NOAA moves to avert fish extinction in Bay Delta. “What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them.”

NOAA Press release 
NOAA Biological Opinion 
Best of press & reactions from environmentalists, Central Valley farmers and Governor Schwarzenegger: Aquafornia
FROM THE NOAA RELEASE: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  released the final draft of a revised Bay-Delta biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.

Two independent peer review panels were conducted to ensure the opinion is solidly grounded in the
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California, Nevada, Texas Red on Seasonal Drought Outlook

Issued June 4, 2009 by the National Weather Service

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Weekly Drought Map

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High Good, Low Bad: May Elevations on Mead

Lake Mead is the Colorado River Reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The maximum elevation is 1,229 feet. Below, gleaned from US Bureau of Reclamation records, are year-on-year May elevation reports going back to 2004. Also borrowed from Reclamation is a nifty graphic published on Friday, May 8, 2009 showing April and May 2009 elevations. The May elevations were largely estimates (in yellow). Kudos to the graphic artist.  The actual closing elevation for May 31, 2009 was 1,096.92. 

DATE                                     ELEVATION OF LAKE MEAD

May 31, 2009:                                          1,096.92

May 31, 2008:                                          1,107.05

May 31, 2007:                                          1,115.89

May 31, 2006:                                          1,131.14

May 31, 2005:                                          1,141.89

May 31, 2004:                                          1,129.70

For April Elevations, click here

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Vegas Draws Line on Mead Lakeside as Trigger Point to Build Pipeline to Great Basin Ground Water

JUST in case any of the board members of the Southern Nevada Water Authority have become squeamish lately about mining the Great Basin Aquifer to sustain growth in Las Vegas, they have been given a deadline to approve building the 300-mile-long pipeline that they will need to pump the Great Basin’s ground water water south. The deadline will come when the elevation of Lake Mead, the Colorado River reservoir that currently supplies roughly 90% of Las Vegas’s water, drops another 23 feet or reaches 1,075 feet. 

From today’s story by Henry Brean in the Las Vegas Review Journal:

  • Board members have already approved the pipeline concept and signed off on ongoing efforts to secure water rights and environmental permits, but they have never actually voted to build the project
  • That decision will come if, or perhaps when, the surface of Lake Mead sinks to elevation 1,075, a low-water mark
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