Largest U.S. reservoir plummets to lowest level since it was filled some 90 years ago as water crisis deepens for western states

2024​

Conclusions​

If one assesses Arizona’s highest-profile policies to address water scarcity, water augmentation comes up short in terms of cost-effectiveness and timeliness, while irrigation restrictions on foreign firms fail to have large state-wide impacts. State programs to conserve water via improved irrigation efficiency will more likely succeed if they are combined with institutional constraints (or incentives), measure water conservation properly (which they currently do not), and determine whether hydrological conditions favor conservation beforehand (which they currently do not). Competing legislative bills for rural groundwater management have stalled. These groundwater management proposals have, however, encouraging elements from an economist’s perspective. These proposal elements include quantity limits that are transferable across users, over time, or both, and an emphasis on cost-benefit analyses.


So they have a lot of bureaucratic talk with no actions that have shown any measurable affect?

Pretty much what I had observed.
 
By a combination of building canals, regulating well drilling, and in general putting in as many dams and reservoirs as possible. California dealt with their problems and water shortage by buying all the Colorado River water Arizona and Nevada weren't using up until Arizona and Nevada started taking their full share.

In fact, California sued the other two states and took it to the Supreme Court where the Justices told California You ain't got nothin' coming. Now California, well at least Southern California, has a severe water shortage. They did nothing within the state to improve water conservation. Now they're fucked.

Remember, California built the aqueduct, which effectively cut the usage of Colorado River water down to about 10% of the total.

But then we let the Communists take over, and the mass amounts of water from the Sierra Nevada's was diverted away from the aqueduct into the Pacific ocean instead. I blame Jerry Brown, but it was really an unholy alliance between Brown and the commie scumbags in our assembly and state senate.

Brown and the democrats were bought off by the Mexican lettuce and avocado guilds to shut down the San Joaquin Valley and Camarillo farms, that used to supply about 90% of both crops in the USA. The bullshit with the smelt backed legislation that would no longer allow American farmers to irrigate crops.

We still have the aqueduct and could reverse this, but the corruption is worse than ever. California has a strict "Mexico first" policy - supported by Cartel Money and the bulk of illegals in the nation.
 
Yea, and drive half the farmers in the Imperial Valley out of business to save a one-inch-long minnow that has no value (the Delta Smelt).

Not only has no value - but is common all over northern Cali. Brown was bought off by Mexican guilds to shut down lettuce and avocado production in California - and he earned his pay.

The Colorado River Commission SHOULD have stood firm and not given California one additional drop after that outright fraud, but they caved to the political power of Sacramento.
 
Remember, California built the aqueduct, which effectively cut the usage of Colorado River water down to about 10% of the total.

Until the 1990's California bought all of Arizona's and Nevada's unused share of Colorado river water every year. The Los Angeles canal from Owen Lake was built to supplement that as LA grew. That effectively drained Owens Lake.
But then we let the Communists take over, and the mass amounts of water from the Sierra Nevada's was diverted away from the aqueduct into the Pacific ocean instead. I blame Jerry Brown, but it was really an unholy alliance between Brown and the commie scumbags in our assembly and state senate.

Mid state, the Left stopped building dams, removed many in place, didn't build new or bigger reservoirs, and basically wasted all the natural water letting it flow into the Pacific. Fish over people, So-to-speak. Now the Imperial and Napa Valleys are drying up and what was the most productive farm land in the West is dying off.
Brown and the democrats were bought off by the Mexican lettuce and avocado guilds to shut down the San Joaquin Valley and Camarillo farms, that used to supply about 90% of both crops in the USA. The bullshit with the smelt backed legislation that would no longer allow American farmers to irrigate crops.

It was far more about radical Leftist environmentalism. They killed off the fois grau industry. They laid waste to cattle ranching, chicken and pig cultivation. Then they went after the farmers themselves.
We still have the aqueduct and could reverse this, but the corruption is worse than ever. California has a strict "Mexico first" policy - supported by Cartel Money and the bulk of illegals in the nation.
California has a 'nature over people' policy. Nature comes first. People can just go extinct. So long as the radical Left is comfortable and can import from somewhere else everything they want, they're going to go the BANANA route locally.
 
Until the 1990's California bought all of Arizona's and Nevada's unused share of Colorado river water every year. The Los Angeles canal from Owen Lake was built to supplement that as LA grew. That effectively drained Owens Lake.


Mid state, the Left stopped building dams, removed many in place, didn't build new or bigger reservoirs, and basically wasted all the natural water letting it flow into the Pacific. Fish over people, So-to-speak. Now the Imperial and Napa Valleys are drying up and what was the most productive farm land in the West is dying off.


It was far more about radical Leftist environmentalism. They killed off the fois grau industry. They laid waste to cattle ranching, chicken and pig cultivation. Then they went after the farmers themselves.

California has a 'nature over people' policy. Nature comes first. People can just go extinct. So long as the radical Left is comfortable and can import from somewhere else everything they want, they're going to go the BANANA route locally.

I've found that nearly all "environmentalism" is just cover for massive corruption. Solyndra being the most massive example.
 
I've found that nearly all "environmentalism" is just cover for massive corruption. Solyndra being the most massive example.
Corruption is on thing, and a problem. Worse, environmentalism, at least as practiced by the Left, is studiously political rather than based on sound science, reasoning, and a desire for effective solutions.
 
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has plummeted to its lowest water level since it was filled some 90 years ago, another sign of the crisis plaguing the Colorado River system.

Water levels at Lake Mead hit 1,040.4 feet (317.1 meters) above sea level on Friday, according to federal data. That’s just below the elevation of 1,040.58 feet (317.27 meters) recorded on July 28, 2022 at the reservoir that straddles the Arizona-Nevada border outside Las Vegas.

The record follows a winter that produced the worst snowpack on record in the Colorado River Basin. Melting snow feeds the river, which is relied upon by farmers, industries, wildlife, hydropower producers and more than 40 million people across seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico.

It comes a week after federal officials announced a short-term proposal to stave off a crisis in the beleaguered waterway. Federal officials stepped in after states that rely on the river — California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — failed to reach an agreement on how to share the dwindling resource long-term. Under the proposal, California, Nevada and Arizona would share water cuts.

Years of overuse combined with drought and rising temperatures have been depleting Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir. Together, the two bodies of Colorado River water are the lowest they’ve been in nearly seven decades.

To protect the strained system’s ability to produce hydropower, federal officials said Thursday that they will not release cool Lake Powell waterfrom Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona to protect a threatened native fish whose habitat is between the reservoirs.

Severe drought in 2022 on Lake Mead, which is held back by the Hoover Dam, exposed human remains and forced water officials in Las Vegas to pump water from deeper within the reservoir to continue to supply water to millions of people.


https://fortune.com/2026/08/08/largest-us-reservoir-lake-mead-record-low-level-water-crisis-western-states/

View attachment 92406
What do you think should be done here?
 
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has plummeted to its lowest water level since it was filled some 90 years ago, another sign of the crisis plaguing the Colorado River system.

Water levels at Lake Mead hit 1,040.4 feet (317.1 meters) above sea level on Friday, according to federal data. That’s just below the elevation of 1,040.58 feet (317.27 meters) recorded on July 28, 2022 at the reservoir that straddles the Arizona-Nevada border outside Las Vegas.

The record follows a winter that produced the worst snowpack on record in the Colorado River Basin. Melting snow feeds the river, which is relied upon by farmers, industries, wildlife, hydropower producers and more than 40 million people across seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico.

It comes a week after federal officials announced a short-term proposal to stave off a crisis in the beleaguered waterway. Federal officials stepped in after states that rely on the river — California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — failed to reach an agreement on how to share the dwindling resource long-term. Under the proposal, California, Nevada and Arizona would share water cuts.

Years of overuse combined with drought and rising temperatures have been depleting Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir. Together, the two bodies of Colorado River water are the lowest they’ve been in nearly seven decades.

To protect the strained system’s ability to produce hydropower, federal officials said Thursday that they will not release cool Lake Powell waterfrom Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona to protect a threatened native fish whose habitat is between the reservoirs.

Severe drought in 2022 on Lake Mead, which is held back by the Hoover Dam, exposed human remains and forced water officials in Las Vegas to pump water from deeper within the reservoir to continue to supply water to millions of people.


https://fortune.com/2026/08/08/largest-us-reservoir-lake-mead-record-low-level-water-crisis-western-states/

View attachment 92406
You obviously don't have to answer, but given that you posted this I'm assuming you have interest in the topic. What do you think should be done here?
 
I guess Stone has to drink heavily to stay on Team Epstein.

Stone is a democrat?

I don't think so.

A few of the democrats who bent the knee to Jeff Epstein;

  • Bill Clinton
  • Hakeem Jeffries
  • Barack Obama (via his attorney)
  • Ro Khanna
  • Eric Swalwell
  • Stacey Plaskett
  • Reid Hoffman
  • Jamie Raskin
  • Bill Richardson
  • Al Gore Jr.
democrats are the party of Epstein, the Epsteinites.
 
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