Western States Megadrought intensifies - predictions for bad Fire Season and severe water shortages for Colorado (Pueblo: live, to move)

[Vision67]

The West’s most important water supply is drying up. Soon, life for 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River will change.

“We thought we could engineer nature… huge mistake,” the general manager of the Colorado River District says

https://www.denverpost.com/2022/07/2...r-crisis-west/

"“This is not a drought, this is aridification,” Rhett Larson, a water law professor at Arizona State University, said. “This is not something we can wait out. This is not something we can survive. This is the new world we live in.”

That likely means less water for major cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego. Higher electricity and grocery bills, too. Less swimming in reservoirs like Powell. Less boating, white water rafting, swimming. Fewer tourists.

The seven states relying on water from the Colorado River Basin are drawing too much. Hydrologists warned this would happen generations ago, though politicians and government officials failed to listen or decided not to."

[Mike from back east]

Side note: We're not alone in this problem. In today's news I see these cheery stories:

- "London Is Teetering Toward Water Rationing If Drought Persists, The famously green UK capital is now covered in fields of yellow after weeks of unusual heat and a lack of rain."

- Water levels on the Rhine River have fallen so low that the river may effectively close soon, cutting off barge shipment of coal to power plants.



Bloomberg is a paywall site.


Back to our regularly scheduled climate disaster.

[COcheesehead]

And yet Ute Water charges me $48 a month for water. Should be double, triple, quadruple that.

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by COcheesehead

And yet Ute Water charges me $48 a month for water. Should be double, triple, quadruple that.

You'd enjoy living at my place then. Last week my landlord came knocking at my door with the amazing news that I'd run up a water bill of $36,000 the month before!

But your Honor, it was just a few pots of petunias that I keep by my front door!

Apparently there was a leak somewhere in the system that I had no way of detecting, so the fault and the bill could not be pinned on me. After a couple of days worth of digging around in the back yard, the leak was discovered and repaired. All that water going to waste! I feel really bad about it, but there was nothing I could have done.

[COcheesehead]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

You'd enjoy living at my place then. Last week my landlord came knocking at my door with the amazing news that I'd run up a water bill of $36,000 the month before!

But your Honor, it was just a few pots of petunias that I keep by my front door!

Apparently there was a leak somewhere in the system that I had no way of detecting, so the fault and the bill could not be pinned on me. After a couple of days worth of digging around in the back yard, the leak was discovered and repaired. All that water going to waste! I feel really bad about it, but there was nothing I could have done.

I read a story long time ago about someone who left the water running near St Mary’s Alice by Idaho Springs. The bill was in the five digits. I don’t remember what happened in the case.

[Mike from back east]

It isn't just the USA, the NY Times reports today that "Nearly two-thirds of the country’s municipalities are facing a water shortage. In Monterrey, a major economic hub, the government delivers water daily to 400 neighborhoods."

Checking google maps, Monterrey, Mexico is about 100 miles due west of Brownsville, TX. A crisis below our border is a crisis at our border, not to mention our own crisis here at home in the American southwest.

[Vision67]

Necessity is the mother of invention. We're pushing ahead with Fusion. Humanity really needs this to succeed. We could eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels, we could desalinate sea water and we could de-carbonize the atmosphere. Just Imagine:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp6W...ke%3AOriginals

[DOUBLE H]

Am looking at the channel guide on the tube, tonight's CBS 60 minutes first 20 segment will be----

"Running dry--The health of the Colorado River, which is a concern for 40 million people in the West."

Looks like a 20 minute seg, nothing that residents of the four corners states and California don't already know but for people from the east and south better take a look at here. I live less than a quarter mile from the river, it's not a pretty sight.

[Mike from back east]

Per the NY Times, today the Federal Government announced"A New Round of Colorado River Cuts" that affect only AZ, NV and Mexico at this time.

Excerpts: " But for now the government stopped short of mandating large reductions that officials have said will be needed next year to protect the river’s infrastructure. ... Officials ... said that levels at the Colorado’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, remained dangerously low after more than two decades of drought in the Southwest made worse by climate change. Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam at the Arizona-Nevada border, is now about 175 feet lower than it was in 2000, ... That level triggers agreed-upon cuts in the amounts that two of the Lower Basin states, Arizona and Nevada, and Mexico can take from Lake Mead. The other Lower Basin state, California, is not currently affected, nor are the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. About 40 million people depend on the Colorado for at least some of their water, and it irrigates more than 5.5 million acres of land. ... With the new cuts, AZ will have had to reduce its Colorado consumption by nearly 600,000 acre feet, or 21 percent of its annual allocation. NV's total reductions are now 25,000 acre feet, or about 8 percent of its allocation. Mexico’s cuts total 104,000 acre feet, 7 percent of its allotted supply."


The summer monsoon here in AZ is going well, so far.

[2Q&Lrn&Hlp]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Apparently there was a leak somewhere in the system that I had no way of detecting, so the fault and the bill could not be pinned on me. . . . there was nothing I could have done.

I beg to differ. . . . Where I live . . . if a leak develops on the provider's side of our meter, it is entirely their responsibility. . . .
However, if the leak develops on our side of our meter, it is entirely our responsibility to notice, repair, & pay for. . . .


We ALL can check our water meters regularly AFTER turning all of our taps are OFF. If we then find the meter is running even though all the taps ARE OFF, we know there is a leak somewhere that needs to be located & repaired. If instead the meter has stopped, especially over time, it indicates no leak on our side of our meter. . . . Unless the meter itself is broken & is causing the false reading. I've read of that happening more than once.


One of many videos on Youtube that show how to discover whether we have a leak,
(there are some for detecting leaks in the house, or, underground) . . .
(be sure to read the comments under it, too) is this one:


How to Find Water Leaks
- Water Meter Hasn't Stopped Spinning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8tqIkU_JA