| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Feds could limit water flow to Arizona, other western states |
| 2022-04-21 |
| [JustTheNews] Concern focuses on continually falling water level in Lake Powell, a reservoir that supplies millions with water and hydroelectricity. Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science for the U.S. Department of the Interior, wrote governors’ offices of seven states about the continually falling water level in Lake Powell. The reservoir is one along the Colorado River Basin and supplies millions with not only a source of freshwater but also electricity from the hydroelectric plant at the Glen Canyon dam. Currently, water levels sit at 3,522’ mean sea level (msl) but continue to fall, according to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation data. Should the water level drop below 3,490 feet msl, Trujillo warned the governors that the shortage would affect both water flow downriver and power generation at the large power facility. “In such circumstances, Glen Canyon Dam facilities face unprecedented operational reliability challenges, water users in the Basin face increased uncertainty, downstream resources could be impacted, the western electrical grid would experience uncertain risk and instability, and water and power supplies to the West and Southwestern United States would be subject to increased operational uncertainty,” she said in her April 8 letter. She added that a nearby Arizona city and part of the Navajo Nation would lose drinking water should Lake Powell’s water level be allowed to fall below the threshold. “In addition, should Lake Powell decline further below elevation 3490 feet, we have recently confirmed that essential drinking water infrastructure supplying the City of Page, Arizona and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation could not function," she wrote. The solution, Trujillo said, would be to pre-emptively limit the amount of water released downstream. She suggests in the letter that the agency reduce downstream water to 7 million acre-feet, representing a nearly 7% reduction in the “water year” that ends in September. Tom Buschatzke, Director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources, told 12News that the state’s residents are “going to have to learn to live with less water." In addition to Arizona, Trujillo sent the letter to governors in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. The states, along with authorities in Mexico, have until April 22 to respond to the request. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #9 Sounds like someone needs to start doing rain dances. |
| Posted by: Slappy 2022-04-21 21:48 |
| #8 ^ Poseidon DeSal already built it |
| Posted by: Frank G 2022-04-21 15:46 |
| #7 Funny, the US had a treaty with Mexico that we'd let so much water continue to the Gulf of Baja. Then they used it all up so that only the smallest trickle makes it. That is one messed up river. Carlsbad (San Diego not New Mexico) has plans to build a desalinization plant. It'll provide fresh water for a portion of the cities population. Neighboring cities are hoping to horn in on that. they need to build their own. Cheap bastards. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2022-04-21 13:04 |
| #6 For the past several decades, California politicians under the influence of their developer buddies have operated under the assumption that we need to accommodate everyone in the whole wide world who wants to move here. They claim we need more affordable housing but the more they build the higher the cost of housing gets. They only way they can ever make it truly affordable is to turn the whole state into a slum where nobody wants to live. Of course, the real reason for all the building is that developers get rich and bribe the politicians while the quality of life for those of us who already live here declines. Now it seeems they are bumping into hard limits to how many people we really can accommodate. Newsom likes to blame drought and global warming for any water shortages. He will institute water rationing, rolling blackouts and taxes on miles driven by people who need to get to work. But the fact is we have too many people using more water and power than he can provide. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2022-04-21 12:52 |
| #5 Maybe they'll just cut off the water to red states. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2022-04-21 12:47 |
| #4 Feds could push it too far and get smacked down, too. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-04-21 09:23 |
| #3 yeah all the cracked out heroin drunks in cali can only pee on them now! |
| Posted by: Greng Black3494 2022-04-21 09:21 |
| #2 Allowing the whole world to flow across the border into the US like a hoard of locusts will definitely help secure the water level and all the other resources of this once great country. |
| Posted by: Clusosh Floluter6074 2022-04-21 01:15 |