High good, low bad: Mead in May 2011
Lake Mead’s rise by two feet in May presages a total rise of 32 feet by the end of February, 2012, reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal several weeks ago. Last night at midnight, the elevation of the largest storage reservoir in the US was 1,097.89, leaving another 30 feet due for release from Lake Powell upstream. The federal Bureau of Reclamation graphic, left, shows how much water sits in reserve as snowpack in the upper Colorado region.
As the snow melts and the water makes its way through the dam system upstream, the 2010-11 water year on the Colorado will push Lake Mead steadily upward from the 1,075 elevation, at which point shortages would have been declared for Arizona and Nevada. For California to be hit by shortages, the reservoir would have to drop further because of an antique priority rights system governing the river.…
High good, low bad: Mead in January 2011
The Economist is the latest migratory Eastern (English this time) high flier to take a pass over Lake Mead and notice the “bathtub ring,” then to quote Las Vegas water manager Pat Mulroy, who said that Southern Nevada is the “canary in the mine shaft” of western water scarcity. That would be true if canaries were the ones running the mines. Anyway, as far as January on the Colorado River went, a far more interesting story appeared last month in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reported that work on the “starter tunnel” for the “third straw” for Las Vegas to draw water from an ever-shallower Lake Mead will need to begin afresh because of persistent flooding problems. Click here to read Henry Brean’s report.
Meanwhile, for those who follow such things, Lake Mead closed at 1,091.73 feet, or thereabouts. By way of characterization, suffice it to say that the elevation…
High good, low bad: Mead in December 2010
The good news in the last hour of 2010 was that Lake Mead was 4.36 feet higher than the closing elevation for November. The bad news is that a winter bump is not unusual and, at ten feet lower than the closing December elevation for 2009 and at 40% capacity, the main storage reservoir on the Colorado River is 11.3 feet above a level that will trigger cuts for Arizona and Nevada.
Nerves are bad enough in the Grand Canyon State that the Arizona Republic reported this week that water managers are considering leaving part of their 2011 Colorado River allocation in Mead to forestall mandatory cuts. Larry Dozier, deputy general manager of the Central Arizona Project, told the Republic: “If we leave a little water this year, we won’t take the bigger hit the…
High good, low bad: Mead in November 2010
National Suicide Statistics at a Glance. Smoothed, Age-Adjusted Suicide Rates* per 100,000 Population All Races, All Ethnicities, Both Sexes, Ages 10 Years or Older, United States, 2000–2006. Source: CDC
The Nevada water community chatter yesterday was about a new report ranking the Las Vegas economy as one of the worst in the world. It’s the first and hopefully the last time that I will see Las Vegas compared to Barcelona. However, the story that interested me was this one, in Monday’s Las Vegas Sun, about the suicide danger of the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge. It’s notable for two reasons. First is the stunning image by Sun staff photographer Sam Morris, who may be the most talented snapper working in the Western press. Second, I was struck by what wasn’t there. Why wasn’t there more concern about who will jump?
Anyone…
High good, low bad: Lake Mead in October 2010
“The advice given to boaters here these days – ‘If you haven’t been to Lake Mead lately, you haven’t been to Lake Mead’ – sounds like a marketing slogan dreamed up to lure return business,” writes Shaun McKinnon in the Arizona Republic. “Except in this case the advice is true. The drought on the Colorado River has reshaped the huge reservoir so dramatically in the past 11 years that it bears little resemblance to the lake captured in snapshots just a few years ago. Water levels have dropped 133 feet. Islands have emerged and grown. Rocky outcroppings push through the surface, creating watery obstacle courses whose paths shift almost daily.”
Click here to keep reading or here for hourly elevation reports from the US Bureau of Reclamation. Lake Mead closed October at 1,082.35, less than 10 feet of the point where shortages will be announced for Arizona and Nevada.…
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Before it was sheet mulch
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