Lake Mead Falls To Lowest Level Since 1930s Amid Worsening Drought (axios.com) 172
Amid an intensifying drought, Lake Mead in Nevada, the nation's largest reservoir by volume, reached its lowest level since the 1930s late Wednesday. From a report: The record low is due to a combination of years of punishing drought that's worsening across the Southwest, as well as challenges in managing water resources for a burgeoning population. The record-low reading, as well as expected subsequent drops in the lake, are almost certain to trigger a federal "water shortage" declaration later this summer, which would set off cuts in water allocations to several states. Lake Mead, which sits along the border between Nevada and Arizona, is part of the vast Colorado River basin that provides water for agriculture and human consumption to seven states, and also generates electricity at the massive Hoover Dam.
Cuts in water supplies, to be determined in August, would affect the region's farmers, residents of sprawling cities such as Las Vegas, and others. Already, the Hoover Dam is operating below its maximum capacity, and it could see a further reduction in power generation as the summer goes on. Years of unusually dry conditions along with a growing population and water resource decisions have helped lead to the situation. As of Thursday morning, the Bureau of Reclamation showed Lake Mead's hourly water levels dipped to 1,071.48 feet Thursday, and remained below the previous record set on July 1, 2016.
Cuts in water supplies, to be determined in August, would affect the region's farmers, residents of sprawling cities such as Las Vegas, and others. Already, the Hoover Dam is operating below its maximum capacity, and it could see a further reduction in power generation as the summer goes on. Years of unusually dry conditions along with a growing population and water resource decisions have helped lead to the situation. As of Thursday morning, the Bureau of Reclamation showed Lake Mead's hourly water levels dipped to 1,071.48 feet Thursday, and remained below the previous record set on July 1, 2016.
There's your problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop living in a fucking desert!
Re:There's your problem (Score:4, Funny)
CliffsNotes for "Dune"
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CliffsNotes for "Dune"
Today the Harkonnen live in Beverly Hills.
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They snarf up water from as far away as Wyoming. Yes, Wyoming.
Re: There's your problem (Score:2)
Well, unfortunately not everyone has a choice when the whole planet of Arrakis is a desert and is the only source of fuel for space travel to get to other planets.
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Re: There's your problem (Score:3)
You can't fold space without navigators or you'll end up crashing into a star or some such thing.
Re:There's your problem (Score:4, Funny)
Can't leave, addicted to the drugs!
Sam Kinison (Score:3)
Sam Kinison [youtube.com] was prescient. We're not starving, but... you know what it's going to be 100 years from now? SAND!!!
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Re:There's your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's your problem (Score:5, Funny)
I never thought of Texans as being particularly “woke”, but choosing equal opportunity over merit and electing a congressman with an obvious intellectual disability is remarkably progressive.
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And the snowflakes wonder why we laugh at then when they vote for Republicans.
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There is a minister of a church on an isle in the Chesapeake Bay. The former alleged president, absolute genius when it comes to climate change, called him and told him his isle would be there in 100 yrs and that rising sea level won't take it. The minister seems to have believed him but had a backup plan: G-d was larger than anything including climate change, so the isle will be there in 100 years. I presume Jesus would have to tell him personally to pack up the congregation and leave before he'd do it.
Obligatory joke (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of the old joke:
The weather service predicts massive rain and flooding for a given area, and urges evacuation. Everyone leaves except one man. "The lord will protect me," he says.
As the rain starts and the water starts to rise, a sheriff's deputy in a pickup truck pulls up. "You really should get out of here," says the deputy to the man, "this area is going to flood." The man responds, "the Lord will protect me," and stays.
The next day, sure enough, the area is flooded, with a few feet of water all around. The same deputy arrives in a boat and tells the man, "the water is going to get even higher than this--you really should leave!" The man responds, "the Lord will protect me," and stays.
The next day, the water is ten feet high and the man is on the roof of his home, the only dry land around. The deputy arrives in a helicopter, and shouts at the man, "the water is going to get even higher than this! You have to leave, or you'll die!" The man responds, "the Lord will protect me," and stays.
A few hours later, the house is underwater and the man drowns. A rather disgruntled man arrives in heaven, and says to St. Peter: "I thought for sure that the Lord would protect me! Why did he let me die?" St. Peter responds, "well, we sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter..."
Re:There's your problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Nevada population and milestones: ;Hoover Dam am is completed; population figure includes over 5,000 construction workers
1864: 64,000 ; statehood
1911: 81,000 ; Las Vegas founded
1925: 89,000 ; Hoover Dam construction begins
1931: 94,000 ; gambling officially legalized
1935: 100,000
1940: 113,000 ; work begins on first casino resort in Las Vegas
1955: 237,000 ; first high rise casino resort built
1960: 291,000 ; rate of growth turns sharply upward, driven by the adoption of air conditioning
1965: 444,000 ;
1970: 488,738 ;
1975: 619,972 ;
1980: 847,639 ;
1985: 980,653 ;
1990: 1,219,000;
1995: 1,526,000;
2000: 1,880,000;
2005: 2,407,000
2010: 2,665,000
2015: 2,867,000
2020: 3,104,614; start of present drought; most of state experiences extreme conditions
There are over three million people living in a place that originally supported sixty four thousand. That's due to two things: the Hoover Dam, and air conditioning. 75% of Nevadans live in the Las Vegas area, which gets 90% of its water from Lake Meade.
Nevada as we know it is a relatively new thing. Under the US west's "First in time, first in line" water rights doctrine, if Lake Meade can't supply all its users, the shortfall will be made up by reducing water supplied to Las Vegas in order to supply California's prior claim.
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What's wrong with "native americans"?
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Stop living in a fucking desert!
No, if you're a coastal city of fifteen million, stop using our water. Desalinate your own.
Re: There's your problem (Score:3)
How about we ship you sea water and you can desalinate it yourself? Too expensive? Oh, that sucks for you then...
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I guess somehow there wasn't enough to get a decent piece of the pie so crying about it now is crying about history and why there were nothing but dusty towns in AZ for hundreds of years. BTW, there's that desert thing again.
LoB
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And how are you going to ship all that sea water? By boat, I suppose? That'll require even more water, dumbass! /sarcasm
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If nobody has used distillation to desalinate water on an industrial scale for more than a century then explain this plant built in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A less recent example is a plant that operated from 1964 to 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Reverse osmosis is the preferred method for desalination only plants. Integrated water and power plants will use distillation. They may use reverse osmosis too for many reasons but if there's "free" hot water from a thermal power plant on
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"Our" water? I think you'll find that the rights to the water are actually with the people that you're telling to desalinate the water, rather than with you, and likely have been for more than a century.
Re: There's your problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Average CA water consumption: 85 gallons/day/person
Average NV water consumption: 205 gallons/day/person
Pretty sure it's Nevada that has issues with water use. If every Nevadan moved to California, the water use would go down.
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I don't know where you got your data, because sources that I find online list Nevada in the ~125 gal/day range...
But either way, its moot. You're looking at total water use in the state - including things like irrigation of farmland, divided by the number of residents. Nevada is 67% the land area of California, but only has 8% of the population -- making such a comparison really tricky to use, since you
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If you look here [sfchronicle.com] you will see average California water consumption in the 10 biggest water consuming counties in California are near or well above Nevada consumption. I'd also like to point out because I'm not sure you are aware, the population of Nevada is 3 million and the population of California is 40 million.
Now, the population areas in California with the highest water consumption starts with:
Kern Country (Bakerfield, which is desert) population 900K, and they use 327 gallons of water per person per
Bottled water... (Score:2)
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/nestle-water-california-legal-dispute/ [lamag.com]
Years of unusually dry conditions (Score:3)
-Capt. Short Sighted reporting for duty!
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It's no longer unusual if it has been happening for years... and I bet all those low flow water fixtures delayed this by a about a week!
-Capt. Short Sighted reporting for duty!
Depends on the timescale. A few years out of a thousand is unusual. A few years out of 10 isn't.
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Wet your whistle (Score:2)
In the past few months, several people I know who were snow birds living in Arizona have put their places on the market and are moving back to the Great Lakes region.
The water shortages are real, folks.
Re:Wet your whistle (Score:4, Interesting)
Pretty extreme reaction to not having grass. Living in AZ myself I have desert landscaping, I do not water any of it.
The city I live in has not even asked us to conserve water in the 20 years or so I've lived here. Water shortages are real, be the impacts are not nearly as far reaching. Neighborhoods and parks are designed to funnel ground water so it can be captured for instance. It has been that way for 40 years. We know we're living in a desert and the three months where it sucks still leaves us with 9 months where its awesome, and I grew up in the Great Lakes region where it is the other way around.
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Obviously YMMV, but, as a lifelong resident of the Great Lakes region - one of the warmer but snowier parts (Cleveland, Ohio area) - I'd say that to those who are acclimated to it, 6 to 9 months out of the year are generally pleasant.
You have to be OK with snow and with a moderate amount of humidity. But I grew up with much more of both than we see now, plus I'm usually someplace either air-conditioned or breezy, and in either event, it's fine. The only thing I wish we didn't have are frequent ice storms
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I always hated driving around mud season and in winter, too many times sliding into snowbanks myself or helping others get out of their predicament so I can get to work or school.
If you enjoy winter sports it definitely helps but seasonal affective disorder is real. Again its the opposite here, during the 9 months of the year when the weather is great people are mostly pleasant, when its 110+ road rage is real and people can be generally simply crazy despite the fact they are nice and cool in their cars, h
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Not a lot of mud here as long as you stay on the road network.
As for SAD, getting enough vitamin D helps a lot, and, almost equivalently, so does being out in the sun at least when it is possible. People who don't eat seafood also need iodine supplements, because we have chemicals in the environment that will otherwise cause thyroid and metabolic problems.
The extremes of heat here - not 110F usually, more like 90-95F + extreme humidity - do bring out the worst in what I'd have to admit are already some of
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Judging from the map at
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
there is blob of the state in the middle that doesn't seem as bad as the rest. Regardless, that map does not paint a pretty picture for water throughout the American West.
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Unless they are farmers, the water shortages will have little effect on their lives.
85% of water use in the Colorado basin goes to agriculture. Much of the rest goes to industry. Of the small percentage that goes to residential customers, most of the water is used to irrigate lawns.
So get rid of your lawn, replace it with sensible xeriscaped landscaping and you're done.
I live in California. My water doesn't come from the Colorado River, but I am still affected by the drought. My yard is mostly rocks and
A solution for overuse. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you dig into the historical data, you find that droughts in the Southwest are common. There was one in 2000-2004, for example. Severe, long-term droughts occur regularly, certainly more than once a century (based on tree-ring data, there have been 8 since 1500).
The real cause of water shortages is over-use. Las Vegas and it's 40 golf courses. Growing populations in desert cities. Agriculture that cannot exist without constant irrigation. It's a desert, and that means limited water supplies. In New Mexico. The "Rio Grande", by the time it leaves the state, is basically dry - this was already true when I was a kid, way too long ago. The water table has been dropping for decades, and drilling ever deeper wells will eventually hit a limit.
The answer is quite simple: Water is a limited resource, and should be priced accordingly. Annul historical water rights to public water sources. Start charging what the market will bear. Increase the price of water until demand drops to a sustainable level. People won't want to spend a fortune watering their grass every day. Golf courses will close. Agriculture will turn to crops that take less water. Basic economics works.
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Follow the money. Who asked for, voted for, and permitted so much water could be used for things like gold courses in a desert? ?
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Agree ... but the real problem here is similar to the "food shortage/starvation" problems we see in some parts of the world. It's a distribution issue more than a resource issue. Like someone else posted here, there's water coming from other areas that could be sent via pipeline to the west coast. You'd have the big up-front cost, obviously ... but you'd pay for that over X number of years with a moderate price increase on the water. And then, the customer invested in a solution rather than paying for the
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California farmers pay $70 for an acre-foot of water. An acre-foot is 325851 gallons. That is $0.0002 per gallon.
There is absolutely no way that water can be piped from other regions at that price.
Pipelines are not the answer. The answer is to price water properly so farmers stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
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How are farmers paying so little per gallon for water? Is this untreated water, or is this another ridiculous government subsidy of some sort? Because I guarantee my residential water rates, even in the midwest, mean I'm paying FAR more than that, with prices typically tiered so they charge MORE per gallon once usage goes above X number of thousand of gallons in a month.
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From the USGS:
Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation's food, including 40% of the Nation's fruits, nuts, and other table foods.
At has an excellent climate for growing crops, with year-round growing seasons.
It is responsible for production of more of the US' food supply than several states combined in the great plains.
Just something to keep in mind while you're foaming at the mouth and making shit up (The Central Valley is a desert? Fucking spare me.)
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Ya, you right. That's how I'd describe a desert, too.
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You canâ(TM)t build a house next to a forest because forest fires burn hotter and faster now and there is no time to get out. You have to build for more frequent and fierce hurricanes because the water is warmer. And th
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Point is for the Southwest the climate has not been changing.
While I agree that the water shortage in Lake Mead is largely due to overuse, the climate in the south west has been changing, getting warmer and largely speaking even drier than it was before. This manifests itself in things like the California "fire season" becoming ever longer.
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The answer is quite simple: Water is a limited resource, and should be priced accordingly. Annul historical water rights to public water sources. Start charging what the market will bear. Increase the price of water until demand drops to a sustainable level. People won't want to spend a fortune watering their grass every day. Golf courses will close. Agriculture will turn to crops that take less water. Basic economics works.
I don't disagree with your basic premise, but
It depends on where you live. Here in the soggy Northeast, we have more issues with flooding than water shortages. That rain we get every other day - most of it goes into recharging groundwater.
But a lot of people don't want to live in places where it snows, or in the summer, it has 99 percent humidity. But that's what makes us such a pretty shade of green.
The problems start where people in say, Cali, decide that the entire country shares their predicament.
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So collect water from the soggy NW and send it south to be turned into food.
I mean, if we can propose building a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico just to move some oil, we ought to be able to make some that run down the coast.
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So collect water from the soggy NW and send it south to be turned into food.
I mean, if we can propose building a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico just to move some oil, we ought to be able to make some that run down the coast.
There has been some call for a pipeline from Lake Michigan or Superior to Cali. The people in the area tend not to like that idea. https://www.freep.com/story/ne... [freep.com]
I think that they have a bit of concern that what the Southwestern states have done to the Colorado river might mess with their local water system. Can you imagine drying up the Columbia? It becomes an issue of who gives and who takes the water.
As for using NW USA water, the same issues apply. In for a dime, and in a few years they want all
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It's the historical water rights issue. While I am loath to claw back someone's contractual rights, even old ones, this is an instance that really needs to be looked at. The original 1922 Colorado River Compact did not account for the virtuous (vicious?) circle that the availability of this water would create in the desert southwest.
It's time for a change, and some folks will get a shorter end of the stick than others. For instance AZ 'spends' 72% of it's water on agriculture. No doubt that is an indus
Re:A solution for overuse. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922, and it is what has determined water allocations ever since. In the Lower Colorado Basin (of which Lake Mead is part) allocations within the US are as follows:
California 58.70% 4.40 million acreft/year (172 m/s)
Arizona 37.30% 2.80 million acreft/year (109 m/s)
Nevada 4.00% 0.30 million acreft/year (12 m/s)
The Upper basin has it's own allocations, and Mexico has guaranteed minimums as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So your 'golf courses in the desert' comment regarding to Las Vegas water usage only refers to 4% of the usage at most. Beyond that, Las Vegas is actually one of the most efficient cities for water usage in the country, which results in Nevada not using their entire allocation, and selling the excess to California. Las Vegas has been very forward-thinking, offering cash to homeowners that convert their lawns to desert landscape - which in total consumed FAR more water than your golf courses. Finally, many of the golf courses in the valley are both strategically located in washes (reduced damage during flash floods, while also 'naturally' watering with drainage water), and then are also supplied with recycled water for additional irrigation.
https://www.lvvwd.com/water-sy... [lvvwd.com]
The VAST majority of water usage in any of the states does not go to cities, but to agriculture. The problem is much less about a few thousand acres of golf courses, and much more about millions of acres of farm, pasture and crops that are in places that really don't make sense. But until the CRC is amended, this problem is likely to persist, as the farmers are all guaranteed their allotments.
The real problem is that the Colorado River Compact was set after observing water flows over a few seasons, which, unknown at the time, were El Nino years, and had higher than average flows of water. Ever since then, the amount of water flow guaranteed to the states (and perhaps Mexico) has been unrealistic and has been bound to run into problems, which have been exacerbated by long periods of drought in the last few decades.
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Toilets typically have a lid which solves the problem of dogs drinking from it.
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Yes, you can drink the toilet water.
You can drink the toilet tank water. It can be a useful source in an emergency. I'd recommend against drinking the toilet bowl water though, even if the dog likes it..
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I agree largely with what you are saying but..
> Annul historical water rights to public water sources.
That right there is the heart of the issue, one thing that makes economics also work is contract enforcement. Governments unilaterally ripping up contracts tends to end badly, and in the US, directly unconstitutional. So you have to somehow persuade either a court or the farmer why the contract is no longer valid or somehow get it altered.
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Re:A solution for overuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the real reason is lack of rain and snow pack. See the map here
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
That's drought not caused by over use.
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"The problem is too little supply!"
"No, the problem is too much demand!"
Listening to this debate is like watching blind men examine an elephant [wikipedia.org]!
You have a scarcity mindset (Score:2)
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I never really find anyone railing against them (Score:3)
Okeechobee Pipeline (Score:3)
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Recently LA County water managers have begun considering how to modify the paved rivers from being merely giant sewers that route water to the ocean, so that water can seep into the ground or can be mechanically injected into the ground. A
Artificial (Score:2)
The level of Lake Mead depends in large part on the amount of power generated by Hoover dam plus the water taken for irrigation and the city of Los Angeles. Stop trying to irrigate a desert and run air conditioning and it will recover.
Re:Mac mann we need you ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Another Way To Put It (Score:3)
This means it will be lowest level ever since the reservoir was first filled starting in 1935 (it took a couple of years to fill).
Greed has consequences. (Score:3)
Farming what should not be farmed (the US has immense acreage of arable land) was bound to backfire along with settling the Mafia artifact that is Las Vegas, so handy for a pleasure palace because it (was) in the middle of nowhere. Without Nellis AFB (a reasonable use for wasteland) that would probably not have happened.
Not a problem though. When the water runs out the rich farmers descendants can simply move. Ditto the Vegas population who mostly moved to live there in the first place. Nothing is permanent and even cities are just clusters built for economic reasons which can be abandoned for economic reasons.
Re:Greed has consequences. (Score:4, Informative)
Farming what should not be farmed
Did you know that a lot of that is being done by farms owned by Saudi Arabia to grow food to send to Saudia Arabia?
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Did you know that a lot of that is being done by farms owned by Saudi Arabia to grow food to send to Saudia Arabia?
Otherwise known as America's export economy. Why are you complaining? Farming is one of the things America is still good at. You've destroyed every other industry and converted them to a service, you going to do that with food next?
Re:Greed has consequences. (Score:5, Insightful)
How the fuck is this 'informative'. Saudi Arabian ownership of land in the southwest (or all of the US) is tiny compared to other nations like Canada and Germany. Saudi Arabia owns around 20-25K acres in California and Arizona. The Imperial Valley alone is 500K acres.
The proper sentence is:
Did you know that much less than 1% of that is being done by farms owned by Saudi Arabia.
I get it if you dislike the Saudi's (I do) but try to be somewhat accurate.
Growth (Score:2)
maybe Growth = Progress is not so true there.
Blame it on California (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, You can blame it on California if you'd like.
But where do all those people come from?
Some from sex to be sure, but the rest are migrants from the WHOLE REST of the country!
All you migrants to California, GO HOME! And get offa my lawn!
LOL
People were warned about this years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Read "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner. This book came out in 1986 and there was a 4 part documentation on PBS in 1996. The Southwest has gone through a number of mega droughts over the centuries, some that lasted decades. One of the hallmarks of the Americans is we don't listen to warnings.
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Mods: Upvote parent, this is an excellent book.
1071.48 feet? (Score:2)
Re:1071.48 feet? (Score:4, Funny)
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We need your food, give it to us. (Score:2)
The water level may be low but... (Score:2)
Comparing it to the water levels of the 1930's is hardly fair. Lake Mead is largely formed by the Hoover Dam which wasn't completed until 1936. I'm not saying there isn't a drought, but the title is a little disingenuous.
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No, the title is not disingenuous, look at the map:
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
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Comparing it to the water levels of the 1930's is hardly fair. Lake Mead is largely formed by the Hoover Dam which wasn't completed until 1936. I'm not saying there isn't a drought, but the title is a little disingenuous.
Wouldn't that make the headline more fair? It's the lowest it's been since before the Hoover Dam was built, and if you want to exclude years before the dam, then you could say it's at a all time record low.
No Worries (Score:2)
Lake Mead (Score:2)
...you mean the lake that was man made in 1935?
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Well, it started out pretty low....
Is this a problem for the Hoover Dam? (Score:2)
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If the dam would fall over from not enough water holding it up, it would have fallen over when first constructed and before the lake filled the first time.
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This creates a huge opening for serious science (Score:2)
If you consider the goal of eventually colonizing Mars, or any other planet or moon, problems like this are a huge chance to try some extreme ideas for helping improve the global climate. One idea would be to use a combination of desalinization plants and pumping, and make a new HUGE lake in the middle of the desert. Pumping water from the Pacific ocean to fill this new lake with clean water on a massive scale would add a lot of moisture to the air as it evaporates. On such a large scale, this could r
We could build a pipeline.... (Score:2)
Oh wait.. those are banned now...
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Blow up Glen Canyon Dam (Score:2)
lake mead is NOT dropping due to drought (Score:3)
And the only solution is to require that California make heavy use of desalinated water as well as their own water.
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I am not quite sure what your learn to code nonsense is about. I expect it is some quote from Fox News where some random "Liberal" said when harassed on the street.
But for those areas, I think they should take how the area has a limited water supply in that area should determine what type of crops they grow, Some crops take much less water than others, and are more drought tolerant.
Climate Change is a real thing, and we need to stop fighting over its existence, and begin to work on changes so we can adapt
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There is also the time were where there has to be a stop to the questions, or at least stop to answering the same freaking questions over and over again.
Or there are questions that cannot be answered because they are just so stupid. A scientist cannot convince someone that Climate Change isn't from Aliens shooting lasers into the earths oceans. Because such a question is so far off, and not backed by any reasonable idea, they don't have to answer it.
Man made climate change is a real thing, that is very sol