Drought Contingency

[00tec]

I probably don't have to tell you not to climb the fence barefoot either.

Hahaha

[Ronin13]

Phoenix also depends on massive amounts of electrical power (as does Las Vegas.) You think those cities would be as big as they are if air conditioning wasn't a thing? There's a reason that both Phoenix and LV were tiny before WWII - nobody in their right mind would live there in Summer.

The same was said about many areas west of Denver in the winter before centralized heating (think old stoves that you had to chop ungodly amounts of wood to warm your home)... I'm thinking along the lines of Conifer, Evergreen, Deckers, Pine, etc.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

x2

I have learned a lot from this thread as well, and been incorrect on a couple things. .

Indeed, good thread. I underestimated the tunnels.
I’ll still be one of those “Denver people” who places tremendous blame on LV and PHX, and I have friends / family in both. I don’t expect either to be long-term sustainable. We shall see, but probably not in my lifetime.

[Martinjmpr]

Thanks for the maps etc. I've never been able to source a comprehensive figure. So it is mostly S. Platte with some minor Arkansas diversions. I have learned a lot from this thread as well, and been incorrect on a couple things. (Namely CO water rights are largely oldest claim first). 560,000 AF may seem insignificant, but from what I understand that is more than what the major reservoirs (e.g. mead and powell) are short by year to year. So that measly 6% would otherwise stabilize what really is at this point doomed. There are several dems that would LOVE those to be drained, and are working hard to do it (e.g. releases/artificial floods during drought years)- which would affect a massive swath of conservative america, to say nothing of creating a wasteland of silt.

The only state that has the right to bitch about how much water the front range takes is Utah. Per the Colorado River Compact (CRC) the upper basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) are required to send a certain amount of water to the Lower Basin states (AZ, CA and NV) every year. The amount used to be 7.5 million AF but I seem to recall a few years ago they might have revised that (corrections welcomed - I'm not going to take the time to research the history of the CRC.)

What that means is that once we (the upper basin states) send the required amount of water South, we have fulfilled our end of the deal and AZ, CA and NV can piss and moan all they want but they are entitled to exactly what the CRC gives them and not one drop more.

As far as the dams go, there are a few problems with them, as well. First of all, having a large, flat expanse of water in a hot, dry desert is naturally going to lead to losing a lot of that water to evaporation. I don't know what the evaporation rates are of Lake Mead and Lake Powell but they're not insignificant.

Second, dams have a fixed life. they are already silting up their bottoms, eventually there's going to be so much silt that the dams will be useless.

A few years back I read (somewhere on the Intertoobz, can't remember where) that there was enough water to fill Lake Powell OR Lake Mead, but not both. One proposal was to drain Lake Powell so the water would fill up Lake Mead. I don't even want to think about what happens to the Grand Canyon if/when the Glen Canyon dam is removed but it's not going to be pretty, unless they have a way to mitigate the damage that is going to be caused by all that silt flowing downstream.

The problem with that proposal, of course, is the CRC: Lake Powell is the way that the upper basin states "save" extra water to send to the lower basin during times of drought. Without having Lake Powell as an emergency water source, the Upper Basin states would have to send almost all of their water South or else be in violation of the CRC. So any proposal to drain Lake Powell would have to come with a serious revision of the CRC that the Lower Basin states (already complaining about not enough water) are unlikely to agree to. And there's no way in hell that Las Vegas would ever agree to remove Lake Mead, it's too important to them as both a water and power source.

So the bottom line is that the situation is likely to remain in a stalemate for the time being. Unless someone comes up with some genius plan to take water from, say, the Columbia River basin (which has an abundance of it) and pipe it all the way to California, the water situation is going to be one of perpetual crisis in the Southwest.

[Irving]

There is a book called The Water Knife. I haven't read it, but eventually it'll be mentioned in this thread, so I thought I might as well be the one to do so. It's about this stuff.

[BushMasterBoy]

Some of the old mines drain water trapped in the rock. The acidic water can be treated electronically using carbon fiber high area cathodes and solar power. Technology can produce astounding results, but so far seems undeveloped. Until then, billions of gallons of water is wasted.

https://www.denverpost.com/2015/08/1...-state-rivers/

[Martinjmpr]

Some of the old mines drain water trapped in the rock. The acidic water can be treated electronically using carbon fiber high area cathodes and solar power. Technology can produce astounding results, but so far seems undeveloped. Until then, billions of gallons of water is wasted.

https://www.denverpost.com/2015/08/1...-state-rivers/

I think there are any number of potential solutions, whether it's big desalinization plants to produce fresh water from the ocean (some Middle Eastern countries are doing this now) or having a big pipeline project to bring water in from another basin. Right now these solutions aren't cost effective but when the population pressure gets high enough to warrant the expense, I figure an answer will be found.

[Gman]

Some of the flooded mines contain more than acidic water, like toxic heavy metals. It would probably be more cost effective to go the desalination of seawater path than to try and recover water in mines for human consumption.

[Martinjmpr]

If there's one thing I believe in it's that if there is money to be made, someone will figure out a way to make it.

Sooner or later the population pressure in the SW is going to force the region to come to terms with its water demands. I think the region has been "kicking the can" for years with stopgap measures like dams and reservoirs and canals but that only solves today's problem by creating a problem for tomorrow.

I don't see any likelihood that population growth in the SW is going to slow down, so there is going to have to be a way to figure out how to get more water into the region. It won't be easy and it won't be cheap but I don't see any alternative.

[BushMasterBoy]

Thought I would show a newly released video of the problem.