WELCOME TO RIVER DAVES PLACE

Draining Lake Powell?

blownbullet

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2019
Messages
50
Reaction score
170
I was just talking to my buddy he was telling me they were considering draining Lake Powell says they only get about 30% of the electricity they should get out of it and if they drained it Glen Canyon would be the next best thing to the Grand Canyon. They are not getting enough water and it is more of a hassle than it’s worth, do you guys think this could happen?
 

hallett21

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2010
Messages
16,856
Reaction score
20,159
There’s a few threads on here about this and mead. I THINK the general consensus is that they want Mead to be lower and that Powell is a better lake to store water.

However we had crap snow pack this year. So it’s compounding the effect and rumors. South of Davis Dam is ripping at full level.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Xtrmwakeboarder

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2018
Messages
4,988
Reaction score
8,052
Saw an article about this earlier this week. Draining it because of the surface area has a lot of evaporation and something about porous limestone. Lol
 

hallett21

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2010
Messages
16,856
Reaction score
20,159
Saw an article about this earlier this week. Draining it because of the surface area has a lot of evaporation and something about porous limestone. Lol

I thought evaporation happened on Mead? Lol I wish they’d get their story straight.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

cofooter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
5,560
Reaction score
8,800
They are confused because the epic snow does not happen every year, terrible planning and 0 fucks about conservation, one bad year and it turns into widespread panic, and everyone is still filling their pools, watering their lawns, and building high density living as well as. New river communities keep popping up everywhere with more demand on river water, let's face it, it's not going to get any better from here over the long haul, that's the problem way before evaporation come into play.The current plan is not sustainable.
 

cofooter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
5,560
Reaction score
8,800
They are confused because the epic snow does not happen every year, terrible planning and 0 fucks about conservation, one bad year and it turns into widespread panic, and everyone is still filling their pools, watering their lawns, and building high density living as well as. New river communities keep popping up everywhere with more demand on river water, let's face it, it's not going to get any better from here over the long haul, that's the problem way before evaporation come into play.The current plan is not sustainable.
And oh yeah. Draining lake Powell is going to leave lake mead as the storage solution for 40M people? Not happening.
 

Boat 405

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2007
Messages
4,441
Reaction score
7,961
I was just talking to my buddy he was telling me they were considering draining Lake Powell says they only get about 30% of the electricity they should get out of it and if they drained it Glen Canyon would be the next best thing to the Grand Canyon. They are not getting enough water and it is more of a hassle than it’s worth, do you guys think this could happen?
Total fake news leftist bullshit.
 

mash on it

Beyond Hell Crew
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
3,602
Reaction score
5,371
I want to know how much water would be in mead and Powell if we did not flush all that water into mexico

Mexico receives 1.5 million acre feet (maf) per year, from the Colorado river compact of 1944.
Minute 319 limits the water in drought years, when Lake Mead is below 1075', the water is cut back by 50,000 acre feet per year, more cuts when Mead goes below 1050 and 1025.

The period the Colorado river was surveyed, from 1905 to 1922, the average flow was both over calculated, and was an unusually wet period (Remember the banks of the Colorado overflowing? No? We call it the Salton Sea now, another California disaster, 1906)

Because of the inadequate data, and the otherwise rainy period, the Colorado had been over allocated for nearly a century.

Dan'l
 

Nanu/Nanu

Don't wait til' life's easy to be happy
Joined
Jul 30, 2020
Messages
2,564
Reaction score
4,603
I think its funny the dams were built for water storage and control. Generating power was to help build the dam and then after wards it could help support local people.

No where in the history of either of these dams did anyone say this is the perfect spot to harness electricity.

It was this would be a good spot to tame the Colorado and conserve water for American farmers in years of drought.

Funny how we're in years of drought but have no water for our farmers.

Reservoirs are for retention not release so Im not sure where the wheel lost a spoke but doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.
 

cofooter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
5,560
Reaction score
8,800
I think its funny the dams were built for water storage and control. Generating power was to help build the dam and then after wards it could help support local people.

No where in the history of either of these dams did anyone say this is the perfect spot to harness electricity.

It was this would be a good spot to tame the Colorado and conserve water for American farmers in years of drought.

Funny how we're in years of drought but have no water for our farmers.

Reservoirs are for retention not release so Im not sure where the wheel lost a spoke but doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.
Really poor planning......
 

The Prisoner

Well-Known RDP Prisoner Inmate #283
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
7,520
Reaction score
13,940
Giant aqueducts from New England to Lake Mead. It’s always raining there. :p
 

HB2Havasu

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
4,433
Reaction score
9,631
The fact is if they stopped using Mead and Powell to generate electricity and instead used it as emergency water storage source & flood control apparatus as it was originally intended then both lakes would be at near capacity levels today. The Hydro Electricity in the dams was built into them as merely a secondary benefit during times of water releases to benefit flood control mitigation. However our genius government leaders over the years have found it as a cheap source of revenue and have now turned it into the primary reason to release water and now have Shit the Bed!
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
2,087
Reaction score
2,031
How about we stop sending water south of the border and start restocking our reservoirs. Same can go with norcal.

so what your saying is NorCal should stop sending water to SoCal, that would keep oroville nice...

..
 

rivermobster

Club Banned
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
56,092
Reaction score
53,031
so what your saying is NorCal should stop sending water to SoCal, that would keep oroville nice...

..

Mexico receives 1.5 million acre feet (maf) per year, from the Colorado river compact of 1944.
Minute 319 limits the water in drought years, when Lake Mead is below 1075', the water is cut back by 50,000 acre feet per year, more cuts when Mead goes below 1050 and 1025.

The period the Colorado river was surveyed, from 1905 to 1922, the average flow was both over calculated, and was an unusually wet period (Remember the banks of the Colorado overflowing? No? We call it the Salton Sea now, another California disaster, 1906)

Because of the inadequate data, and the otherwise rainy period, the Colorado had been over allocated for nearly a century.

Dan'l

Oh they knew...

They just ignored the data. Great post. 👍
 

Racey

Maxwell Smart-Ass
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
21,307
Reaction score
45,373
I think its funny the dams were built for water storage and control. Generating power was to help build the dam and then after wards it could help support local people.

No where in the history of either of these dams did anyone say this is the perfect spot to harness electricity.

It was this would be a good spot to tame the Colorado and conserve water for American farmers in years of drought.

Funny how we're in years of drought but have no water for our farmers.

Reservoirs are for retention not release so Im not sure where the wheel lost a spoke but doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Exactly, it's water storage, and flood control first, power generation second.

The bottom line here is there is no vast conspiracy, they issued more water rights than water back in the 20s with the river compact. They had misjudged total flows on average, they expected 16 million acre feet per and issued water rights accordingly, 7.5million to the upper basin states, 7.5 million to the lower basin. Well actual flows are closer to 13 million per year. For the first 80 years it didn't matter because nobody was using their full allocations of water, they didn't need it, there wasn't enough population to demand the crops.

Well 80 years into the future and now the water rights are being fully exercised, the water owners have a legal right to their water good bad or indifferent. The giant California farm conglomerates call the Bureau of Reclamation and raise hell about their water deliveries, the Bureau has to oblige them. This comes from a good friend of mine, he works at the Bureau, we went to Jr High and Highschool together and was just at my shop yesterday. He said these huge farm companies put their nuts in a vice over getting their water. He flat out said it's "Over Allocation" period.

From the lower basin region the water is allocated each year:
California 4.4 Million Acre Feet
Arizona 2.8
Nevada 0.3
Mexico 1.5

Mead at full pool is 26 million acre feet, at current capacity it only has about 9 million acre feet. Well guess what, their minimum release is 9 million acre feet per year. (4.4+2.8+0.3+1.5 = 9)

When Mead enters an extreme drought condition lake level below 1025 guess how much California's water allotment gets reduced..... anyone?.... ZERO.
Arizona gets a reduction of something stupid like 0.3 million acre feet, and Nevada's reduction is even more miniscule based on the small amount it gets at all.

So basically the drought reductions are absolutely meaningless.

This will continue until the compact is renegotiated, and there are gonna be a lot of pissed off land owners that have big $$$ equity in water rights that aren't gonna let it happen without a fight.
 

rivermobster

Club Banned
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
56,092
Reaction score
53,031
Exactly, it's water storage, and flood control first, power generation second.

The bottom line here is there is no vast conspiracy, they issued more water rights than water back in the 20s with the river compact. They had misjudged total flows on average, they expected 16 million acre feet per and issued water rights accordingly, 7.5million to the upper basin states, 7.5 million to the lower basin. Well actual flows are closer to 13 million per year. For the first 80 years it didn't matter because nobody was using their full allocations of water, they didn't need it, there wasn't enough population to demand the crops.

Well 80 years into the future and now the water rights are being fully exercised, the water owners have a legal right to their water good bad or indifferent. The giant California farm conglomerates call the Bureau of Reclamation and raise hell about their water deliveries, the Bureau has to oblige them. This comes from a good friend of mine, he works at the Bureau, we went to Jr High and Highschool together and was just at my shop yesterday. He said these huge farm companies put their nuts in a vice over getting their water. He flat out said it's "Over Allocation" period.

From the lower basin region the water is allocated each year:
California 4.4 Million Acre Feet
Arizona 2.8
Nevada 0.3
Mexico 1.5

Mead at full pool is 26 million acre feet, at current capacity it only has about 9 million acre feet. Well guess what, their minimum release is 9 million acre feet per year. (4.4+2.8+0.3+1.5 = 9)

When Mead enters an extreme drought condition lake level below 1025 guess how much California's water allotment gets reduced..... anyone?.... ZERO.
Arizona gets a reduction of something stupid like 0.3 million acre feet, and Nevada's reduction is even more miniscule based on the small amount it gets at all.

So basically the drought reductions are absolutely meaningless.

This will continue until the compact is renegotiated, and there are gonna be a lot of pissed off land owners that have big $$$ equity in water rights that aren't gonna let it happen without a fight.

CA is closed BTW. Just wanted to mention that! 😁
 

SoCalDave

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
12,574
Reaction score
28,119
I've said this a million times, redirect a small portion of the Columbia River to So Cal and we're set and done. That river dumps on average 265,000 cubic feet per second into the Pacific Ocean. That's a staggering number of 8,357,040,000,000 cubic feet annually.
 

DaveH

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2008
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
3,379
we can build an oil pipeline from Canada to texas......but cant build a water pipeline to bring in water? sounds F'd up to me.

i just got back. the lake level is so low its staggering. the big basins are simply GONE.......all but one launch ramp is closed.

the good news is there is plenty of sandy new beaches to hang out on and surprisingly, for as low as the water is, there really isn't a bunch of hazards at or near the water line to be a problem.
 

rrrr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
14,984
Reaction score
32,559
The fact is if they stopped using Mead and Powell to generate electricity and instead used it as emergency water storage source & flood control apparatus as it was originally intended then both lakes would be at near capacity levels today. The Hydro Electricity in the dams was built into them as merely a secondary benefit during times of water releases to benefit flood control mitigation. However our genius government leaders over the years have found it as a cheap source of revenue and have now turned it into the primary reason to release water and now have Shit the Bed!

I don't think that's accurate. The water allocations based on the amended 1922 Seven States agreement and the treaty with Mexico have released more water than inflows can make up for years.

I haven't seen any studies that address this particular issue, comparing generation flows to downstream allocations.

Regarding draining western lakes, fools in Northern California are calling for the draining of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and removal of the dam. It's been there for over 100 years.

The reservoir provides 30% of the Bay Area's drinking water. Not only that, if it were drained, the valley would be an ecological disaster. It would take decades for substantial plant life to grow on the slopes, and until that happened, erosion from rain and snowmelt would send millions of tons of silt and debris downriver, further destroying the valley and habitat for wildlife.

You have to be a special kind of idiot to be a tree hugger.
 

Racey

Maxwell Smart-Ass
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
21,307
Reaction score
45,373
The fact is if they stopped using Mead and Powell to generate electricity and instead used it as emergency water storage source & flood control apparatus as it was originally intended then both lakes would be at near capacity levels today. The Hydro Electricity in the dams was built into them as merely a secondary benefit during times of water releases to benefit flood control mitigation. However our genius government leaders over the years have found it as a cheap source of revenue and have now turned it into the primary reason to release water and now have Shit the Bed!

Thats not accurate at all, They make power only on the water release that has been allocated. The power generation is 100% a secondary feature. They don't release water just to make power.
 

MK1MOD0

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2019
Messages
3,429
Reaction score
6,635
I've said this a million times, redirect a small portion of the Columbia River to So Cal and we're set and done. That river dumps on average 265,000 cubic feet per second into the Pacific Ocean. That's a staggering number of 8,357,040,000,000 cubic feet annually.


Yep. I’ve said the same thing. It’s only about 400 miles from the Columbia river to the northern most part of the CA aquaduct. ......PROBLEM SOLVED !
 

530RL

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2012
Messages
21,175
Reaction score
20,147
If the water users continue to take more water out each year than is naturally replenished each year, it will drain on its own.

No need to make any decisions or worry about it. Simple math will make the decision for us.

For those who drive between Parker and Havasu regularly, and wonder why the name Mark Wilmer is on the AZ CAP pump station, here is why.

 

rivermobster

Club Banned
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
56,092
Reaction score
53,031
If the water users continue to take more water out each year than is naturally replenished each year, it will drain on its own.

No need to make any decisions or worry about it. Simple math will make the decision for us.

For those who drive between Parker and Havasu regularly, and wonder why the name Mark Wilmer is on the AZ CAP pump station, here is why.


Cool read. 👍
 

Racey

Maxwell Smart-Ass
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
21,307
Reaction score
45,373
BTW, per the compacts/agreements according to my guy at the BoR, which kind of blew my mind, they have to shut off the Wilmer pumping plant completely before CA has to give up a single ounce of it's water allocation.
 

530RL

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2012
Messages
21,175
Reaction score
20,147
we can build an oil pipeline from Canada to texas......but cant build a water pipeline to bring in water? sounds F'd up to me.

i just got back. the lake level is so low its staggering. the big basins are simply GONE.......all but one launch ramp is closed.

the good news is there is plenty of sandy new beaches to hang out on and surprisingly, for as low as the water is, there really isn't a bunch of hazards at or near the water line to be a problem.


The largest pipeline in the world today delivers about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day.

1.6 million barrels a day at 42 US gallons per barrel is 67,200,000 gallons a day.

An acre foot is 326,000 gallons, so the largest pipeline in existence today pumps about 206.135 acre feet per day.

The upper and lower basin each get 7.5 million acre feet per year for a total of 15 million acre feet. That equals about 41,095.89 acre feet per day on a 365 day year.

The government believes in 2010 CA used approximately 42 million acre feet of water or 115,068 acre feet per day.

Unfortunately 206 acre feet isn't going to solve the problem. Even if they built a pipeline five times the existing largest pipeline it would supply less than 1% of CA's water needs per day.

Even the CAP in Arizona only carries 1.4 million acre feet a year. That would help but the CAP took 20 years and cost 4 billion starting in 1973. And it is mainly a downhill open ditch in the desert. :oops::oops:
 

mjc

Retired Neighbor
Joined
Jan 3, 2008
Messages
11,769
Reaction score
8,772
Exactly, it's water storage, and flood control first, power generation second.

The bottom line here is there is no vast conspiracy, they issued more water rights than water back in the 20s with the river compact. They had misjudged total flows on average, they expected 16 million acre feet per and issued water rights accordingly, 7.5million to the upper basin states, 7.5 million to the lower basin. Well actual flows are closer to 13 million per year. For the first 80 years it didn't matter because nobody was using their full allocations of water, they didn't need it, there wasn't enough population to demand the crops.

Well 80 years into the future and now the water rights are being fully exercised, the water owners have a legal right to their water good bad or indifferent. The giant California farm conglomerates call the Bureau of Reclamation and raise hell about their water deliveries, the Bureau has to oblige them. This comes from a good friend of mine, he works at the Bureau, we went to Jr High and Highschool together and was just at my shop yesterday. He said these huge farm companies put their nuts in a vice over getting their water. He flat out said it's "Over Allocation" period.

From the lower basin region the water is allocated each year:
California 4.4 Million Acre Feet
Arizona 2.8
Nevada 0.3
Mexico 1.5

Mead at full pool is 26 million acre feet, at current capacity it only has about 9 million acre feet. Well guess what, their minimum release is 9 million acre feet per year. (4.4+2.8+0.3+1.5 = 9)

When Mead enters an extreme drought condition lake level below 1025 guess how much California's water allotment gets reduced..... anyone?.... ZERO.
Arizona gets a reduction of something stupid like 0.3 million acre feet, and Nevada's reduction is even more miniscule based on the small amount it gets at all.

So basically the drought reductions are absolutely meaningless.

This will continue until the compact is renegotiated, and there are gonna be a lot of pissed off land owners that have big $$$ equity in water rights that aren't gonna let it happen without a fight.
this nothing will get better until the water rights are renegotiated and something needs to be done with all the farmers in AZ that can drill and pump whatever they want with no accountability, then they we have sold those farms to the Saudi's who don't care about the water use at all.
 

mesquito_creek

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Messages
3,623
Reaction score
5,994
The other problem with long distance aqueducts and pipelines is the fact that water is a relatively heavy, non compressible fluid that under certain conditions can be the most corrosive substance on the planet. You would have to build the pipe out of unobtanium to move that much water at that velocity for any reasonable amount of time.
 

DaveH

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2008
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
3,379
i cringe at the replies telling us how we cant fix this.

just like Obummer telling us we cant "drill our way out of an energy crisis"........only to go on to become the largest energy producer in the world.

this is STILL AMERICA....where we build things to overcome obstacles and support our way of life. sure, maybe mathematically a single pipeline cant support ALL the water CA needs. that's not the point. you have to start somewhere and find solutions that involve multiple avenues to support the end goal. it wont be fixed over night. but we DO have the ability to address this and fix it......if the politicians and their lobbyists would get out of the way.
 

rivermobster

Club Banned
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Messages
56,092
Reaction score
53,031
i cringe at the replies telling us how we cant fix this.

just like Obummer telling us we cant "drill our way out of an energy crisis"........only to go on to become the largest energy producer in the world.

this is STILL AMERICA....where we build things to overcome obstacles and support our way of life. sure, maybe mathematically a single pipeline cant support ALL the water CA needs. that's not the point. you have to start somewhere and find solutions that involve multiple avenues to support the end goal. it wont be fixed over night. but we DO have the ability to address this and fix it......if the politicians and their lobbyists would get out of the way.

Fuck yeah!!!

👍 👍👍👍👍
 

Todd Mohr

Will Race For Beer
Joined
Feb 26, 2019
Messages
1,407
Reaction score
3,657
Yep. I’ve said the same thing. It’s only about 400 miles from the Columbia river to the northern most part of the CA aquaduct. ......PROBLEM SOLVED !
It would be impossible to get Washington State to agree to divert water, very environmental politics up north. I agree it would be a great plan, but not going to happen.
 

mesquito_creek

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Messages
3,623
Reaction score
5,994
i cringe at the replies telling us how we cant fix this.

just like Obummer telling us we cant "drill our way out of an energy crisis"........only to go on to become the largest energy producer in the world.

this is STILL AMERICA....where we build things to overcome obstacles and support our way of life. sure, maybe mathematically a single pipeline cant support ALL the water CA needs. that's not the point. you have to start somewhere and find solutions that involve multiple avenues to support the end goal. it wont be fixed over night. but we DO have the ability to address this and fix it......if the politicians and their lobbyists would get out of the way.

I don't disagree with you, but asking the gov't to fix the problem is the problem. Even saying "we" can fix this,... who is "we". Everyone on this site complains about people from other states and says "we are closed", so I am not hopeful for interstate based solutions.

The American way is to procrastinate long enough until it rains again and then say "see, I told you so"!.. But seriously, I am of a self reliance mindset so I am not going to worry about it as in as much as I can adapt to new normal with lack of water. If there is to be a better solution, I hope it's a market based solution and not another FDR style WPA.
 
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
2,087
Reaction score
2,031
Yep. I’ve said the same thing. It’s only about 400 miles from the Columbia river to the northern most part of the CA aquaduct. ......PROBLEM SOLVED !

the problem can be solved without leaving the state...
the north western quarter of california is a sometimes rainforest. the eel, russian, klamath, and smith rivers all ripe for dams. only drawback is it's tree hugger central.

..
 

Racey

Maxwell Smart-Ass
Joined
Sep 18, 2007
Messages
21,307
Reaction score
45,373
i cringe at the replies telling us how we cant fix this.

just like Obummer telling us we cant "drill our way out of an energy crisis"........only to go on to become the largest energy producer in the world.

this is STILL AMERICA....where we build things to overcome obstacles and support our way of life. sure, maybe mathematically a single pipeline cant support ALL the water CA needs. that's not the point. you have to start somewhere and find solutions that involve multiple avenues to support the end goal. it wont be fixed over night. but we DO have the ability to address this and fix it......if the politicians and their lobbyists would get out of the way.

Unfortunately it's gonna take the politicians and the lobbyists to get in the way, and re-negotiate the water rights, which is gonna be a Grade-A nightmare.

None of the CA farms down south are gonna PAY for water from up north when they are "legally entitled" to essentially free water from the Colorado.

None of them are going to willingly give up the water rights they have now without a drawn out legal battle.

If someone had 100 acres of land and the government came in one day and said "we're taking 25 acres and not paying you a dime for it" would they not fight it?

That is essentially the water rights issue. These properties have a mountain load of equity in the "water rights" they own, possibly more than the land itself is worth, and aren't gonna go down without a fight.

Even an Act of Congress would face a challenge that would end up in the Supreme Court.
 
Top