Moment of Reckoning For 7 Western States

[Gabe Lackmann]

That's true too, and they are building new neighborhoods outside Las Vegas. Developers see a need for housing and start building. I have heard of new developments in Colorado not being approved because they can't supply enough water. I'm sure that's happening in all of these states.

Not just LV, SD LA, PHX, Tucson...20--30M?

Absolutely unsupportable long term without massive desalinization infrastructure.

 

[Mr Natural]

Almonds are not a critical crop

If it comes down to water for people or almonds, the choice is obvious

I don’t want to give up my almonds because some whackos decide they want to live in the desert.

 

[rightwinger]

yes Las Vegas is doing that but at the same time they have thousands of houses going up here which means more water will be used.....and the fucking water agencies aint saying jack shit about that....but if i water my bushes on a day when i am not supposed to,i get sent a letter telling me not to do that....its a joke....

Do you save your rain water to water your bushes?

 

[Harry Dresden]

I don’t want to give up my almonds because some whackos decide they want to live in the desert.

get italian ones....they are just as good....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Do you save your rain water to water your bushes?

what rain water?....

 

[rightwinger]

what rain water?....

You don’t have a rainy season?

 

[Harry Dresden]

You don’t have a rainy season?

yea February....we got about an inch of rain.....the monsoon season is here and sometimes we can get a pretty good thunderstorm...

 

[ding]

golf courses are not a priority

The hell you say.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Actually, the problem is both man made, and climate change related.

Man Made in that they did nothing until it's too late

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Easier to blame AGW than admitting to not expanding water infrastructure and not adapting to the fact you live in a desert climate.

Perhaps making Yuma Az the Lettuce capital of the world was not a great idea after all.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

What a mess Brandon is making.

Does anyone really still believe his election was legit?

yes, the POTUS controls how much water is in the Colorado river.

There is stupid, and then there is you taking it to a whole new level

 

[martybegan]

Perhaps making Yuma Az the Lettuce capital of the world was not a great idea after all.

It worked for a while until the population went up, and infrastructure didn't, Coupled with the new people wanting lawns which don't occur in southern California naturally.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

It worked for a while until the population went up, and infrastructure didn't, Coupled with the new people wanting lawns which don't occur in southern California naturally.

Exactly how does infrastructure add water to the Colorado river?

 

[rightwinger]

It worked for a while until the population went up, and infrastructure didn't, Coupled with the new people wanting lawns which don't occur in southern California naturally.

The region needs to look at this as a permanent condition

The non-essential uses for water need to be eliminated

 

[martybegan]

Exactly how does infrastructure add water to the Colorado river?

There are other rivers, as well as ways of retaining more water. Reliance on the Colorado is an issue as we are seeing now. Rain in the California basins is sporadic, and often quite torrential when they happen. To exploit this you need storage, and for storage you need dams and reservoirs. They could have been building new damns and reservoirs on the other rivers, they chose not to.

And now they are paying for it.

 

[martybegan]

The region needs to look at this as a permanent condition

The non-essential uses for water need to be eliminated

I was a pre-existing condition, they just got lucky for a few decades.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

There's two things going on SIMULTANEOUSLY:

1. Too many people live in the Desert Southwest for the amount of water that is there and more people are moving in.
2. The climate in the Desert Southwest appears to be in the middle of several multiyear droughts (THIS IS TECHNICALLY A CLIMATE CHANGE)

The reason that #2 is important to remember is that it is a great bellwether because it is showing what happens when a population is already in a marginal position like the desert SW is in regards to water, the problems get really bad really fast.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

People who move into desert regions then dont want to desal salt water....then go shit no water here deserve Darwin.

^^^^This is a great sentence. What language is it?

 

[Rogue AI]

This is precisely the reason I've advocated for annexing Canada for the last 20 years.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

No more lawn watering in the desert. In fact, maybe no more lawns. The Colorado, like most major waterways in the West, is drying up.



Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, and Nevada all receive water from the Colorado River and next year will see a decrease of between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water due to the ongoing drought that has gripped most of the Western U.S. (An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land in one-foot-deep water.) Current allotments of water from the Colorado range from 300,000 acre-feet for Nevada to 4.4 million acre-feet for California.

“What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told the Senate hearing. “We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating.”

The West has been suffering through an acute drought since 2020, part of a megadrought that began in 2000. The last 20 years have been the driest two decades in the last 1,200 years. This year is so far the driest on record in California. Scientists attribute these conditions to climate change, which causes more water evaporation due to warmer temperatures.

'Moment of reckoning:' Federal official warns of Colorado River water supply cuts

The Colorado River's reservoirs have diminished to the point that significant cuts to the water supplied to the seven states that rely on it will be necessary next year, a federal official warned Tuesday.

www.yahoo.com