High good, low bad: Mead in July 2012

There may be less water in the Colorado than in bumper years past but there's a fine new park near Laughlin to watch the water flow by. Plus bits and bobs about California corruption and a Colorado River watershed-wide supply study nearing completion.

High good, low bad: Mead in June 2012

“Pipe Dreams: Water Supply Pipeline Projects in the West” by Barry Nelson of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Denise Fort of the University of New Mexico Law School looks at the demand posed by projects in watersheds already stressed by runaway development. Click on the graphic to be taken to the June 2012 report.

Lake Mead, the Colorado River storage reservoir serving California, the Southwest and Mexico, lost nearly four feet in June, 2012, a month in which a research team from the Natural Resources Defense Council and University of New Mexico published a report that finds five new projects aiming big straws at the river.

Pipe Dreams” estimates the draw of the new projects at more than 690,000 acre feet per year, a drain that would come on top of what the Bureau of Reclamation already describes as structurally embedded “over-allocation” of the Colorado River

High good, low bad: Mead in May 2012

 

Click on the cover to be taken to the "Aloud" program at the Los Angeles Public Library, where "Moral Ground" editor Kathleen Dean Moore will be part of a panel on western water on June 6, 2012.

Spoiler alert. It’s low bad for the monthly Mead report. The largest reservoir in the United States, which serves Southern California, Southern Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico, was at 1,119.38 feet  at the close of May, 2012. That’s lower than it’s been for seven months, a mere 44 feet and change above a level that will invoke shortages in Arizona and Nevada. But! Now that doomsayers like me are all cheered up at any opportunity to remind wastrels with lawns, “We told you so,” it emerges that there is a more constructive voice in town. As clarification, it merits adding that the town is Los Angeles and the voice is that of philosopher

High good, low bad: Mead in April 2012

In April 2012, Lake Mead fell for the second consecutive month, marking an end to the spoils of the 2010/11 water year and leaving the largest storage reservoir in the West roughly 49 feet from the point where Arizona and Nevada will face shortages.

High good, low bad: Mead in February 2012

A new University of Nevada game seeks to educate players about conservation by allowing them to play water manager, but denies players population control as a tool.
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