lake mead dry by 2021?

some scary conclusions by this report:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/this-is-what-wa.html

can't believe everything you read. Interesting, but I don't see that happening.

The article I saw also included Powell.

Actuallly, not to hard to beleive. With explosive population growth and arrid conditions, I can see how it may be possible.

people need to stop breeding like bacteria

I don't think breading is the problem. The problem is our borders.

isn't the snowfall for the rockies up this year? plez correct if I am wrong.

Someone please bookmark this article and bring it back in 5 years. Weren't we supposed to be out of gas this year according to 1970s studies?

According to some interpretations of Nostradomus, the end of the world is coming in 2012. Ride on.

There was a bad drought 2 years ago in Texas. I read a article about Lake Lavon (local lake), that said it was so low that it was past recovery. 6 months later it was 12 feet over normal, so you never know.

Where will Vegas get electricity?

this article is a joke and should be treated as such. environmental propaganda at its finest!

It makes the statement that snowpack supplies the water and the snowpack is shrinking. The assumption appears to be....Therefore so is the amount of water.

I think you would have to look at total percipitation to come to this conclusion.

By the way, which direction does water flow?

Nostradomus... you mean Nostrafullofsh*t???

Here's another interesting story... this one from National Geographic entitled "Drying of the West".

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/drying-west/kunzig-text

I was the photo assistant on that story so naturally got to see everything firsthand... was very interesting. There's a photo from Lake Powell in the gallery.

Don't disregard it even if you think it's complete BS. Change is happening very quickly and for a number of reasons. We surely could use a few very wet winters to get things back up, but that may not be the case as climates are shifting.

What is more probable is that Mojave and Powell are kept at a minimum level to keep the electric going, but they simply will not have enough flow to fill them back up.

The Colorado River is barely a trickle by the time it get's to the Pacific, but hey, we all have nice green lawns right??

ya I just love it when we have to go on water restrictions here in Colorado and our lakes go dry all so Las Vegas and Phoenix can have green lawns. I think we need to keep more of "our" water here since it starts here. so why should we have to suffer

Study this, the forcasters this whole winter have been telling us "this is it, the last storm" It hasn't been the last storm, powder day today up in Aspen. The lakes will go back up! Water-data.com

Well to me it seems like nothing to really worry about, at least not this year. The southwestern rockies have been getting hit harder than I can ever remember (lived in CO all my life). All of the storms have been dropping 2-3 feet of snow and there doesn't seem to be any letting up in sight. Now I'm gonna say something here that might offend some people, but this just seems like an extreme liberal rant to me. We all know that global warming is an issue but to completely dry out Mead or Powell would be a drought of many many years. Look at it this way, There is the same amount of water on the Earth when it was formed as there is now. It moves places and shifts just like weather patterns. No matter what it will recover and come back as it always does. Well that is what I have to say about that.

The world's going to end in 2012 anyway according to the Mayan calender, so big woop on Mead drying up nine years later, duh

But in all seriousness, where does all the water go once people use it? It might become displaced, but eventually I would venture a guess that it would likely end up right back in the atmosphere.



I'd be more concerned with contamination than people watering their lawns in the summer.

Dubbe..

in vegas there are serious water restrictions...cali and az take all of our water, look at their lawns..we dont even get our drinking water from Mead

I do know that there are restrictions in Vegas cause I own a house there. I just went out and zeroscaped the whole yard and its a big yard. I do agree cali and az take it all. but when I'm out there I still see people watering like crazy. And I agree with Patrick all the way. It would take years and years to dry out those lakes and thats with severe droughts. I think they are still suffering from the drought that we had here in colorado 1998 thru 2004 its gonna take a few more years to catch up

@sinko and patrick - if it was that simple there'd never be any problems with drought. it's not the total volume of water on earth that's changing - it's the distribution and form of it, and that can have radical effects on climate for human beings.

the saraha had a period of a few thousand years of lush vegetation and habitation. just because a region is a certain way doesn't mean it will stay that way, and what is temporary in geological time frames can mean thousands of years for us.

1st I went to a meeting about lake mead at the Southern Nevada Water Authority a few months ago and lake mead is expected to rise this year. They are also building a new dam at the boarder of Mexico that will increase available water for us. California has been taking more water than they are alloted for many years and refuses to decrease use.

All the power from the dam goes to LA.

Speaking of predictions of powell going dry too. If anyone is curious on how it will look dry... or rather how it used to look with no water, check out the movie "The Greatest Story Ever Told" It is a movie about Christ filmed in lake powell, before the lake was made.

Dubbe and Johnny Wake LV,

the idea of Az and Cali "taking" your water is a matter of interpretation.

The law of most Southwest States is "prior appropriation." In other words whoever claims it first gets it.

Think of this scenario. You build a house and a farm on a beautiful river. You use some of the river water to run the farm. 20 years later the river stops flowing. "Hey, what the &*#$!!!" you think. You go up the river and find out that twenty other people have built homes and farms farther up the river and their water use takes all the water. "Finders keepers, losers weepers" they say.

Is that fair?

The way the law works right now is that the water you use on the river is protected even if someone starts using it farther upstream. Az and Cali used and claimed a lot of the water before anyone else (not that there was much idea of how much water there really was to claim at the time.) There was eventually a 7 state compact to allocate the water. I'll admit that Nevada gets totally screwed in the whole deal but blame that on their politicians in the 1920s.

On another note, a TON of the water from Lake Mead that goes to Cali and Az is actually used in farming. Breeding has very little to do with the water use, unless your referring to cattle and planting breeding. I don't know for sure about Cali but about 80% of Az's Colorado River Water goes to agriculture. (And agriculture is basically the stupidest way to use water in Az since it is a poor state farming and ranching.)

The National Bureau of Recreation has said that they think the Scripps study (2021) is highly unrealistic BUT for a few years now the various involved government agencies have been studying how to handle a drought situation that would eventually severly drop the water levels in Powell and Mead. They're not wasting time and money on these studies because it's an unlikely possibility.

(Message edited by joshugan on February 16, 2008)

so cal is the one using all the water. instead of using a broom to clean the pavement they use the water hose. my neighbor told me when he lived in so cal he use to turn off peoples water that had it running too long. dam so cal

I think there are too many stupid theories based on stupid thoughts. about 75% of my school thinks the world will end in 2012 because the mayans said so. theres no "this is how..." etc, just "the world will end. as far as I know, the sun will super nova about 3000 years from now, thats a while away, it's not 2012. I know that a meteor might collide with the earth friday, april 13, 2029. and if it doesnt, then in 2036, but thats also not the end of the world.

I think there are too many stupid theories based on stupid thoughts. about 75% of my school thinks the world will end in 2012 because the mayans said so. theres no "this is how..." etc, just "the world will end." as far as I know, the sun will super nova about 3000 years from now, thats a while away, it's not 2012. I know that a meteor might collide with the earth friday, april 13, 2029. and if it doesnt, then in 2036, but thats also not the end of the world.

It is a very fasinating subject. But Lake Mead isn't going anywhere. There is a lot of water lost to mexico and that is why they are building another damn or detention facility of some sort.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2680516

just more knowledge for ya. you have to admit, thriving, growing communities do need water and where do they plan on taking it from? how much growth has vegas alone had in the past 5 years?

i didn't read the ksl thing word for word, but the mentioning of the dam not being able to generate electricity is NOTHING compared to the fact that the nearby power plant wont be able to either because it uses water from powell for coolent. The elec from the Navajo Generating Station supplies parts of nevada and california. nearby page and arizona in general don't ever get any of the power if i remember correctly