4 ms·

Lake Mead Keeps Dropping

23 points by malshe 4y ago

moistly 4y ago
Does anyone have links to recent on-the-ground photos? The last ones I saw were from months ago, and the last I heard is that the dam is within a hair of having to shut down because the levels are almost below the turbine intakes.
- redtexture 4y ago
  Try searching on youtube and "Lake Mead". There are probably a dozen weekly items, with updates and explorations of the lake.
- sha256sum 4y ago
  I recommend Sin City Outdoors on YouTube[1]. Father and son outdoorsmen have been doing some excellent first hand documentation of the water level decline. They do a dedicated update every two weeks. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azy88IiVqU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azy88IiVqU
  - moistly 4y ago
    Thank you! That was both extremely informative and equally terrifying. The amount of water loss is incomprehensible.
kurupt213 4y ago
As long as copper canyon on lake havesu still has water…
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dchuk 4y ago
So, like, what can be done here? Is this just due to a prolonged lack of heavy winters/snow pack (whether climate change related or just a warm period) and will self rectify? Do we need to figure out how to get water piped to the lake? I live in San Diego, which basically has no water at all. I was visiting Portland a few months ago and it rained every hour. The whole time I was just wondering “surely a big pipe from here to So Cal, given the dire straits of the drought, has to be doable at this point”. What am I missing?
- djohnston 4y ago
  Reasonable solution given the Romans were doing this thousands of years ago.
- fred_is_fred 4y ago
  "I live in San Diego, which basically has no water at all." "So, like, what can be done here?" At some point the answer will be water getting cut off and people moving out of these areas - and a better example than the Romans are the ancestral puebloans of Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly.
- pacificmint 4y ago
  > “surely a big pipe from here to So Cal, given the dire straits of the drought, has to be doable at this point”. Water is very heavy. Which means moving it takes a lot of energy. Unless it’s flowing downhill, you have to provide that energy. California is already using something like a fifth of its electricity for moving water around the state. Pumping water from Portland to San Diego would be immensely energy intensive.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  Nuclear power plants combined with desalination. You all have a lot of water in San Diego, it's just salty.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    I don't think that works, unfortunately. San Diego has a large desal plant [1], that cost one billion dollars and produces 100 million gallons of fresh water per day. In 30 years, that's about 1 trillion gallons, which comes to about 0.1 cents per gallon of CAPEX amortization costs. That may sound like not much, but farmers buy water in huge quantities. So huge that they are measured in acre-feet. One acre foot is 325k gallons, and sells nowadays for up to $2000 [2], but which historically used to sell for less than $200 [3]. That is 0.006 or 0.0006 cents per gallon. So just the capex cost of a desal plant is at least 15 times higher than what farmers pay in the middle of a record drought. The aqueducts will cost money to build too, and judging by the high speed rail saga in California, they'll cost quite a lot, probably in the many billions. So, even if one came with nuclear electricity that's "too cheap to meter", you won't be able to substitute water from rivers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_%22Bud%22_Lewis_Carlsbad_Desalination_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_%22Bud%22_Lewis_Carlsba... [2] https://gvwire.com/2022/04/26/drought-ravaged-farmers-pay-up-to-2000-an-acre-foot-for-water/ https://gvwire.com/2022/04/26/drought-ravaged-farmers-pay-up... [3] https://aquaoso.com/blog/california-agricultural-water-prices/ https://aquaoso.com/blog/california-agricultural-water-price...

23 points by malshe 4y ago

Does anyone have links to recent on-the-ground photos? The last ones I saw were from months ago, and the last I heard is that the dam is within a hair of having to shut down because the levels are almost below the turbine intakes.

redtexture 4y ago
Try searching on youtube and "Lake Mead". There are probably a dozen weekly items, with updates and explorations of the lake.
sha256sum 4y ago
I recommend Sin City Outdoors on YouTube[1]. Father and son outdoorsmen have been doing some excellent first hand documentation of the water level decline. They do a dedicated update every two weeks. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azy88IiVqU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azy88IiVqU
- moistly 4y ago
  Thank you! That was both extremely informative and equally terrifying. The amount of water loss is incomprehensible.

kurupt213 4y ago

As long as copper canyon on lake havesu still has water…

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dchuk 4y ago

So, like, what can be done here? Is this just due to a prolonged lack of heavy winters/snow pack (whether climate change related or just a warm period) and will self rectify? Do we need to figure out how to get water piped to the lake? I live in San Diego, which basically has no water at all. I was visiting Portland a few months ago and it rained every hour. The whole time I was just wondering “surely a big pipe from here to So Cal, given the dire straits of the drought, has to be doable at this point”. What am I missing?

djohnston 4y ago
Reasonable solution given the Romans were doing this thousands of years ago.
fred_is_fred 4y ago
"I live in San Diego, which basically has no water at all." "So, like, what can be done here?" At some point the answer will be water getting cut off and people moving out of these areas - and a better example than the Romans are the ancestral puebloans of Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly.
pacificmint 4y ago
> “surely a big pipe from here to So Cal, given the dire straits of the drought, has to be doable at this point”. Water is very heavy. Which means moving it takes a lot of energy. Unless it’s flowing downhill, you have to provide that energy. California is already using something like a fifth of its electricity for moving water around the state. Pumping water from Portland to San Diego would be immensely energy intensive.
edmcnulty101 4y ago
Nuclear power plants combined with desalination. You all have a lot of water in San Diego, it's just salty.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  I don't think that works, unfortunately. San Diego has a large desal plant [1], that cost one billion dollars and produces 100 million gallons of fresh water per day. In 30 years, that's about 1 trillion gallons, which comes to about 0.1 cents per gallon of CAPEX amortization costs. That may sound like not much, but farmers buy water in huge quantities. So huge that they are measured in acre-feet. One acre foot is 325k gallons, and sells nowadays for up to $2000 [2], but which historically used to sell for less than $200 [3]. That is 0.006 or 0.0006 cents per gallon. So just the capex cost of a desal plant is at least 15 times higher than what farmers pay in the middle of a record drought. The aqueducts will cost money to build too, and judging by the high speed rail saga in California, they'll cost quite a lot, probably in the many billions. So, even if one came with nuclear electricity that's "too cheap to meter", you won't be able to substitute water from rivers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_%22Bud%22_Lewis_Carlsbad_Desalination_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_%22Bud%22_Lewis_Carlsba... [2] https://gvwire.com/2022/04/26/drought-ravaged-farmers-pay-up-to-2000-an-acre-foot-for-water/ https://gvwire.com/2022/04/26/drought-ravaged-farmers-pay-up... [3] https://aquaoso.com/blog/california-agricultural-water-prices/ https://aquaoso.com/blog/california-agricultural-water-price...