Thread: About 40 million people get water from the Colorado. Studies show it's drying up.

"Despite adding 1 million residents, L.A. is using less water than it did two decades ago."

7/23/2018

CA. Water wars head upstream as state considers cutbacks for senior Central Valley

12/27/2009

Why California Is Running Dry, 60 MINUTES

There's plenty of snow in the Rocky Mountain ranges. What they would have to do is build some piping from the headwaters of rivers that get plenty of water ( I know the Snake and Columbia system gets more than enough) and divert it into the Colorado and Green River headwaters. It might take 10-15 years to build these reservoirs back up, but why not? Likewise, the Missouri system gets plenty of water. I think the mountain ranges are called the Wasatch (in Colorado) and the Wind River range (in Wyoming). This is expensive, but anything else they do would cost a whole lot more.

‘Eye-popping’ study: Colorado River down 2 billion tons of water due to climate change

Feb 24, 2020

This image from 2015 shows a low water level in the Colorado River’s Lake Mead reservoir and Hoover Dam with a “bath tub ring.”
Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times 2015


The Colorado River has lost enough water because of climate change since 2000 to supply the Central Arizona Project for a year, researchers for a new federal study found.

In a finding an outside water expert called “eye-popping,” the study concluded that the river loses nearly 10% of its annual flow for every increase in temperature of 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

The amount of water that didn’t flow down the Colorado due to climate change since 2000 was about 1.5 million acre-feet, or about 2 billion tons, said Christopher Milly, one of the two co-authors.

Besides closely matching the typical annual delivery of CAP water to Tucson, Phoenix and Pinal County, that’s enough to serve all the drinking water Tucson Water’s customers need for more than 15 years.

From 1913 to 2017, the river’s average annual flow dropped about 20%, and about half that decline was due to warmer weather, Milly said.

The river’s water losses will likely continue, if not accelerate, by a range of 14% to 31% over the next 30 years as temperatures keep warming, said the researchers, who are with the U.S. Geological Survey. Their study was published Thursday in the journal Science.


That’s much larger than the 9% decline that a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation study predicted in 2012 would be the most likely drop in Colorado River flows by 2050.

“Increasing risk of severe water shortages is expected” across the seven-state Colorado River Basin, the new study said. The river serves 40 million people and supports 16 million jobs, it said.

The study came out as Arizona, California and Nevada began the first year of a seven-year drought contingency plan that’s aimed at cutting water use in the river’s Lower Basin. This year’s cuts are relatively minor. But over time they could reach up to 1.2 million acre feet a year. That’s approaching 10% of the river’s average annual flow.

Water officials from all seven river basin states expect to start work on a longer-range plan this year for the over-allocated river.

“There’s not a drop of that water that no one has a claim on. If and when that supply is reduced by 10 to 20 to 30%, someone is going to have to stop using as much water,” said Milly, a senior research scientist. The co-author was physical scientist Krista Dunne.

The finding about the river flows’ sensitivity to temperature increases is “eye-popping,” said Brad Udall, a Colorado State University researcher who has worked on several past studies about the river and climate change.

USGS’s conclusion that river flows dropped 9.3% per degree of temperature increase was at the upper end of the range that Udall and former University of Arizona climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck found in a 2017 study.

They estimated the decline could have been as little as 3%.

The USGS researchers were able to pinpoint the most likely decline at a much higher level by using computer models, Udall said.

The new study calculated how much warmer temperatures contributed to less snowpack, more sunlight absorbed by the land, more evaporation and ultimately lower river runoff.

“The Colorado River Basin loses progressively more water to evaporation, as its sunlight-reflecting snow mantle disappears,” researchers Milly and Dunne wrote.

Snowpacks that last into late spring and early summer have historically provided reliable, plentiful water supplies and protection against major fires, Udall said.

In a much warmer climate, snowpacks that melt early significantly reduce water supplies and result in “landscape altering” blazes like the Camp Fire that virtually leveled the town of Paradise, California, in 2018, he said.

Also, the study found it is unlikely that precipitation trends expected over the next 30 years will help river flows. Most likely, they’ll hurt more than help, Milly said.

The study’s forecasts don’t take into account the widely varying possibilities of changes in precipitation in the river basin due to climate change. No scientific consensus has been reached on whether it will cause precipitation to rise or fall.

But the researchers concluded that the best case is that precipitation increases could improve river flows by 3%. Their worst case is that decreases would cut flows by 40%.

Speaking on the implications for the river basin’s water management, Udall said new rules governing the river basin, once approved, are likely to run at least until mid-century.

So it’s “paramount” that the new rules consider the predicted, serious flow reductions, he said.

“More broadly, these results tell us that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as we possibly can. We’ve wasted nearly 30 years bickering over the science,” Udall said. “We now have the technologies, the policies and favorable economics to accomplish greenhouse gas reductions. What we lack is the will.”

https://tucson.com/news/local/eye-po...me-top-story-1

Water Piped West to Denver Could Ease Stress on Colo. River ...

www.nytimes.com › federal-plans-for-colorado-river-include-pipeline
Dec 10, 2012 - Water Piped to Denver Could Ease Stress on River. The federal government has come up with dozens of ways to enhance the diminishing flow of the Colorado River, which has long struggled to keep seven states and roughly 25 million people hydrated.

A Pipe Dream to Bring Colorado River Water to San Diego Re ...
www.voiceofsandiego.org › topics › science-environment › pipe-drea...
Aug 25, 2017


The fight for water: Can the mighty Mississippi save the West ...

www.deseret.com › the-fight-for-water-can-the-mighty-mississippi-sa...
May 13, 2012 - The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is nearing the final stages of a study that for ... projected supply and demand "imbalances" of Colorado River water ... including environmental reviews, project costs and working through the ... From there, the water would be conveyed via tunnel, canal and a monstrous pipe ...

Proposed interstate water pipelines to California - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Proposed_interstate_water_pipelines_to_Cal...

Proposed interstate water pipelines to California include interbasin transfer projects to divert water from other Western states and provinces, including Oregon, Washington, Alaska and British Columbia. A Canadian entrepreneur's plan published in 1991 diverted water from eastern British Columbia to the Columbia River, ... Diversion Project Would Deliver B.C. Water To ...


The great siphoning: Drought-stricken areas eye the Great ...

www.startribune.com › the-great-siphoning-drought-stricken-areas-ey...
May 25, 2018 - "Water, water everywhere" is the egalitarian vision of those who don't have ... makes intuitive sense is to pipe Lake Superior water to where it's “needed. ... moving Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson, cost $4 billion ...


Water pipeline from Kansas to Colorado is unlikely, U.S. report ...

www.mcclatchydc.com › nation-world › national › article24741661
Dec 14, 2012 - A Western states pipe dream got a cold splash of reality this week when ... But the price of the electricity needed to pump Missouri River water ...


Import our water from wetter climes? It's a pipe dream - Los ...

www.latimes.com › politics › la-me-cap-drought-20150427-column
Apr 26, 2015 - Or sink pipe on the ocean floor and siphon water from Alaska. ... 40-foot wide water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The price tag for the tunnels alone is around $17 billion and it's only a ...

The Abandoned Plan That Could Have Saved America From Drought ...

www.buzzfeednews.com › article › nijhuis › pipe-dreams-the-forgotte...
Sep 18, 2015 - The North American Water and Power Alliance was an audacious proposal to divert water to parched western states that would have cost hundreds of ... (Lake Mead on the Colorado River, the largest reservoir in the United States, is 112 ... She has long championed a $15 billion project that would pipe ...


Build a pipe from the Mississippi River to California ...

www.internationalskeptics.com › forums › showthread
Apr 27, 2015 - I kind of roll my eyes a bit and mention that the price of a gallon of crude is hundreds of times more than the price of a gallon of water* so ...

Population Impacts on Future Water Sources




The impacts of population on the quantitative water needs of a locality are related to population density (that is, how the population is distributed geographically), and to the rate of increase or decrease in population growth. Because population changes affect such variables as the economy, the environment, natural resources, the labor force, energy requirements, infrastructure needs, and food supply, they also affect the availability and quality of the water sources that can be drawn upon for use.


Population is highly correlated with public water supply, about 56 percent of which is allocated for domestic (household) purposes. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the average per capita public water use in the United States in 1995 was about 179 gallons per capita per day (gpcd) and that for domestic water use was about 101 gpcd. An average per capita figure for all water uses in the United States in 1995 (municipal, industrial, agricultural, etc.) was estimated to be about 1,280 gpcd.
The U.S. population in 2000 was about 275.6 million.

Projections by the Population Research Bureau indicate a 2025 population of 373.8 million and a 2050 population of 403.7 million.

The bureau also reported that the doubling time from the year 2000 for the population of the United States, at its current rate of growth, is about 120 years, for the world 51 years, and for the less developed countries, including China, 36 years. The importance of these estimates can be seen when one notes that about 81 percent of the world's current population resides in less-developed countries.


Future Population Levels.


The world's population reached just over 6 billion in 2000, and it is expected to peak at about 8 to 10 billion sometime this century. According to the Population Reference Bureau, about 7.8 billion people will inhabit the Earth by 2025, and by 2050, the total will reach about 9 billion. More than 90 percent of this growth is expected to take place in less developed nations (see graph), many of which are overpopulated and are stressing their water and other resources. If population projections prove to be reliable, many regions of planet Earth will be facing significant water shortages within the next 50 years.

If the 1995 figure of 1,280 gpcd for all water uses in the United States is multiplied by the bureau's estimate of population in 2025, a rough estimate of water use in that year would be about 508 billion gallons per day. Although uncertainty exists in the population forecast, and technological changes and conservation practices could likely reduce the overall per capita water use in the future, significant increases are expected in populationrelated water use. However, in arid areas of the United States, large increases in water use may not be possible or sustainable unless water is imported or brackish or saline waters are desalinized.

Population Impacts on Future Water Quality


The impact of population on the ability of water sources to meet the demands placed on them by society is paralleled by the effects of population on the quality of water resources. People alter the properties of water as they use it, often degrading the quality with each successive use. Water used in households for drinking, bathing, and cooking becomes contaminated by various chemicals and other constituents introduced during its use. Drainage from water applied in agricultural irrigation carries away chemicals that have been applied to crops to enhance their growth and control weeds and pests. Industries introduce chemicals needed for the manufacture of their products.


As a result of human intervention, waters that have been used for a variety of purposes may contain harmful constituents, including sewage, that pose threats to the environment and to the public health. Their removal can be expensive and difficult.


Issues of water quantity and water quality are inseparable. If the quality of a water source is so degraded that restoring its quality for further use is not feasible, then the source is lost for all practical purposes. Remedial actions are costly, and prevention rather than remediation should be the goal. To achieve it, the public, industries, governments, agencies, and a variety of organizations must all play a positive role.


Reducing Population Impacts

The impacts of future populations on the amount and quality of water resources available for use can be lessened by modifying the local rate of population increase, by modifying the per capita use of water, and by a combination of the two approaches.

A reduction in the per capita use rate for public water has already been demonstrated in the United States. Per capita use decreased from 184 gpcd in 1990 to 179 gpcd in 1995 even though the nation's population increased by 7 percent during that period. Education can play a major role in bringing about such changes.

Water-stressed regions should seek to slow their population growth and reduce their per capita water use to help alleviate their water supply problems. In general, developing nations are growing faster than industrialized nations. Between 2000 and 2050, most all of the world's population growth is projected to take place in developing nations. A reduction of population growth rate in these nations could significantly enhance the likelihood of achieving sustainability for their water supplies.



SEE ALSO Demand Management ; Developing Countries, Issues in ; Food Security ; Supply Development ; Sustainable Development ; Uses of Water .

Warren Viessman Jr.

Bibliography

Cunningham, William P., and Barbara Woodworth Saigo. Environmental Science: A Global Concern, 5th ed. New York: WCB/McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Gleick, Peter H. The World's Water: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources 2002–2003. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002.
Tobin, Richard J. "Environment, Population, and the Developing World." In Environmental Policy (4th ed.). eds. Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2000.
Viessman Jr., Warren, and Mark J. Hammer. Water Supply and Pollution Control, 6th ed. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1998.

Read more: http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Po-...#ixzz6EuaDUT5g


http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Po-...Resources.html

"81 percent of the world's current population resides in less-developed countries"

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Overbreeding in poverty, 10 mouths they cannot feed. Stop romping in the dirt, having babies, and living in filth.

The USA and it's taxpayers are not the solution to this disgusting mentality of rape, rubble, war, and poverty THEY bring upon themselves.

Global population control, get on birth control.

QUALITY of life, not quantity.

And do not dump them on our backs using up our resources, our land, and our water.

No more immigration.

We have 40 MILLION who do not belong here and we demand that these people go home. Do not add millions more to this never ending invasion of our country.

They have land, they have resources, they want a better life? They can stop breeding like crazy, get educated, and get a job to contribute to their own well being and their countries success.

PSYCH 424 blog

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Overpopulation and water consumption


Water is one of the most important things in everyone’s life. If we think about it food, and everything us humans come in contact with has to do with water someway somehow.

By 2050 our population is expected to reach 9.7 billion people and by 2100 it is expected to be at 11.2 billion people.

If we do not regulate water resources properly, by the time our population reaches these numbers it will become a problem.

Overpopulation will absolutely strain water resources and stretch them out thin. For example, this can cause an increase in water pollution.

About 56 percent of water is strictly for household purposes.

On top of a future water shortage with the population growing, this will also bring both industrialization as well as urbanization which causes environmental problems and will affect the quality of our water supply directly.

Right now, there about about 1.1 billion people globally who do not have access to safe drinking water. About 218 million Americans lives at least 10 miles from a polluted water source.


Our population is growing very quickly.

It is very important that all Americans take a look at their water consumption and think about it wisely. The average household of 4 people uses about 400 gallons of water each day. Majority of that water is used inside the house. Scary to think about that. I live in a household of 3 and I can only imagine how much water we use everyday between washing dishes, taking showers, washing clothes, washing our hands, and that is just to name a few examples in the way we use water in my home.


I think however that water consumption is not addressed all the time so that we are made aware about how important water is and how we can fix this growing problem. In households water is easily wasted and very quickly at that. But, I do think that by every household changing a few items in their routine, the amount of water we consume will change drastically.


How does the Increase in human population growth affect the consumption of water resources? (n.d.).


Retrieved from http://environmental-issues.yoexpert...grow-1633.html


Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.



https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2019/02/...r-consumption/

Selling Great Lakes water proposed to lower lake levels

By Gary Wilson
February 18, 2020

“My purpose was to spark a conversation,” said University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson as he touched the third rail of Great Lakes issues—selling water to arid states outside the region.

With record high lake levels “wreaking havoc” around the region, Henderson noticed the proposed solutions by elected officials and the Army Corps of Engineers were focused on expensive deterrents like hard barriers.

He felt more creative solutions were needed and proposed in a Chicago Tribune column selling the excess water to regions in need.

“We have too much water here, but plenty of communities have too little water,” he wrote. “About half of Texas is experiencing moderate to severe drought.”
He also mentioned “vast swaths” of western states in the midst of drought.

“Moving water from Lake Michigan to farmers and communities in these places would make everyone better off,” Henderson said.

The revenue from the sale of water could be used to shore up state budgets and provide relief for lakefront communities impacted by the lake levels, Henderson proposed.

He cited Illinois as an example of where selling water could benefit the state.

“States such as Illinois have financial problems that are imperiling long-term economic growth and the well-being of their citizens,” Henderson said. Illinois had an unfunded pension liability of $137 billion in December 2019, according to a Reuters report.

He did not mention Michigan, but its governor and legislature have been squabbling over how to pay for billions of dollars in overdue road repairs. Unable to reach a road-funding agreement with the legislature, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently announced she would use her authority to borrow $3 billion for road repairs.

Challenges in the West

In a lengthy phone interview, Henderson told Great Lakes Now that he claims no expertise in water resource management, though early in his professional career he was a geological engineer. He worked on water issues in Southern California where he became aware of the challenges western states are facing.

Over the years drought conditions have hurt areas like Playa Lakes in Anson, Texas, Photo by USDA NRCS Texas via wikimedia.org

He said drought-stricken areas are interested in market solutions to water shortages and he believes the marketplace can provide them.

“Water is absolutely a commodity that should be bought and sold,” he said, and “a futures market for water would help to get water where it is needed.”

Henderson’s legal specialty is in securities and banking regulation and economics.
Aware of the barriers to his proposal to sell the excess water, Henderson said he is not in favor of water privatization and if a plan to sell water is enacted, government regulation would be necessary.

He also understands that there is a state and federal process to modifying the Great Lakes Compact, the eight-state agreement designed to prevent diversions of the kind Henderson is proposing.

Not the first time it’s been suggested

Henderson’s proposal didn’t resonate with the regional Great Lakes governors group responsible for the compact.

“Schemes like this reinforce the importance of the Great Lakes Compact and what it is designed for—putting an end to the specter of large-scale, long-distance water diversions and ensuring that our waters are responsibly managed,” said Dave Naftzger, executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers.

Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Image by E Pluribus Anthony via wikimedia.org Public Domain

Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec have a separate agreement that matches the compact. They cannot vote on U.S. diversion requests but must be consulted.

Henderson’s water-trading idea is not the first. In 1998, the Canadian Nova Group requested a permit to ship Great Lakes water to Asia and it was granted without fanfare.

But when activists and government officials became aware, they were outraged, and approval of the permit was withdrawn. The event put a spotlight on the vulnerability of laws barring diversions. It eventually launched the process that led to the Great Lakes Compact in 2008, which prevents large-scale diversions of the kind Henderson is proposing.

The exception is Chicago which is allowed to take over 2 billion gallons daily based on a 1967 Supreme Court ruling. Chicago does not have to return water to Lake Michigan as is required for other diversions.

Wisconsin author Peter Annin has the long view on diverting water from the Great Lakes and has authored two books on the topic.

“These kinds of proposals come up during high-water periods. From an engineering perspective and a geopolitical perspective, they are quite naive. But then water levels always fall and the proposals fade away,” Annin told Great Lakes Now.

He doesn’t see the eight states revisiting the compact based on the current high water levels and thinks it would be “foolish” for the region to encourage outsiders to tap the Great Lakes.

Cameron Davis, who led the efforts of environmental groups to enact the compact, did not respond to a request for comment.

Annin directs the Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College and Davis is a commissioner at Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

Profit-minded outsiders

Henderson’s proposal follows a recent foray into tapping Great Lakes state water reserves.

A Minnesota company floated the idea of shipping water from a Minnesota aquifer to Colorado via rail tanker for an undefined purpose.

Minnesota quickly responded that there was not a scenario for the request to be approved but it demonstrated that water-needy states are looking at ways to tap Great Lakes-region water.

At the time, veteran Great Lakes water activist Lynn Broaddus said this won’t be the last of the “profit-minded outsiders” who want to tap the region’s water. She urged Great Lakes governors to focus on updating the compact.

Henderson told Great Lakes Now that a convening of water managers, environmental groups and other interested parties would be a logical next step to look for creative ways to deal with rising lake levels.

“Pricing is the best way to get people to think about the value of water,” he said.

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/0...es-diversions/

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