Feds Project Lake Mead Below Drought Trigger Point In 2017

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Federal water managers released a report Monday projecting that Lake Mead's water levels will fall below a point in January 2017 that would force supply cuts to Arizona and Nevada.

The effects could be serious. Arizona's allocation of Colorado River water could be cut 11.4 percent, or by an amount normally used by more than 600,000 homes. Nevada's share could be reduced 4.3 percent. Think 26,000 homes.

But officials heading water agencies in the two states and California took a wait-and-see approach to the projections posted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

They pointed to fluctuations in precipitation levels just since January. They added that more will be known in August when the bureau knows how much runoff in the upper-basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming reaches the Lake Powell reservoir.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WESTERN_WATER_DROUGHT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-18-21-35-26

[padfun]

1. This is going to get real interesting.

I knew it was getting close. They have to cut the water going out or the electrical turbines wont have water to turn them.
And with a drought on top of the usage, that lake is in big trouble. Phoenix and Las Vegas will be hit and by the looks of the numbers, Las Vegas is losing a lot less than Arizona. Phoenix still has the 4 lakes up the Salt River but they will still feel that loss in the state.

[sweetloukillbot]

2. Hoping this El Nino works some magic...

I just read a new sci-fi novel about water rights along the Colorado and Civil War between Phoenix and Las Vegas and, as a Phoenix resident, it terrified me.

[Xithras]

3. What's the name of the book?

I ask because that's also the premise of an actual analysis called 'Drowning America' that I read several years ago. In that piece, several scholars proposed that water shortages are the single greatest threat to America today, and that wars over water are statistically the most probable reason for America to break apart into multiple nations. While political and demographic trends can add stress to a nation, civil wars usually only come about when changes actually threaten the lives and the immediate future of those in the insurrection area. People don't go to war over theoretical issues or problems that might be a threat years down the line, but over issues that are a clear and present danger to their existence RIGHT NOW. They examined all of the various stressors in America and determined that water shortages are (by far) the thing most likely to pit various areas of the United States against each other. Given the various other sociopolitical problems in the United States, they also concluded that it's unlikely that the U.S. could meld back into a single nation again afterward.

[sweetloukillbot]

4. It's called "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi

Dystopian thriller - it comes out next week.
The gist is that years of drought and global warming have pretty much rendered the southern US uninhabitable. Texas is either under rising coastlines or a dustbowl. So Texans have been migrating to California and Las Vegas, places that still have strong control of Water from the Colorado. But they're turned away by armed militias that engage in guerilla warfare across the state borders Phoenix doesn't anymore since the Central Arizona Project was destroyed. But a lawyer in Phoenix may have discovered water rights to the Colorado that supercede California and Vegas. The story follows a hit man from Vegas and an investigative journalist in Phoenix as they try to uncover these mysterious water rights.

The book references Cadillac Desert quite a bit as well. It's really, really good and kind of terrifying.