Western States Megadrought intensifies - predictions for bad Fire Season and severe water shortages for Colorado (Center: buying, school)

[DOUBLE H]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

I love that book! Even though it came out more than 30 years ago that book is as compelling as if it were just written today. Reisner does an outstanding job of explaining the hows and whys of water use in the West. I've gone through it three times now and the read becomes more fascinating every time.

"Cadillac Desert"---required reading!

[frankrj]

Originally Posted by Vision67

The entire West needs to adapt to a future of scarce water.

It's way past time to lose the lush lawns and golf courses.

Well, if they used recycled water it's okay right?
Vegas does that.

Surprisingly of all places in the states, Florida also has water rationing and shortages.

https://www.winknews.com/southwest-f...-water-crisis/
https://www.fox4now.com/wftx-weather...rought-sets-in

We can make electric cars we should be able to figure out how to solve this on a planet that is 70% water.
Instead of govts spending billions (or trillions) to explore outer space we should take care of this.
In poorer countries, I notice they have a rainwater harvesting system that collects rainfall from the roof of the house into a 16,000 litre semi-underground tank, which provides sufficient water for drinking and cooking for eight months,

I wouldn't call this drought cyclical either. Too many people.

The world's population growth of 7-8 billion is not cyclical so water is priority number one.

[pikabike]

There are two problems with collecting rainwater in CO.

First, residents are legally limited to collecting a maximum of two 55-gallon barrels of rainwater per month. An administrative limit, this one could be changed.

The second problem is not so easy, namely, whether it rains much in the first place. That one is not under human control in any immediate or direct way. Some months we don’t even get ANY rain—there is nothing to collect.

[Phil P]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

I'm not trying to defend bluegrass, but the bottom line still remains - agriculture consumes vastly more water than lawns. Irrigating the desert in places like AZ and CA to grow produce is stupid.

Yes and no. There's certain things like olives that apparently do way better being grown irrigated in a desert than they do in their native habitat for taste and quality. I think olives are probably a justifiable use of water, rice and cotton? Landscaping is noticed more because people see sprinklers on their morning drive, they most often don't see pivots.

In Colorado water has always been top of mind, but it's really a problem 1/2 the US has. Atlanta wouldn't have had enough water to keep growing until they recently won a treaty to take more water from other places on the Chattahoochee river basin and pump it back to Atlanta. 50 inches of rain a year is a lot, but that alone isn't enough to supply 6 million+ people - the Chattahoochee is pretty darn small. You need a big river or a lake or a big aquifer to really support dense population.

People's common refrain is 'well quit moving here'. Fine, they could live in the Upper Midwest where energy use from heating would be a lot higher, that's not environmentally friendly. They could move to the Appalachians or PNW and cut down more of the temperate rainforest, that's not environmentally friendly. I've said it upthread, but there's more than enough water to go around in the US, compared to South Asia , we just have to use it smarter.

The problem is people look for Elon Musk solutions like solar panels and desalinization where tech will solve all their problems instead of practical ones, like eliminating cows and hay. That alone could solve the entire water crisis in the west.

[Mike from back east]

Recent article in the NY Times about the dire situation with the Great Salt Lake that is shrinking.

Excerpt: " If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store:

The lake’s flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.

Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.

“We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that’s going to go off if we don’t take some pretty dramatic action, ..... ”


As with such articles in the NY Times it is well illustrated with photographs.

[recycled]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Recent article in the NY Times about the dire situation with the Great Salt Lake that is shrinking.

Excerpt: " If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store:

The lake’s flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.

Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.

“We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that’s going to go off if we don’t take some pretty dramatic action, ..... ”


As with such articles in the NY Times it is well illustrated with photographs.

This would be a similar fate that the Salton Sea basin in the California desert has suffered in the past 5 decades, a sort of slow death. Everyone considered the Salton Sea basin a toxic wasteland and near worthless. They could not hardly give away countless vacant properties in places like Bombay Beach. Considering the high value of property just north in the Coachella Valley (like Palm Springs), that is pretty bad.

The story is not over. Now they have figured out that the Salton Sea basin is rich in lithium, the "white gold" for making lithium batteries that are needed to provide the power for electric vehicles and everything else the digital world needs. It turns out that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns a lithium processing plant at Salton Sea.

Don't sell your Salt Lake shoreline property too quick - might be another lithium treasure sitting there too.

[atler8]

The mayor of Glenwood Springs is featured in this video at 1 minute 28 seconds as he speaks to the earlier than ever onset of "..fire restrictions...".

People who are paying attention already know this to be true but there are those who have their heads in the sand, so to speak.

From all appearances, this may be yet another "wake up call" summer across much of the west and southwest.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/08/weath...day/index.html

[Colorado Rambler]

Things continue to go from bad to worse here in the Four Corners. I live on a hay farm which is surrounded by other hay and alfalfa farms. It's like living in this amazing oasis in the middle of the desert. However, agriculture here is on the brink as one dry year follows another. Across the road from me is the alfalfa farm belonging to the Ute Mountain Ute tribe. They are in trouble:

Low snowpack and soaring temperatures made 2020 the third-driest year on record in Colorado. When similar conditions repeated in 2021, tribal farmers in southwest Colorado had to scramble, fallowing thousands of acres of land and laying off workers at the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s farm and ranch outside of Cortez.

“It made me very aware that our farm is in the desert. We have to look at it that way,” says Simon Martinez, general manager for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Farm and Ranch Enterprise and the Bow and Arrow Brand non-GMO cornmeal business. The 7,700-acre farm is located on the tribe’s 553,008-acre reservation in southwest Colorado, less than 20 miles from the Four Corners.

When Dolores River flows below McPhee Reservoir were reduced to just 10% of normal in 2021, the tribe was able to operate only eight center pivot sprinklers, compared to its usual capacity of 110 sprinklers. A single center pivot sprinkler system irrigates circles of crops ranging from 32 to 141 acres in area. Lack of water meant fallowed acres, leaving the tribe to use only 500 acres in 2021, compared to 4,500 acres of alfalfa alone grown in 2020.

- More at Water Education Colorado

The Ute Mountain Ute are not alone in their plight. Many farmers are being forced to fallow their fields for lack of irrigation water. Even traditional dryland crops like pinto beans are withering in the fields. The family who own the farm where I live have killer water rights that go all the way back to when this area was first pioneered in the late 1800's. The Utes may go under, but this place would still stand. However the best water rights in the world will do you no good if all the water is just not there.

The difference between irrigated land and land not under cultivation is a real study in contrasts. I have never seen the dry lands so very dry and sere. The native plants like sage and rabbit brush are dry and brittle, just waiting for a lightening strike or a power line or a careless motorist to set everything on fire. The smoke and haze from the nearby fires in New Mexico continue to blanket the so-called Great Sage Valley here in Colorado. Sometimes I can't even see the Sleeping Ute Mountain for all the haze.

The desert seems to be winning this particular battle,

[Techy02]

I've seen some pretty interesting videos on lake Mead lately. Darn near looking like a puddle

[sammy87]

Originally Posted by atler8

The mayor of Glenwood Springs is featured in this video at 1 minute 28 seconds as he speaks to the earlier than ever onset of "..fire restrictions...".

People who are paying attention already know this to be true but there are those who have their heads in the sand, so to speak.

From all appearances, this may be yet another "wake up call" summer across much of the west and southwest.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/08/weath...day/index.html

Even though it is drier....most fires are started by ppl. The NM fire recently, largest in state history was started by Forest service LOL. All the big CO fires are human started. I remember last year I was up Coal Creek with my dog and some family from Wisconsin was asking me where to get firewood. They ignored all 10 signs on their way up about no fires....I told them it was dry as F and not to but they were like oh well we camp all the time in WI we know what we're doing...Fires and water are part of the reason we moved from hte west. Got tired of keeping the kids inside during summer months to avoid smoke.