Western U.S. faces water and power shortages due to climate change, U.N. warns

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signalmankenneth

Verified User
I use to live in Arizona, was planning moving back, but with the 22 year old drought and with possible water shortages I'm glad I didn't?!! Also housing is too damn high too?!!

The two largest reservoirs in the United States are at “dangerously low levels,” threatening the supply of fresh water and electricity in six states and Mexico, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Tuesday.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are both man-made reservoirs on the Colorado River, are currently at their lowest levels ever, in part because of an ongoing drought exacerbated by climate change.

“The conditions in the American West which we're seeing around the Colorado River basin have been so dry for more than 20 years that we're no longer speaking of a drought,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystems expert at UNEP. “We refer to it as ‘aridification’ — a new, very dry normal.”

The river is also struggling thanks to overconsumption due to a growing population and an outdated agreement that guarantees allotments for its neighboring states. The reservoirs provide water for agricultural and residential use in Arizona, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico.

If conditions don’t improve, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at risk of reaching “dead pool” status, in which the water is so low it stops flowing out of a reservoir. That would disable the hydroelectric dams that help provide power for millions of residents of the western U.S.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/western-...due-to-climate-change-un-warns-211255637.html

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You don’t think an artificially made source of water for a growing population in an arid area has anything to do with a water shortage in those places?
 
Ah yes, it's 'global warming' (let's ignore the millenia of records of regular large droughts in these areas) and not overpopulation of cities build literally in the freaking desert where they have no business being, that is causing this problem. Riiight.
 
Gondwanaland said:
Ah yes, it's 'global warming' (let's ignore the millenia of records of regular large droughts in these areas) and not overpopulation of cities build literally in the freaking desert where they have no business being, that is causing this problem. Riiight.
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reminds me of the Sam Kinesin routine about the starving in Africa and how they should stop shipping food and send U-Hauls because its a DESERT , nothing grows there nothing will ever grow there.
 
signalmankenneth said:
I use to live in Arizona, was planning moving back, but with the 22 year old drought and with possible water shortages I'm glad I didn't?!! Also housing is too damn high too?!!

[FONT=&]The two largest reservoirs in the United States are at “dangerously low levels,” threatening the supply of fresh water and electricity in six states and Mexico, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Tuesday.
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[FONT=&]Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are both man-made reservoirs on the Colorado River, are currently at their lowest levels ever, in part because of an ongoing drought exacerbated by climate change.
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[FONT=&]“The conditions in the American West which we're seeing around the Colorado River basin have been so dry for more than 20 years that we're no longer speaking of a drought,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystems expert at UNEP. “We refer to it as ‘aridification’ — a new, very dry normal.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The river is also struggling thanks to overconsumption due to a growing population and an outdated agreement that guarantees allotments for its neighboring states. The reservoirs provide water for agricultural and residential use in Arizona, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]If conditions don’t improve, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at risk of reaching “dead pool” status, in which the water is so low it stops flowing out of a reservoir. That would disable the hydroelectric dams that help provide power for millions of residents of the western U.S.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/western-...due-to-climate-change-un-warns-211255637.html

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Here's the thing: when you reconfigured the topography of an area to such a degree as we have in this country, you're bound to create new problems. Imagine no Colorado damn, imagine California without all the landscaping for upper middle class and rich McMansions, much less acres and acres of "specialty" crops. Perhaps these areas would have weathered climate change a little better.

We'll never know. :bigthink:
 
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It takes over a gallon of water to produce one almond or pistachio nut. California grows over 80% of the world's almonds!

Almonds are California’s chief agricultural export and, according to the Associated Press, “the industry ships 70% of its almonds overseas, fueled by strong demand in India, east Asia and Europe.” In fact, “California’s $6 billion-dollar almond industry, produces roughly 80% of the world’s almonds.”
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https://www.gainesville.com/story/o...-agricultural-water-policies-nuts/8217589002/
 
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signalmankenneth said:
I use to live in Arizona, was planning moving back, but with the 22 year old drought and with possible water shortages I'm glad I didn't?!! Also housing is too damn high too?!!

[FONT=&]The two largest reservoirs in the United States are at “dangerously low levels,” threatening the supply of fresh water and electricity in six states and Mexico, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Tuesday.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are both man-made reservoirs on the Colorado River, are currently at their lowest levels ever, in part because of an ongoing drought exacerbated by climate change.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]“The conditions in the American West which we're seeing around the Colorado River basin have been so dry for more than 20 years that we're no longer speaking of a drought,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystems expert at UNEP. “We refer to it as ‘aridification’ — a new, very dry normal.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The river is also struggling thanks to overconsumption due to a growing population and an outdated agreement that guarantees allotments for its neighboring states. The reservoirs provide water for agricultural and residential use in Arizona, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]If conditions don’t improve, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at risk of reaching “dead pool” status, in which the water is so low it stops flowing out of a reservoir. That would disable the hydroelectric dams that help provide power for millions of residents of the western U.S.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/western-...due-to-climate-change-un-warns-211255637.html

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Click to expand...

Climate cannot change. Reservoir levels are low simply due to overuse...mostly by the SDTC.
 
Taichiliberal said:
Here's the thing: when you reconfigured the topography of an area to such a degree as we have in this country, you're bound to create new problems. Imagine no Colorado damn, imagine California without all the landscaping for upper middle class and rich McMansions, much less acres and acres of "specialty" crops. Perhaps these areas would have weathered climate change a little better.

We'll never know. :bigthink:
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Climate cannot change.

Conditions before the dam system on the Colorado river resulted in huge tracts of land being destroyed by the river, which constantly changed course. After the dams were built, the river is much better controlled and doesn't destroy huge tracts of land anymore. Additional benefits provided irrigation water and electrical power.

The States benefiting from that river have formed a compact, known as the Law of the River, which allocates shares to each State. The one that takes the most is the SDTC (about 80% of the river resources).
The SDTC is draining Lake Mead (and Lake Powell in turn) to continue to feed the demand for water and power.

Soon it will have neither.
 
"Global Warming" works better for power than does "We could not be bothered to put in an effort to do this right over the last 4-5 decades".
 
You could see this disaster coming long before "Global Warming!" became so trendy. Some people were talking about this in the 80's, I know, because I was reading their essays and pieces in the Newspaper.
 
signalmankenneth said:
I use to live in Arizona, was planning moving back, but with the 22 year old drought and with possible water shortages I'm glad I didn't?!! Also housing is too damn high too?!!

[FONT=&]The two largest reservoirs in the United States are at “dangerously low levels,” threatening the supply of fresh water and electricity in six states and Mexico, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Tuesday.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are both man-made reservoirs on the Colorado River, are currently at their lowest levels ever, in part because of an ongoing drought exacerbated by climate change.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]“The conditions in the American West which we're seeing around the Colorado River basin have been so dry for more than 20 years that we're no longer speaking of a drought,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystems expert at UNEP. “We refer to it as ‘aridification’ — a new, very dry normal.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The river is also struggling thanks to overconsumption due to a growing population and an outdated agreement that guarantees allotments for its neighboring states. The reservoirs provide water for agricultural and residential use in Arizona, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]If conditions don’t improve, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at risk of reaching “dead pool” status, in which the water is so low it stops flowing out of a reservoir. That would disable the hydroelectric dams that help provide power for millions of residents of the western U.S.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/western-...due-to-climate-change-un-warns-211255637.html

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resize
Click to expand...

Dumping on the U.S. again as though its some isolated planet within a planet when it comes to environmental issues, consider facts versus your trolling and misconstrued bs. Also Lake Mead does not speak for the entire water supply of the U.S.:

As a result, some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Inadequate sanitation is also a problem for 2.4 billion people—they are exposed to diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, and other water-borne illnesses. Two million people, mostly children, die each year from diarrheal diseases alone."
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threa...ult, some 1.1,and other water-borne illnesses.

Key findings for North America: Resiliency hampering water sustainability

Toronto, ranked 6th globally, Washington, D.C. (13th) and New York (14th) represent North America’s most sustainable water cities while Los Angeles ranks second for efficiency. According to Arcadis, cities in North America tend to outperform other world cities when it comes to water quality. In fact, Toronto, Chicago and Philadelphia rank in the top three North American and global cities for ensuring a healthy and clean water supply."

https://waterfm.com/arcadis-study-u...o, Chicago and,healthy and clean water supply.

What would it take to fill Lake Mead?
Lake Mead has a somewhat larger shortage, about 8 trillion gallons, but it could be filled in about 370 days at 250,000 gallons/sec:
We could fill Lake Powell in less than a year with an aqueduct from Mississippi River
Regarding the Mississippi water letters of June 26, citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure don’t need all that water. All it does is cause flooding and massive tax expenditures to repair and strengthen dikes.

The best solution would be for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure on the Mississippi to Lake Powell, fill it, and then send more water from there down the Colorado to fill lake Mead.

About 4.5 million/gals a second flow past that structure on the Mississippi. As mentioned, New Orleans has a problem with that much water anyway, so let’s divert 250,000 gallons/sec to Lake Powell, which currently has a shortage of 5.5 trillion gallons.

This would take 254 days to fill. "

https://www.desertsun.com/story/opi...han-year-via-mississippi-aqueduct/7751467001/

Instead of building useless tRump type walls, consider building water pipelines from areas that get too much hurricane overwhelming water to areas that need it.
 
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Californians could learn a trick or two from the 2017 drought in Cape Town.

To Survive Severe Drought This Summer, California Should Learn From Cape Town's Water Crisis

JUNE 15, 2022 4:31 PM EDT

In my household we shower every few days. We don’t flush every time. After a dinner party, I empty my guests’ water glasses into the houseplants. It’s been four years since I lived through Cape Town’s water crisis, but hard-earned habits die hard. My water conservation routines may sound like too much information, or even borderline unhygienic, but as the threat of water scarcity looms large around the world, they may well be worth adopting.

In late 2017, Cape Town was on the brink of becoming the first major global city to run out of water. To stave off “Day Zero”—the moment when reservoir levels would drop below a critical threshold and household water supplies would be turned off—residents were told to limit use to 13 gallons of water per person per day. (The average American uses 82.) That was enough for a 90-second shower, a half-gallon of drinking water, one load of hand-washed dishes or laundry, one cooked meal, two hand washings, two teeth brushings, and one toilet flush. Watering plants was out of the question. I know because I was counting down the gallons on our water meter.

Fear was a huge motivator—the apocalyptic specter of having to wait in line at public taps for a daily allotment of 8 gallons of water per person once Day Zero hit was enough to drive most residents into immediate compliance. So was shame: households that exceeded their daily allowance were tagged with a red dot on the municipal water authority’s online map. And we all checked it, obsessively.

https://time.com/6187823/california-drought-cape-town-water-crisis/
 
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