[bumpersignal]

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Check out the video that shows 30 year timelapse of the entire world, and they highlight Lake Mead's shrinkage due to Vegas growth. Has anyone given any thought to what happens when it dries up (which looks like could potentially be soon).

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by bumpersignal

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Check out the video that shows 30 year time lapse of the entire world, and they highlight Lake Mead's shrinkage due to Vegas growth. Has anyone given any thought to what happens when it dries up (which looks like could potentially be soon).

First of all, Lake Mead's shrinkage has very little to do with the growth of Las Vegas. It has to do with the decade long drought in the Rockies. The water in the Colorado River comes from snow melt in the Rocky Mountains - specifically, the west slope of the Rockies. Snow on the east slope goes inland. When the drought ends, it will take several years of above average snowfall to bring the lake back up. But keep in mind that Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam are upstream from us, and should never have been built. But still, they control how much water goes down stream starting there. One year they waited too long to release water from Lake Powell and they almost took out both dams. They had almost more water pouring over the spillways then the spillways could handle.

The water in the lake is measured by elevation above sea level of the surface, not depth, which varies a lot. It has a long way to go before it would dry up, and that's never likely to happen in our lifetimes.

When Hoover (formerly Boulder) Dam was built, Las Vegas was just a place on the map where the trains stopped for water (which back then came from the underground aquifer we now call The Springs Preserve). Back then in the 1930's no one even dreamed of Las Vegas growing to 20,000 let alone 2,000,000, so Nevada did not demand much water from Lake Mead. Arizona and California got many times more of the water than Nevada did because they had farms to irrigate and we didn't. That treaty has been in effect since the 1930's, and despite the Nevada delegation to the Colorado River Commission trying many times to get more water from the dams on the river, the Department of the Interior has never changed the terms.

So until someone can convince the Feds to give us a larger allocation we will have to look elsewhere for water. And that is why the SNWA has caused such a stir in the cow counties where they want to tap into the natural springs up in Lincoln and (I think) White Pine Counties.

[lvoc]

Hmm Lake Mead is 167,900 or so acres. Each acre loses 7 acre feet of water to evaporation.

So if we could figure out how to cover 50,000 acres of Lake Mead we could double the water allocation to Las Vegas.

How about ping pong balls? Maybe with a magnetic coating so they clump together.

A long chain polymer would probably be better. Something that floats a molecule thick on the surface but prevents evaporation.

Maybe dam off a side canyon or two and pump them dry?

Got to be a pony in this pile.

[Willy702]

I have always thought a solar powered cooling system would do wonders for the lake in making it more desirable in summer and in reducing the rate of evaporation.

[ddrhazy]

@lvoc - I remember a picture of rubber balls being dumped into a reservoir to do just that. Not sure which reservoir it was though.

@Buzz - Thanks for the info, do you have links to more forecasts on water usage and proposed solutions?

[clutchcargo777]

I dunno, in the video I just saw there was no dramatic drop. In fact it pulsated back and forth sort of rhythmically. Almost like it is a cyclical thing.

Just another people hating people crusade. They seem to hate growth of any kind. We have made such amazing strides in pollution control since the 1970's, I don't know what the ultimate answer is. Would they be happiest if the human species just went extinct? (well, everyone but them).

[aardogfsu]

yeah, didn't see much of a drop either...also don't you think companies like MGM and others who have invested billions here have done their research?

[ev780]

Originally Posted by Buzz123

<SNIP> When the drought ends, it will take several years of above average snowfall to bring the lake back up. But keep in mind that Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam are upstream from us, and should never have been built. <snip>

WOW. After all this drought people still don't get it. What would have happened if we had not stored water to survive the drought.

It is a water savings account that worked pretty well. Flawless, hardly, but pretty well. Now we just have to make some deposits to refil the account.

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by bumpersignal

... Has anyone given any thought to what happens when it dries up...

Why no -- no one in the history of Nevada has ever thought about water. No one.

If Lake Mead gets low, they can run a garden hose from a nearby house & just fill it up.

[Pretzelogik]

Mojave Desert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia That's why they call it the Mojave DESERT.