Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning (NYT)

[sonomak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28mead.html

September 27, 2010
Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning
By FELICITY BARRINGER

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Nev. — A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River. Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.

For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet. If it does, that will set in motion a temporary distribution plan approved in 2007 by the seven states with claims to the river and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be reduced. This could mean more dry lawns, shorter showers and fallow fields in those states...

The reservoir is now less than 15 inches above the all-time low of 1,083.2 feet set in 1956. But back then, while the demand from California farmland was similar, if not greater, the population was far smaller. Perhaps 9.5 million people in the three states in the lower Colorado River basin depended on the supply in the late 1950s; today more than 28 million people do. The impact of the declining water level is visible in the alkaline bathtub rings on the reservoir’s walls and the warning lights for mariners high on its rocky outcroppings. National Park Service employees have repeatedly moved marinas, chasing the receding waterline.

Adding to water managers’ unease, scientists predict that prolonged droughts will be more frequent in decades to come as the Southwest’s climate warms. As Lake Mead’s level drops, Hoover Dam’s capacity to generate electricity, which, like the Colorado River water, is sent around the Southwest, diminishes with it. If Lake Mead levels fall to 1,050 feet, it may be impossible to use the dam’s turbines, and the flow of electricity could cease...


Alkaline bathtub rings reflect the falling water level on the lake’s walls.

[driver8]

1. Maybe they will finally outlaw green lawns in Southern California!

My neighbor wastes a lot of water on his lawn to keep it so green. How many thousands and thousands of other households do the same??

What a waste.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. NOthing pisses off the owner of mandatory brown lawn than to see all those golf courses

being kept sprinkled.

[blondeatlast]

5. Most new HOAs in Phoenix require hardscape and desert. There's a green lawn

across from my son's school in a block full of granite scapes--it looks, quite literally, gross.

[JNelson6563]

3. Too many people, too little water.

In time desalinization of water will be more valuable than oil refinery. Can't live without water.

Julie

[4_TN_TITANS]

4. Desalinization is already in full swing

in other parts of the world. Being in the flow control business, we have products headed to a big desal project in Australia right this moment.