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FYI-US West prepares for possible 1st water shortage declaration

LazyLavey

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Waiting for the next electrical power shortage,,,,

with all the new EVs being sold we gotta run out of electricity...

Since the Gray Davis days has Cali built any more infrastructure regarding power?....;)

probably more to it thats over my pay grade
 

Mandelon

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I'm thinking that when the water levels get low enough for long enough, Nevada and Arizona will be putting up desalination plants in California so they can have Cali's apportionment of Colorado River water. Water prices will be going up, up , up!
 

Long Way Home

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Another One

Interstate water wars are heating up along with the climate
Robert Glennon, Regents Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law & Public Policy, University of Arizona
Mon, April 19, 2021, 5:28 AM


<span class=caption>Aerial view of Lake Powell on the Colorado River along the Arizona-Utah border.</span> <span class=attribution><a class=link rapid-noclick-resp href=https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ColoradoRiverManagement/d12a55f700714682baf7468c24e4aea4/photo rel=nofollow noopener target=_blank data-ylk=slk:AP Photo/John Antczak>AP Photo/John Antczak</a></span>

Aerial view of Lake Powell on the Colorado River along the Arizona-Utah border. AP Photo/John Antczak
Interstate water disputes are as American as apple pie. States often think a neighboring state is using more than its fair share from a river, lake or aquifer that crosses borders.
Currently the U.S. Supreme Court has on its docket a case between Texas, New Mexico and Colorado and another one between Mississippi and Tennessee. The court has already ruled this term on cases pitting Texas against New Mexico and Florida against Georgia.
Climate stresses are raising the stakes. Rising temperatures require farmers to use more water to grow the same amount of crops. Prolonged and severe droughts decrease available supplies. Wildfires are burning hotter and lasting longer. Fires bake the soil, reducing forests’ ability to hold water, increasing evaporation from barren land and compromising water supplies.
As a longtime observer of interstate water negotiations, I see a basic problem: In some cases, more water rights exist on paper than as wet water – even before factoring in shortages caused by climate change and other stresses. In my view, states should put at least as much effort into reducing water use as they do into litigation, because there are no guaranteed winners in water lawsuits.
Dry times in the West
The situation is most urgent in California and the Southwest, which currently face “extreme or exceptional” drought conditions. California’s reservoirs are half-empty at the end of the rainy season. The Sierra snowpack sits at 60% of normal. In March 2021, federal and state agencies that oversee California’s Central Valley Project and State Water Project – regional water systems that each cover hundreds of miles – issued “remarkably bleak warnings” about cutbacks to farmers’ water allocations.
The Colorado River Basin is mired in a drought that began in 2000. Experts disagree as to how long it could last. What’s certain is that the “Law of the River” – the body of rules, regulations and laws governing the Colorado River – has allocated more water to the states than the river reliably provides.
The 1922 Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet (one acre-foot is roughly 325,000 gallons) to California, Nevada and Arizona, and another 7.5 million acre-feet to Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. A treaty with Mexico secured that country 1.5 million acre-feet, for a total of 16.5 million acre-feet. However, estimates based on tree ring analysis have determined that the actual yearly flow of the river over the last 1,200 years is roughly 14.6 million acre-feet.
The inevitable train wreck has not yet happened, for two reasons. First, Lakes Mead and Powell – the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado – can hold a combined 56 million acre-feet, roughly four times the river’s annual flow.
But diversions and increased evaporation due to drought are reducing water levels in the reservoirs. As of Dec. 16, 2020, both lakes were less than half full.
Second, the Upper Basin states – Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico – have never used their full allotment. Now, however, they want to use more water. Wyoming has several new dams on the drawing board. So does Colorado, which is also planning a new diversion from the headwaters of the Colorado River to Denver and other cities on the Rocky Mountains’ east slope.
Much of the U.S. Southwest and California are in extreme or exceptional drought.
Much of the U.S. Southwest and California are in extreme or exceptional drought.
Utah stakes a claim
The most controversial proposal comes from one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas: St. George, Utah, home to approximately 90,000 residents and lots of golf courses. St. George has very high water consumption rates and very low water prices. The city is proposing to augment its water supply with a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell, which would carry 86,000 acre-feet per year.
Truth be told, that’s not a lot of water, and it would not exceed Utah’s unused allocation from the Colorado River. But the six other Colorado River Basin states have protested as though St. George were asking for their firstborn child.
In a joint letter dated Sept. 8, 2020, the other states implored the Interior Department to refrain from issuing a final environmental review of the pipeline until all seven states could “reach consensus regarding legal and operational concerns.” The letter explicitly threatened a high “probability of multi-year litigation.”
Utah blinked. Having earlier insisted on an expedited pipeline review, the state asked federal officials on Sept. 24, 2020 to delay a decision. But Utah has not given up: In March 2021, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill creating a Colorado River Authority of Utah, armed with a US$9 million legal defense fund, to protect Utah’s share of Colorado River water. One observer predicted “huge, huge litigation.”
How huge could it be? In 1930, Arizona sued California in an epic battle that did not end until 2006. Arizona prevailed by finally securing a fixed allocation from the water apportioned to California, Nevada and Arizona.

Litigation or conservation
Before Utah takes the precipitous step of appealing to the Supreme Court under the court’s original jurisdiction over disputes between states, it might explore other solutions. Water conservation and reuse make obvious sense in St. George, where per-person water consumption is among the nation’s highest.
St. George could emulate its neighbor, Las Vegas, which has paid residents up to $3 per square foot to rip out lawns and replace them with native desert landscaping. In April 2021 Las Vegas went further, asking the Nevada Legislature to outlaw ornamental grass.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates that the Las Vegas metropolitan area has eight square miles of “nonfunctional turf” – grass that no one ever walks on except the person who cuts it. Removing it would reduce the region’s water consumption by 15%.
Water rights litigation is fraught with uncertainty. Just ask Florida, which thought it had a strong case that Georgia’s water diversions from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin were harming its oyster fishery downstream.
That case extended over 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ended the final chapter in April 2021. The court used a procedural rule that places the burden on plaintiffs to provide “clear and convincing evidence.” Florida failed to convince the court, and walked away with nothing.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Robert Glennon, University of Arizona.
Read more:
Robert Glennon received funding from the National Science Foundation in the 1990s and 2000s.
 

Long Way Home

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Another One...

As a megadrought persists, new projections show a key Colorado River reservoir could sink to a record low later this year

CNN Digital Expansion 2016 Andrew Kann
Story by Drew Kann, video by Bryce Urbany and graphics by Renée Rigdon

Updated 2:40 PM ET, Mon April 19, 2021


Wracked by drought, climate change and overuse, a key reservoir on the Colorado River could sink to historically low levels later this year, new US government projections show, potentially triggering significant water cutbacks in some states as early as next year.
The projections released by the US Bureau of Reclamation show that Lake Mead -- the largest reservoir in the country and a vital water supply to millions across the Southwest -- could fall later this year to its lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s.
The USBR will release its next major study in August. If that study projects water levels in the lake will be below the critical threshold of 1,075 feet on January 1, 2022, some users would begin to see their water deliveries cut significantly next year.
The cutbacks would be triggered based on the terms of drought contingency plans signed by the seven Colorado River Basin states in 2019 in an effort to stabilize the river system.


Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir and a key water source for millions across the western US, could sink later this year to its lowest level since it was filled decades ago.


Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir and a key water source for millions across the western US, could sink later this year to its lowest level since it was filled decades ago.
Despite the agreements, Lake Mead sits at just 39% full today. And Lake Powell, the river's second-largest reservoir, is just 36% full, according to an April water supply report.
The reservoirs along the river system were created to serve as a buffer to store water and ensure a reliable supply even in times of drought. But experts say that due to climate change and a 20-year drought, there is now more water being taken out of the river system than flowing into it, leading levels in these key reservoirs to fall.
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"This shows us that the kind of dire scenarios that we've been preparing for and hoping would not happen are here now," said John Fleck, the director of the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people living in seven western states and Mexico, and irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland as it snakes its way from the Rocky Mountains toward the Gulf of California.
The water delivery reductions that could take effect next year would be felt in Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, but Arizona would be hit hardest by the cutbacks, according to the terms of the drought contingency plan signed by those three states, which comprise the lower basin. The upper basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico agreed to a separate plan that calls for voluntary water conservation measures to keep Lake Powell from also reaching critically low levels.
As part of the lower basin's drought contingency plan, the Central Arizona Project -- a massive, 336-mile canal and pipeline system that carries Colorado River water to Phoenix, Tucson and farms and towns in between -- would see its water supply slashed by about one third in 2022 due to its junior rights to the river's water.
The effects of those water cuts will be felt most acutely on farms in central Arizona, due to their lower priority status in a complex tier system used to determine who loses water first in the event of a shortage.
The Central Arizona Project canal runs through rural desert near Phoenix. Some farmers who receive Colorado River water from the Central Arizona Project could see their deliveries cut sharply as soon as next year.


The Central Arizona Project canal runs through rural desert near Phoenix. Some farmers who receive Colorado River water from the Central Arizona Project could see their deliveries cut sharply as soon as next year.
In a joint statement last Thursday, the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the CAP acknowledged the new projections and looming cuts, but said the state is prepared.
"The study, while significant, is not a surprise," the statement reads. "We are prepared for these conditions, thanks in large part to Arizona's unique collaborative efforts among water leaders including tribes, cities, agriculture, industry and environmental organizations that developed innovative conservation and mitigation programs as part of the implementation of the Drought Contingency Plan. "
One of the farmers who stands to see his water deliveries reduced is Dan Thelander. Along with his son, brother and nephew, Thelander grows cotton, alfalfa and other crops on 6,500 acres in the desert of Pinal County, Arizona.
With less water expected to be available to him next year, Thelander said he will likely have to fallow, or leave unsown, 30 to 40% of his land.
Dan Thelander farms cotton, alfalfa and other crops in the desert of Pinal County, Arizona. He, along with other farmers in the region, stand to see their supply of Colorado River water cut significantly as soon as next year.


Dan Thelander farms cotton, alfalfa and other crops in the desert of Pinal County, Arizona. He, along with other farmers in the region, stand to see their supply of Colorado River water cut significantly as soon as next year.
"We'll have to lay off employees. We won't be buying as many seeds or fertilizer or tractors, and so we'll just have to scale down and operate a smaller farm," Thelander said. "And so, yes, it'll hurt a lot."
Many farmers in Central Arizona like Thelander have known for years that their supply of Colorado River water would eventually be phased out.
As part of a 2004 settlement between the federal government and the Central Arizona Project over debt issues, farmers in some Central Arizona irrigation districts agreed to relinquish their water rights in exchange for receiving water at a reduced cost through the year 2030.
But with Lake Mead's water levels still near record lows and projected to fall further, deliveries of that water could end years before the farmers had expected.
Many factors contribute to the Colorado River system's dwindling supply.
For one, experts say there is more water being diverted out of the river than is coming into the system.
The Colorado River wraps around Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona. A study last year found that the river's flows have decreased by about 20% over the last century, due in large part to climate change.


The Colorado River wraps around Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona. A study last year found that the river's flows have decreased by about 20% over the last century, due in large part to climate change.
"It's a math problem -- Lake Mead normally releases 10.2 million acre-feet of water per year, and 9 million acre-feet flow into it," said Brad Udall, a senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University. "At some point, because you have a 1.2 million acre-foot deficit each year, you've got to solve it or you'll drain the reservoir."
On top of that structural deficit, a historic drought and climate change are also sapping the river's supply.
Much of the Colorado River Basin has been gripped for the last two decades by what some scientists have dubbed a megadrought.
The period from 2000 to 2018 was the driest 19-year stretch the southwestern United States has experienced since the 1500s, according to an analysis of tree ring data published in the journal Science in 2020. The scientists also found that the human-caused climate crisis can be blamed for nearly half of the drought's severity.
Another study by US Geological Survey scientists published in 2020 found that the Colorado River's flow has declined by about 20% over the last century and that over half of that decline can be attributed to warming temperatures across the basin.
Most of the river's flow comes from snow that falls high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and southern Wyoming, said Chris Milly, a research hydrologist with the US Geological Survey and a co-author of the study.
Warming temperatures are leading to a decline in snowfall and an earlier snowmelt. But as the snow melts earlier and leaves behind bare ground, more heat energy from the sun is absorbed by the exposed soil. The warmer ground leads to more evaporation, which means less runoff from melting snow ends up in the river, Milly said.
"Evaporation is how the river basin cools itself," Milly said. "And so when you have more evaporation, you have less water left over to come down the river."
Current conditions also do not look promising for the kind of above-average runoff that is needed this year to begin to refill the river's key reservoirs.
After an exceptionally hot and dry 2020, precipitation has continued to lag well below normal for much of the basin.

Soil moisture levels across the region are also among the lowest on record, according to Paul Miller, a service coordination hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.
This means that much of the snowmelt runoff over the summer is likely to be absorbed by thirsty soils and plants before it can even reach the river, Miller said.
To Fleck, all of this signals that the reduced flows in recent years are likely not an aberration, but rather a glimpse of the challenges posed by a hotter, drier climate.
"We're now seeing the model for what the future of Colorado River Basin water use looks like, where scarcity is the norm and drought is not some special short-term thing," he said. "This is the way of life we're in now with climate change reducing the flow on the river."
 

shock22

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And there is an super typhoon next week that could drop 100” of snow
 
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grumpy88

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I tune out these articals as soon as they go with the man made climate change theory . Stick to the fact more people live in the west who use more water . That seams to go against the political agenda though .
 

MSum661

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Lower river checking in here...(below Parker)...the water level today has been higher than I have ever experienced. Alfalfa water deliveries?

Whatever it is, it is ridiculous and putting some docks in danger.

I was on the Strip on Friday and Yesterday and the river was flowing like a train coming through.
The wind was blowing but the current was doing most of the pushing.
 

LAVEYNICK

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Lower river checking in here...(below Parker)...the water level today has been higher than I have ever experienced. Alfalfa water deliveries?

Whatever it is, it is ridiculous and putting some docks in danger.
it was crazy high this past weekend
 

tostark

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The same day in the the Daily Breeze newspaper they talk about 2 projects in LA County that will build 19,000 new homes. Totally irresponsible! Really pisses me off that if Lake Mead falls below 1075 ft above sea level, arizona gets hits with restrictions and CA keeps building

ENVIRONMENT
Developers take different global warming directions
Projects following starkly divergent paths on emissions
By Jeff Collins
[email protected]
Two new communities the size of Diamond Bar are on the drawing boards in Los Angeles County’s northern frontier.
Both would contain more than 19,000 new homes built over the next two decades, transforming undeveloped valleys and hillsides into houses, schools, libraries and parks. Both ultimately would house more than 57,000 residents in nine new “villages” and both are subject to the jurisdiction of the same governing body: the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
But when it comes to reducing auto emissions that cause global warming, the two projects are following starkly different paths.
The 21,500-home Valencia FivePoint project on the former Newhall Ranch seeks to become a “net-zero” development, where carbon emissions from homes and vehicles are eliminated or offset by backing green programs elsewhere.
Environmental plans for the 19,333-home Centennial project on Tejon Ranch, north of the FivePoint project, offset just 35% of its greenhouse gas emissions, a recent court ruling found, and the company has no plans to go net-zero.
The law “does not require a net-zero approach,” Barry Zoeller, Tejon Ranch’s senior vice president for corporate communications, said in an email. “Instead, feasible measures must be incorporated that minimize impacts, not eliminate them completely.”
Earlier this month, L.A. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff threw out Centennial’s approvals, meaning the developer has to go back to the supervisors for a new environmental review. The company’s current environmental impact report included inadequate measures to reduce global warming and wildfire risks, the court found. The process could delay Centennial’s groundbreaking by at least a year, Zoeller said.
The Valencia FivePoint development near the Magic Mountain theme park, meanwhile, is getting ready for its first sales appointments.
“The first of 1,400 homes go on the market in the next month or two,” FivePoint
spokesman Steve Churm said.
FivePoint’s 15,000-acre development lies 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, just west of Santa Clarita. In addition to homes, plans call for 11.5 million square feet of commercial space, 11 parks, 19 recreation centers and seven new schools.
It would be home to about 60,000 residents when completed.
To reach its net- zero goals, FivePoint plans to create neighborhood solar grids to supply power to all the homes, which all will have electric vehicle chargers in their garages. It
TEJON » PAGE 6
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The Valencia FivePoint project on the former Newhall Ranch near Six Flags Magic Mountain will be a “net-zero” development.
PHOTOS BY DEAN MUSGROVE — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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Phone lines string along 300th Street West, in a portion of the Tejon Ranch Centennial development Thursday. A judge has rejected some of the developer’s environmental review.

Tejon
FROM PAGE 1
also plans to build homes and buildings to net-zero energy standards and install 2,000 electric vehicle charging stations within the project.
The company promised to offer subsidies to residents and bus providers to buy electric vehicles.
And it’s offering a range of programs elsewhere to offset emissions that can’t be eliminated. That includes 2,000 electric vehicle charging stations throughout L. A. County and solar installations on homes in low-income neighborhoods in the region.
“ We went all the way to Africa and, as we speak, replaced tens of thousands of cooking stoves to mitigate for greenhouse gas,” Five-Point Chairman and CEO Emile Haddad said in a video on the Valencia Five-Point website. “The world has changed and we have to change with it.”
Thirty-five miles up the 5 Freeway near the L. A. County line, the 12,300-acre Centennial project would consist of nearly 5,000 acres of residential development, plus 10.1 million square feet of development for business parks, commercial and civic development. Nearly 3,500 units would be affordable housing.
T he projec t — which wou ld i nclude at le a s t 20 neighborhood parks, at le a s t s e ven s c ho ol s and three fire stations — would have 57,150 residents when f inished.
Environmentalists and state regulators have held up the Valencia FivePoint development — or Newhall, as some still call it — as a model for Centennial. A 2018 letter from the California Air Resources Board cited the project as proof Centennial can do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
“The greenhouse gas mitigation measures proposed for Tejon are far weaker than what was included in Newhall,” said J.P. Rose, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the three environmental groups involved in the lawsuit over Centennial’s EIR. “Newhall committed to zero net energy for the project, while Tejon refused to do so.”
Flawed reasoning
In his April 5 ruling, Beckloff agreed that Centennialdoesn’t have to be a net-zero project.
But the judge found the project improperly relied on “ upstream” cap-and-trade offsets by utilities and oil refineries and included those offsets in its calculations.
“The cap-and-trade program does not provide any reduction to the project’s (greenhou se ga s) em is sions,” Beckloff wrote.
T he judge found pro posed mit i gat ion meas ures would reduce g r e en hou se g a se s ju s t 35%, rather than the 96% claimed by the development’s EIR.
In addition, Becklof f ruled the company ’s plan to reduce w ildf ire r isk s is f lawed because it only focused on measures within the project, i g nor i n g of f- sit e r i sk s in an area that’s “ highly v ulnerable” to f ires because of heav y brush and steep slopes.
The project adequately protects homes with l a nd s c a pi n g a nd c on struction techniques designed to fend of f fires, the judge ruled. But the c ompa ny f a i le d t o e xpl ain how developers would protec t the surr ou nding area from increased wildfire dangers caused by the new residents.
The Valencia project, on the other hand, isn’t as prone to wildfires, said Rose, the attorney for the Center for Biolog ical Diversit y. Much of Va lencia’s housing is located nea r the Sa nt a C la r it a R i v e r, w he r e w i ld f i r e risks are lower.
“ In contra st , Centennial is in a w ind tunnel at the apex of the A ntelope Va lley, which w ill f a n f l ames as ignition sources increase as a result of more people in the area,” Rose said.
He said the science now shows building codes aren’t necessarily effective in protecting homes from catchingfire. “The science is clear that developments like Centennial will literally be built to burn,” he said.
Tejon Ranch’s Zoeller said his company doesn’t plan to appeal Beckloff’s ruling, focusing instead on drafting a supplemental EIR to address the plan’s shortcomings.
“ We will certainly do our fair share — and probably then some — to reduce overall GHG emissions related to Centennial,” he said.
But Rose sa id this month’s ruling could potentially kill the project, which faces new reviews before a board with one new member. New count y policies also oppose urban sprawl and large- scale development in fire zones, he said.
Zoeller said, however, that the judge upheld the project’s EIR on 20 out of 23 issues.
“A ll of this speaks to the challenge of comply-in g w it h ver y c omplex and ever- changing (environmental) reg ulations, which is a primar y reason California is in the midst of a housing crisis that it can’t seem to fix,” Zoeller said. “ These measures will come at a cost, which makes it increasingly dif f icult to build houses that people can af ford, which is at cross purposes with other state priorities.”
 
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