Las Vegas - out of water by 2021?

[Mayabird]

Las Vegas water source could run dry by 2021
Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:40pm GMT
By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chances are about even that Lake Mead, the prime source of water for the desert city of Las Vegas, will run dry in 13 years if usage is not cut back, according to study released on Tuesday.

The finding is the latest warning about water woes threatening the future of the fast-growing U.S. casino capital and comes amid a sustained drought in the American West.

The study by two researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego calculates a 10 percent chance that Lake Mead will run dry in six years and a 50 percent probability it will be gone by 2021 absent other changes.

"Our reaction was frankly one of being stunned," study co-author Tim Barnett, a marine research physicist, said in an interview. "We had not expected the problem to be so severe and so up close to us in time."

Climate change -- both man-made and natural variation -- strong human demand and evaporation are all factors affecting water in the lake. "The biggest change right now is taking more water from the bucket than we are putting into it," Barnett said.

The uncertainty about when and if the lake will run dry stems from the natural fluctuations of the Colorado River, which feeds the lake, the researcher said. In recent months the flow has been above average, he said, after years below average.

The West has suffered years of drought with the Colorado supplying less water to Lake Mead, which serves Nevada, California, Arizona and northern Mexico.

The lake created by Hoover Dam provides 90 percent of Las Vegas' water and is less than half full, giving the edge of the lake a bath tub ring visible even far away by air.

Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said his agency overseeing the Las Vegas area's water was also concerned about reliance on Lake Mead as the major source for Las Vegas and officials were seeking alternate sources.

"While we wholeheartedly support the authors' call for greater urban water conservation, it is important to also remember that agriculture uses four-fifths of the Colorado River's flows, so meaningful solutions cannot be borne solely by urban users," he said.

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[Adrian Laguna]

That's what happens when you turn this:


Into this:

[Balrog]

"Our reaction was frankly one of being stunned," study co-author Tim Barnett, a marine research physicist, said in an interview. "We had not expected the problem to be so severe and so up close to us in time."

Perhaps it's just me, but, you know, shouldn't you be planning for this very event to happen when you build a city in the middle of the desert?!

But no, the people want their hookers, golf courses and casinos, so they'll just demand water from somewhere else, like the Great Lakes. Not like Michigan needs them or anything

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, there's always my idea of blasting a huge aquaduct from the Pacific to Death Valley and the surrounding sub-sea level valleys to fill them with water, causing increased precipitation in the downwind area, i.e., southern Nevada. We can put more into the Salton Sea along the way. Then you can set up banks of nuclear reactors along the shores of our new salt seas to desalinate the water, and even get a huge salt-production industry going.

[Admiral Valdemar]

A vast chunk of the US will be desolate wasteland by 2050. The events we're seeing unfold now will culminate in something that makes the dustbowl years during the Depression look like a pleasant day. And that's assuming the basic IPCC models without runaway climate change and with present water consumption. States are fighting over fresh water right now (or praying, LOL), so you can forgive me if I ignore any pleas for megaprojects they can't even afford anyway.

Now we ask the question: do we want golf courses with greens and fountains, or water to drink and irrigate the world's bread basket?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A vast chunk of the US will be desolate wasteland by 2050. The events we're seeing unfold now will culminate in something that makes the dustbowl years during the Depression look like a pleasant day. And that's assuming the basic IPCC models without runaway climate change and with present water consumption. States are fighting over fresh water right now (or praying, LOL), so you can forgive me if I ignore any pleas for megaprojects they can't even afford anyway.

Now we ask the question: do we want golf courses with greens and fountains, or water to drink and irrigate the world's bread basket?

With enough forced labour, we can do plenty more mega-projects than that!

Seriously, I would still kill off Las Vegas--I'd just do the mega-project anyway, to get the area habitable enough for free-range cattle grazing. Which gives us a bit more meat, when all the corn-fed cattle are replaced with people eating the corn themselves, as will happen soon enough.

There's plenty of time for nuclear reactors tied in banks to massive desalination plants to be built elsewhere, after all, once Peak Oil brings about a command economy that lets us requisition labour and resources at will.

[Big Phil]

I know lots of folks are talking about drought, but it's more likely that the level of rainfall and the water levels of the Colorado are at an "average" level right now than at a "below average" level. A lot of these places (like Las Vegas) were settled and developed at one of the wettest periods in their history, and nobody realized this until just recently - after all, decades long "droughts" aren't really abnormal in the desert.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I know lots of folks are talking about drought, but it's more likely that the level of rainfall and the water levels of the Colorado are at an "average" level right now than at a "below average" level. A lot of these places (like Las Vegas) were settled and developed at one of the wettest periods in their history, and nobody realized this until just recently - after all, decades long "droughts" aren't really abnormal in the desert.

No, but droughts not seen for millennia are, for humanity that is. The lack of meltwater is already affecting most of the mid-west and west coast. Many places require that water to act as an energy source as well as for supplying horribly unsustainable cities and suburbian areas in a lap of luxury. Australia is in the same boat, ditto with China and Pakistan. Any area that has a major river system supplied by glaciers or snow systems will exhibit less output in the coming years.

There will, more than likely, be a death to Las Vegas. And with that comes a mass exodus.

[Guardsman Bass]

In the meantime, this probably means that the nice water pact that the states sharing the Colorado River agreed to not too long ago will probably collapse, and have to be re-negotiated. On the bright side, maybe the Upper States on the river can extract bribes or some other form of compensation out of Las Vegas for a larger share of the river water.

[Adrian Laguna]

No, but droughts not seen for millennia are, for humanity that is. The lack of meltwater is already affecting most of the mid-west and west coast. Many places require that water to act as an energy source as well as for supplying horribly unsustainable cities and suburbian areas in a lap of luxury.

It occurs to me that this is one of the reasons why Marina moved to the North-West. They have more water than they know what to do with, it just rains and rains and rains.

[Sea Skimmer]

It occurs to me that this is one of the reasons why Marina moved to the North-West. They have more water than they know what to do with, it just rains and rains and rains.

And when the volcanoes erupt, that ensures you have nice healthy city crushing mudflows.

[Adrian Laguna]

And when the volcanoes erupt, that ensures you have nice healthy city crushing mudflows.

There's also the Cascadia subduction zone next door and its charming magnitude 9+ earthquakes two or three times per millenium. The last one was in 1700, so another one in the near future is possible.