Posted on 12/12/2012 4:21:46 PM PST by Uncle Chip
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The federal government isn't going to tap the Missouri River to slake the thirst of a drought-parched Southwest, the government's top water official said Wednesday.
But rising demand and falling supply have water managers in the arid West considering a host of other options to deal with dire projections that the Colorado River — the main water supply for a region larger than the country of France — won't be able over the next 50 years to meet demands of a regional population now about 40 million and growing.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued what he termed "a call to action" with a three-year study of the river, its flows and its ability to meet the future needs of city-dwellers, Native Americans, businesses, ranchers and farmers in seven Western states.
"We are in a troubling trajectory in the Colorado River basin, as well as the Rio Grande basin," Salazar told reporters on a conference call outlining the math in the findings of the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study.
Salazar, who oversees water managers and dam operators at the federal Bureau of Reclamation, dismissed as politically and technically impractical some ideas in the study, including piping water from the nation's heartland or towing Arctic icebergs south to help such thirsty U.S. cities as Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. He said he wanted to focus instead on "solutions that are out there that will help us."
"There is no one solution that is going to meet the needs of this challenge," Salazar said. "We need to reduce our demand through conservation. We also need to augment supply with practical measures."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
IIRC the idea was first floated (sorry) in the 1970's by Georges Mougin
A few things come to mind:Put a top on the Central Arizona Project;
it evaporates more than its worth.Put an end to public water fountains
displays in the Phoenix area.If anyone cares the Colorado River Compact
originally set in stone more million-acre feet per
annum than has ever been measured in the last ninety years
Haven’t they already done that???
how ‘bout a big a$$ dam (BAD) on the /Colorado Utah Border?
There - Colorado river solves Colorado’s issue.
Remember, a shovel upstream beats a water right downstream.....
How would they get those icebergs into Arizona???
They've had that for 70 years -- it's called the Hoover Dam.
No, isnt Hoover Dam on the north side?......
There - Colorado river solves Colorado’s issue.
Remember, a shovel upstream beats a water right downstream.....
You would have to first review the
Colorado River Compact(1922) and the
Colorado Constitution ( first in Time,
first in Right in water rights)
The world doesn’t have a shortage of water; it’s just that the water is in the wrong places for some people. If water in arid regions gets scarce and/or expensive enough, sooner or later it will be cost feasible to build huge pipelines from Canada — not from oil fields, but from polar ice which is melting due to global warming — or, so we are told, and told, and told again.
Ohhhh — you mean on the part of the river that flows north — never thought of that.
Yep — the Romans did it. And LA would still be be a desert without the water from Mammoth Lakes.
Interesting. In 1977 I took a geography class at the University of Tennessee that focused on the Colorado River basin. We studied the supply, the allocation, and especially the effects of the decisions that had been made. Basically, the problem is that the water measurements made for the initial allocation to states was made during an extremely wet period, so more water was allocated than was available. Obviously, if the upstream state takes its allocation, the downstream state has to deal with the shortage. According to the class, the Hoover Dam actually reduces the water available because (a) more evaporates, and (b) a lot of water soaks into the limestone canyons. Another project resulted in the Salton Sea when a diversion dam failed and water spilled outside of the river channel. Basically, every decision to make the situation better seemed to make it worse. I remember the instructor commenting late in the term that the solution was probably to do nothing and let nature and economics take its course. When water starts costing $1500 per month, people will quit moving there. Meanwhile, the calamity existed about 35 years ago, so there shouldn’t be any surprises that it is still happening. The course was one of the best electives I ever took.
"They've had that for 70 years -- it's called the Hoover Dam."
That particular dam, I believe, is called the Glen Canyon Dam.
"They've had that for 70 years -- it's called the Hoover Dam."
That particular dam, I believe, is called the Glen Canyon Dam.
It is crazy to see all the water in all those canals flowing through a 110 degree Arizona desert just so those fairways in Scottsdale can stay green.
Used to be that doctors would advise their respiratory care patients to move to Phoenix for the dry heat. Now with all the canals and pools and watering holes in that city the humidity approaches that of St Louis.
You are right.I was appalled at the direction Arizona
has taken in the last fifty years.
Well,
The vast majority of those green golf courses are irrigated with gray water. There’s not many places on earth that use, re-use, and re-use again a drop of water as effectively as Phoenix does. Please don’t buy into the BS. Salazar will make people who happen to live in Scottsdale or Phoenix right on par with those nasty smokers and gun owners,while you cheer him on without knowing his true intentions. Did you notice that the enemy he’s describing happen to be southwest RED states. I say pipe the water in from anywhere you can find it, we’re Americans and the land doesn’t rule us, we rule the land. Just let me live in freedom.
That’s a nice philosophy but history of the West tells us that water rules the land not vice versa. And the problem is that all the Red States out West and in the Midwest are getting short of water.
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