Can the Southwest Survive With Less Water?

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Sometime next month, for the first time, the federal government is likely to declare a water shortage at Lake Mead.

This vast turquoise reservoir, formed in 1935 when the Hoover Dam corked the Colorado River in Arizona and Nevada, is part of a broader network of natural and artificial aqueducts and dams that supplies water to 40 million people and homes, farms, manufacturers and businesses across several states, tribal lands and parts of Mexico. Lights stay on in Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles and other Southwestern cities because Hoover Dam hydropower helps generate the region’s electricity.

But the lake is shrinking, faster and sooner than hydrologists and other experts predicted. A stark white band of dry rock, 120 feet wide, circles its craggy perimeter, marking how far the water line has fallen in the ongoing drought. Locals call it the “bathtub ring.”



....(snip)....

Arizona has spent decades preparing for droughts, and the state believes it can use water-sharing agreements to aid farmers when the first big cutback happens. Chipmakers have become deft water recyclers and say that they can work with a more limited supply. Developers claim to be observing strict local regulations on sustainable water usage. But even experts who have spent their careers tackling water-management issues in the state recognize why this moment resonates.

“We’re about to declare the first water shortage ever on the Colorado River,” says Chuck Collum, a program manager for the Central Arizona Project, an agency that delivers Lake Mead water to the state. “It will be emotional to be here when that happens.”

“This isn’t just an Arizona problem. This is a Colorado River basin problem,” he adds. “We’re linked by this river, so problems in Phoenix are problems in Las Vegas.” .........(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-opinion-us-drought-southwest-arizona-water-crisis/?srnd=premium

[Wounded Bear]

1. Looks like they're gonna have to...

[WheelWalker]

2. No

[MoonRiver]

3. Maybe, if they end factory farming.

[MLAA]

5. Exactly, +1000

[BarbaRosa]

4. I guess we'll see.

Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico

[Takket]

6. Meanwhile the AZ senate is spending all its time on the fraudit

And when they do declare the shortage Fann and her goons will say it is all a liberal hoax, and tell everyone in AZ to leave their sprinklers on 24/7 until their homes flood to “own the libs”

Get ready for a bad situation to get even worse by right wing politicizing.

[PortTack]

9. Yes, the gqp is laser focused on a fraudit that is worthless, while the whole state needs real

Long term solutions to their water shortage

Yes, conservation measures are useful, but that is only a band aid....WAKE UP!!

[PortTack]

7. They can make some changes, no green lawns, other things. But the real issue as mentioned

Is growing alhalfa.

[peggysue2]

8. The answer is No

Without a miracle, the southwest will become uninhabitable over the next 30-50 years. Perhaps, sooner.

This is just the beginning.

[jalan48]

10. The Anasazi disappeared in 1200 after living in the Four Corners area for centuries.

"Scientists think they know why the Ancestral Puebloans disappeared. The primary culprit, studies suggest, was a megadrought that would have made it impossible to grow enough food to feed the tens of thousands of people living in the region. That, combined with factors like deforestation and topsoil erosion, led the Ancestral Pueblos to leave their homes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde in search of a better life elsewhere"


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/vanished-people-may-live-us-southwest

While we debate whether or not we can afford to change our ways, or divide ourselves withr our identity politics squabbles the earth becomes more inhospitable.

[alittlelark]

17. Xeriscape - and get rid of H2O suckers like Intel

Fine water wasters big $$$.

[Kaleva]

11. The people left there are climate change deniers,...

those who think they are advanced in age enough that they'll die before it gets really bad, those who are financially unable to move, and those who give lip service to the coming catastrophe but go about their daily lives like everything is hunky-dory.

[former9thward]

13. "The people left there"?

You talk as if the SW is schrinking. Its not. The SW states grow by the day. And CA is in much worse shape than AZ.

[Kaleva]

14. which means there are far more of those I described then there are those

who are well aware of the coming catastrophe and have already moved to other regions which are expected to be not as hard hit by climate change or even become more hospitable for human habitation.

[Shellback Squid]

12. golf courses

[Klaralven]

15. The entire SW west of the Rockies is in exceptional drought or extreme drought

That includes all the Colorado River Basin except some headwaters up in Wyoming.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

[alphafemale]

16. Not in the way they are accustomed.

No more green golf courses.
No more beautiful green lawns.
No swimming pools.
No water parks.

[JCMach1]

18. Not necessarily ... All of those but pools can use gray water...

That's what they do in Dubai

[hunter]

19. Urban users can afford desalinated and recycled water. Farmers can't. That's the core problem

Desalinated water is currently advertised at "a half cent per gallon" at lower elevations, which isn't going to break any middle class budget for interior household use. A penny to flush the toilet, a dime to take a shower. The energy cost for a shower is already four times greater than that water cost for gas water heaters, and more for electricity.

Cities like Las Vegas or Phoenix will probably be around long after the farmers are gone so long as temperatures there don't become deadly. A city where everyone dies if there is a power failure is not really viable.

Using natural gas to desalinate seawater would be insane, even with supplemental wind or solar power because fossil fuels caused this problem. Nuclear power would be a better option. The same goes for air conditioning.

Unlike the Anasazi, modern transportation technology allows cities to exist without locally grown food. Even basic foods like corn and beans are traded across the world. The Anasazi were limited to however much food or water a human could carry.

Cities where most food is imported by ship, railroad, and truck are common today.

Water imported by similar means would be very expensive, even if most of the water in a dry city was continuously recycled.