn't have enough water, which means fewer ships can pass through. And the fear of drought has prompted India, the world's biggest rice exporter, to restrict the export of most rice varieties.

The United Nations estimates that 1.84 billion people worldwide, or nearly a quarter of humanity, were living under drought in 2022 and 2023, the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries. "Droughts operate in silence, often going unnoticed and failing to provoke an immediate public and political response," wrote Ibrahim Thiaw, head of the United Nations agency that issued the estimates late last year, in his foreword to the report.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/climate/global-drought-food-hunger.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE0.VYnv.u8P0BRACQ1nu&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Title: Re: unlimited it's the water, stupid
Post by: Woolly Bugger on February 03, 2024, 11:02:27 AM
America's $232 billion lithium industry could drain billions of gallons of water from Colorado River and residential wells because Civil War-era law doesn't limit how much mines can use

A team of students at Arizona State University conducted a 'groundbreaking' investigation that found a majority of the operators plan to pull water from already stressed sources like the Colorado River.

Most of the mines, located in the western region, will need billions of gallons of water to operate at a time when the region is experiencing the worst mega-drought in 1,200 years.

The only mine in operation, Silver Peak, has drained four billion gallons of water a year in Nevada since 2020 and scientists determined 'underground water sources are dwindling and even disappearing altogether.'

Over on the east coast in North Carolina is another proposed lithium mine that the students found could cause residential wells to run dry.

https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/other/america-s-232-billion-lithium-industry-could-drain-billions-of-gallons-of-water-from-colorado-river-and-residential-wells-because-civil-war-era-law-doesn-t-limit-how-much-mines-can-use/ar-BB1hCmgN