Ever Shrinking Lake Mead

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I was wondering as well if California has taken advantage of all the rain and filled every lake and tried to keep as much water as possible.

Hahahahahahhaha…hahahaha!

That was a good one GH85!

[daepp]

Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is the last of the reservoirs to be built. It's the end of the line for MWD. Planned in the 70's and finished in the 90's (I think).

Unfortunately, California's water system was designed for a state of 20 million people - we are now close to 40 million.

[Daves911L]

Browsing the NRCS streamflow forecasts earlier this month. Of course January forecasts are nothing to hang your hat on, as there is still lots of winter yet to come. Currently 107% of median for Powell (the delivery point that counts). That won't make a dent in the problem especially when one considers that the 30 year POR now includes the past 28 years of generally poor runoffs, and that NRCS switched from % of avg to % of median a number of years back.

Was at a water conference last week and lots of discussion on the Colorado. Many presentations by both Reclamation and upper basin managers. Upper basin folks rather pointedly, and correctly, stated they have been making allocations based on inflow percentage almost since the beginning. Then compared that practice to lower basin states that have depended on expected project yield to take essentially a full allocation (and then some!) every year. Seemed to telegraph a coming showdown between the upper basin states that cooperated extensively in the last negotiated drought agreement, and the lower basin states. Reclamation folks for their part made it clear that power generation at the two reservoirs was their only focus. Nothing really unexpected about that, but I'd never heard them say it so directly and unashamedly. Interesting times.

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by daepp

Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is the last of the reservoirs to be built. It's the end of the line for MWD. Planned in the 70's and finished in the 90's (I think).

Unfortunately, California's water system was designed for a state of 20 million people - we are now close to 40 million.

Well, 90% of CA water use is agricultural so it is more about the highly productive farming than population. Hopefully they can move to less water dependent crops and bring water use closer to parity with reliable water resources. If they had a bunch of nukes then desalination would be viable but... had to shut all but one down because of the Greens.

Water will be the next gold rush in the southwest as climate changes over time. Widespread farming in AZ and the Coachella valley is now probably over.

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by Daves911L

Browsing the NRCS streamflow forecasts earlier this month. Of course January forecasts are nothing to hang your hat on, as there is still lots of winter yet to come. Currently 107% of median for Powell (the delivery point that counts). That won't make a dent in the problem especially when one considers that the 30 year POR now includes the past 28 years of generally poor runoffs, and that NRCS switched from % of avg to % of median a number of years back.

Was at a water conference last week and lots of discussion on the Colorado. Many presentations by both Reclamation and upper basin managers. Upper basin folks rather pointedly, and correctly, stated they have been making allocations based on inflow percentage almost since the beginning. Then compared that practice to lower basin states that have depended on expected project yield to take essentially a full allocation (and then some!) every year. Seemed to telegraph a coming showdown between the upper basin states that cooperated extensively in the last negotiated drought agreement, and the lower basin states. Reclamation folks for their part made it clear that power generation at the two reservoirs was their only focus. Nothing really unexpected about that, but I'd never heard them say it so directly and unashamedly. Interesting times.

This looks somewhat analogous to how they spend money in DC. They spend tons of money on worthless crap knowing full well that when important crises pop up like infrastructure collapse or major natural disasters occur nobody’s gonna say, ‘Sorry, there’s no money.’ Instead, they’ll just print more of it debt ceiling be damned.

[KFC911]

^^^^ Hey .... I just got my 50th credit card .... money is no longer an issue!

signed,

Every politician in my lifetime

[RNajarian]

Well it looks like Lake Mead is slowly refilling. Water level is up over 15 feet from the January 2023 low.

https://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp

Likely they have restricted how much water is being released downstream. Hopefully the heavy winter rains are the main reason for the improvement.