Storing Water for a Dry Day Leads to Suits

[phantom power]

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Peter Key knew something was strange when the water levels in his tropical fish tank began to go down last summer. Then the washing machine took 40 minutes to fill, and the toilets would not flush.

But even as Mr. Key and neighbors spent $14,000 to deepen their community well here, they had identified a likely culprit.

They blamed water banking, a system in which water-rights holders — mostly in the rural West — store water in underground reservoirs either for their own future use or for leasing to fast-growing urban areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/science/earth/27waterbank.html

[Ship of Fools]

1. ... and then the water wars began ...

[Froward69]

2. This Year Colorado has Above average Water levels

The Snow was DEEP and it has been raining every evening all summer long. the reservoirs here are all full and the excess is sent down stream. I read an estimate that there is enough excess water this year to re-fill lake powell and lake Mead. possibly filling all water storage facilities to capacity. Possibly even enough excess water this year to allow the Colorado River to actually reach the Pacific ocean. (The Colorado hasn't had enough water to reach the Pacific in 20 years.)

It is up to communities downstream to store all that water for future droughts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22snow.html?pagewanted=all

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/05/04/record-snowpack-good-for-colorado/

[Kolesar]

3. Relax, Jack

It's Chinatown