Friday, August 20, 2010

Lake Mead's Water Level Plunges as 11-Year Drought Lingers - NYTimes.com

Lake Mead's Water Level Plunges as 11-Year Drought Lingers - NYTimes.comLake Mead, the enormous reservoir of Colorado River water that hydrates Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, is receding to a level not seen since it was first being filled in the 1930s, stoking existential fears about water supply in the parched Southwest.
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You do realize that Las Vegas is fated to become a ghost town, right? They can go ahead and spend billions of our money to build a bullet train line from Anaheim to Vegas because Harry Reid says so, but that whole part of the country is going to run out of water. It's just simple math. The ground water has been pumped down to levels that will take hundreds if not thousands of years to recharge. And there is the Colorado River, and you can read about that--Lake Mead hasn't been this low in 50 years. Why? Every year they take out of Lake Mead 1.6 million acre feet more water than flows into it. Vegas, Henderson, Phoenix, Mesa, and those other growing desert cities are artificial creations that depend on massive infusions of water from elsewhere, and there is no way the flow can be sustained. Try and tell that to a real estate developer or a local booster mayor, though. They won't hear it. And of course the hordes of retirees who flock there to lie around the pool and play golf on those massively watered courses have no idea what is going on.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like trouble for the Las Vegas chapter of CAI.

Anonymous said...

HOAs have long been about forced consumption of goods and services - under threat of fine and foreclosure on your home. Look to involuntary membership HOAs as a major reason for the sheer wasting of water. HOAs don't preserve property values, they consume them.

Das Karl Marx said...

So, HOAs solve the overproduction problem of capitalism, no?

Evan McKenzie said...

HOAs have fined people for not watering their lawns, even when there is a drought. Some developer's lawyer writes a boilerplate covenant about lawns and that's the law forever. No matter that the subdivision is in a desert.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we must render to the Privatopian Emperor Caesar what is Caesar's.

Anonymous said...

Fox News is covering this story, as it pertains to Las Vegas particularly. (Sunday 8/22 @3:30 p.m.)