Felice Pace

California Governor Schwarzenegger wants to build two new dams - Sites and Temperance Flat. They are being sold as necessary to cope with the reduction in Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains snowpack expected as a result of climate change. New and “enhanced” storage is being marketed by Lester Snow, director of California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) as part of a “portfolio approach” which also calls for urban water conservation, better groundwater facilities, improved wastewater processing and research into lowering the cost of desalination. The dams are to provide increased capacity in order to catch earlier runoff that – according to climate change data and predictions - will no longer be held in mountain snowpack.

Schwarzenegger and Snow are counting on the climate change predictions to be fairly accurate. If the actual climate does not follow the predictions, the new and “enhanced’ reservoirs might never fill. Furthermore, increasing surface storage would result in more extensive water loss through evaporation. In 1998 the measured evaporation from California reservoirs was about a million acre feet - that’s enough water to cover a million acres of land with a foot of water. That’s a lot of water but the amount will rise if new and “enhanced’ reservoirs are developed. Furthermore, if climate change results in higher summer temperatures evaporation from all reservoirs will increase.

(Read on …)

Rebecca Clarren

As a rule, I don’t go east to find out about the west. But on a recent trip to New York City, just around the corner from Central Park, I learned many new things about water in our region and beyond. At the American Museum of Natural History, past the displays of stuffed hippopotami and condors, is H20 = Life, overflowing with information about, well, water – who uses it, how it’s used, and how we in this country can use less of it. Did you know, for example, that the average person or municipality in the US uses151 gallons of water per day, compared to the 31 gallons on average used in the UK, or the three gallons in Ethiopia? A basic primer on water conservation, the exhibit, with excellent photos and displays, also helps place Western water issues in a global context: Las Vegas has the same annual rain fall as the United Arab Emirates.

Luckily, you don’t have to go to New York City to glean this information. The Museum has a great website, with special content for both educators (find articles and activities to enhance curriculum for specific grades) and kids (travel virtually to the bottom of the ocean, a Mangrove ecosystem, or play a game with polar bears). If you do find yourself in New York, H20 = Life will be up through May 25.

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

She was about 20 years old when she hit the top of her game — loved by all, her future bright. Then, too much use and abuse led her on a downhill slide, so that in recent years she’s only been a mere shadow of her former self. Now, she may be on her way back up.

No. I’m not talking Britney Spears. I’m talking Lake Powell. Reservoir Powell to her detractors (and those who understand the proper definition of “lake” and “reservoir”). She was so high in 1983 that the Bureau of Reclamation had to essentially flush the lake, sending some 100,000 cubic feet of water each second down the Grand Canyon. Then, in the 90s, things went bad. There was a big drought. Lake Powell started tanking. Where once was lake, only a 100 foot bathtub ring remained. Now, a big winter has inspired news of a dramatic comeback: High snowpack will raise Powell by 50 feet!

So Powell is poised for a comeback. Or not. This rebirth’s likely to be about as successful as Britney’s comeback last fall. Fifty feet on top of currrent levels will still leave the reservoir far below capacity — look for a 60 to 70 foot bathtub ring during this summer’s peak levels. And unless the arid West is soggy this summer, Powell will plummet back to about 50 percent of capacity this fall. And yeah, we may get some flooding here and there, but the Grand Canyon will not relive the torrent of ‘83. Unless the dam breaks, that is.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah border, was created to benefit Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Three hundred miles away, on the Arizona-Nevada border, Lake Mead stores Colorado River water for Arizona, California and Nevada.

Both reservoirs have dropped to below half-capacity due to the drought of the past eight years, threatening serious water shortages, along with the loss of hydro-power and damage to riparian habitat and recreation sites.

According to an article in the Arizona Republic, representatives from all seven states have negotiated a drought plan that will balance the needs of users in both the upper and lower basins, avoiding a courtroom dispute. The plan will be ratified this week in Las Vegas, marking the first major agreement among the states since the Colorado River Compact of 1922.

“By managing the two reservoirs together rather than fighting over how much water will be released every year, we’ll help mitigate the probability of Arizona taking shortages,” said Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

“It’s hugely important for us,” said Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, as quoted in the New York Times. “This really does provide the bridge for us to get into the next decade.”

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

By now, everyone knows that a good portion of southern California is aflame. 500,000 evacuated thus far, more than 1,000 homes burned, two killed. And the flames aren’t slowing down.

Some of the best coverage:

LA Times: They’re in the thick of it, and have spectacular images on the website, plus good Google maps showing the fires with regular updates.

Get the southern view with the San Diego Union Tribune.

Very cool satellite view from NASA — it shows how the Santa Ana winds, counterintuitively, are pushing the fires towards the ocean.

With the Southwestern drought and Western growth continuing, the dry and arcane subject of water policy is suddenly … sexy. And the new new thing in Western water supply is the recycling of sewage plant effluent as drinking water.

After having effluent-recycling proposals shot down a couple of times by opponents calling them “toilet to tap” boondoggles, San Diego is once again studying effluent purification to supplement drinking water supplies, according to the brilliant online news site voiceofsandiego.org. If there’s one more winter of subnormal Sierra snowpack, it seems, San Diego will face mandatory water rationing.

And the south suburbs of Denver are looking at the possibility of cleaning wastewater sufficiently to put it into their drinking water supply. And why is that? Here’s how the Denver Post puts it:

The Water Supply Initiative estimated in 2005 that Colorado likely could add another 2.8 million people by 2030, raising the demand for water by another 202 million gallons of water a year.

The south metro region is being forced to look for new, costly water supplies. Most of the region relies on aquifers that are running dry.

A 2003 regional study by water providers found that shortages and higher costs would be commonplace for customers in as little as 20 years.

Of course, High Country News has, as usual, been an early trend-spotter on the toilet-to-tap issue, as evidenced by Peter Friederici’s sprightly and authoritative cover story on the phenomenon, “Facing the Yuck Factor.”

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

It’s official: This summer was hotter than a June bride in a featherbed, hotter than a fox in a forest fire, even hotter than a habanero topped Hatch green chile cheeseburger. Anyone who stepped out of their air-conditioned homes and offices anywhere from Boise to Phoenix, anytime from June to mid-September, probably already guessed that. But now the numbers have been crunched by the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

Some of the findings include: Summer 2007 was the sixth warmest on record since 1895; this was the warmest summer ever for Utah and Nevada, and was in the top 10 for 11 other states; and the entire West was warmer than average, aside from Washington and Oregon, which fell in the “normal” range.

That meant a lot more air conditioners were running, meaning that the nation’s residential energy demand was 8 percent higher than under “normal” climate conditions (meaning more power plants burned more coal and spewed out more carbon dioxide creating warmer temperatures … ) Meanwhile, drought persisted across most of the West (in spite of above normal summer precipitation in California and Arizona).

In related news: Oceans are expected to rise by about one meter, in the next 50 to 150 years. If you’re curious how that might affect your beachfront home, check out this cool page from the University of Arizona.

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

Ever since the Book of Revelation (a.k.a. John’s Apocalypse), and probably long before that, humans have had their apocalyptic fantasies: The idea that we — or at least the “sinners” collapse back into the desert because of their excessive ways. (High Country News has presented such scenarios in stories by Paolo Bacigalupi and Craig Childs).

In those stories, the end comes when population growth rams up against the dry realities of the arid West. But a story in this morning’s paper made me wonder if the end won’t come not at the hands of nature, but at the hands of the banks and the economy.

(Read on …)

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

The Aspen Times, in Colorado’s top resort town, calls this summer “The Killing Fields,” because so many local black bears have gotten into trouble and been killed. The story has powerful photos of bears being “euthanized” or driven out of town.

I bring it up, partly because readers of this blog are interested in conflicts with black bears. It showed in many comments to a previous post.

So, here’s an update from around the West:

The Aspen Times has more sad bear stories and photos, here and here, and an editorial — calling for a crackdown on people who get bears in trouble by offering easy garbage.

The Denver Post reports a larger wave of black bear conflicts around Colorado, and quotes a wildlife agent, “I’m up to my eyeballs in bears.”

Meanwhile, Nevada experiences a record year for black bear conflicts and executions.

In New Mexico, this summer’s black bears have bitten at least two people.

In Montana, one black bear tried to claw into a pickup-truck camper, and another wrestled a guy in a tent.

In Wyoming, wildlife agents killed a mother bear when a tranquilizer dart failed to tranquilize.

As I’ve said, I think the surge in bear conflicts is caused by global warming/drought, and more people infringing on more bear habitat, as well as people acting foolish around bears.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Of the recent news in our region, two tragedies stick in my mind. Both occurred in Utah, and both were lethal.

First, on the night of June 17, a black bear tore into a family’s tent and dragged away 11-year-old Samuel Evan Ives, in a campground two miles up a dirt road in the Wasatch Mountains.

According to the AP:

… The boy, his mother, stepfather and a 6-year-old brother were sleeping in a large tent in a primitive camping area, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. The stepfather heard a scream, and the boy and his sleeping bag were gone. … The sleeping bag was pulled out of the tent (and) the boy’s body was found about 400 yards away.

Then, the evening of June 29, a wildfire in the foothills of the Uinta Mountains turned into “a cyclone of fire,” roared through a hay field and burned to death three farmers, who were trying to use sprinklers to save the field. It was also a family tragedy: The victims included 63-year-old George Houston, a retired U.S. Forest Service staffer who’d fought a lot of fires, and his 43-year-old son, Tracy Houston. They saved Tracy’s son, 11-year-old Duane Houston, by telling him to run for his life while they lagged behind.

Details on the bear attack, then the fire, and in both, the families:

(Read on …)

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

Spring has arrived in our little valley. Fruit trees in the orchard hang heavy with brilliant white and pink blossoms, and violets are blooming in our yard. I think the violets are pretty. And they taste good, besides. My wife has a slightly more traditional view of the lawn: To her, the violets are “broadleaf” invaders, and must be eliminated before they take over. She bemoans the fact that she doesn’t have time to pull the weeds every day. Poisons will arrive soon (surely applied clandestinely, while I’m at work).

In the past, I’ve suggested just digging up the stinking lawn and in its place xeriscaping — planting native, drought-tolerant plants. Though my wife agrees with me on an ideological level, her aesthetic sense is much too powerful to let that happen. We live in a cottage, shaded by green trees, and a bunch of yucca, cactus, and sagebrush just won’t do. But today I ran into an article giving me an alternative, and new ammunition for wiping out the lawn. It’s about folks replacing lawns with edible landscapes such as herbs, edible flowers, and the like.

Not a bad idea. It will still take more water and care than a patch of prickly pears, but will require less than that monotonous field of green. And since we’ll be eating its bounty, the herbicidal temptation will be held at bay. Check it out: It’s one of those easy solutions to a persistent problem. If only there were more of them.

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

It’s become the seasonal norm: A dry winter hits part of the West, and by spring, everyone’s talking about building new water projects or doing something much more radical, like practicing conservation. Such talk usually gets washed away by an unusually wet summer monsoon season, or by enough snow the following winter to ease some of the pain.

But this spring feels different. Though some regions, such as the Eastern Plains of Colorado and much of New Mexico, are coming off unusually severe winters, the true possibility that water will run out in some places looms large. Down in Tucson, for example, water managers are predicting some serious water restrictions by 2010. And with Lake Powell and Lake Mead both at just about 50 percent capacity, Colorado River users are coming up with all kinds of alternatives, as laid out by the New York Times today. Pipelines, massive groundwater mining and even desalination plans are all being considered.

All the talk seems to indicate a new understanding of where we live. After living here for a while, most of us have come to realize that there are multi-year cycles during which a few years of drought are typically followed by a year or two or three of relief. But now it’s different. With global warming upon us, and with evidence showing that over the past millennia droughts have been severe and long-lasting, we have come to see the wet and rainy years as anomalies. The norm around most of the West, it turns out, is dry.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll also come to understand that all the dams, pipelines and diversions can’t cover up the truth: Most of the West is a desert. But judging by the most recent round of water project proposals, that time has yet to come.

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

If you think the recent drought in the Colorado River basin is unusually severe, think again. Though dry weather throughout the 240,000 square mile drainage has lowered Lake Powell levels enough to expose canyons that have been underwater for decades, things could easily get worse.

That’s the conclusion of a new report from the National Research Council (pdf). Examining tree ring data from across the basin, the report’s researchers found that the region has experienced much more severe droughts over the past 500 years than the current one (see Michelle Nijhuis’ definitive piece on this research for HCN) . They postulate that the average annual flow of the river is probably closer to 13 million acre feet than the 16.4 million acre feet average on which the Colorado River Compact was based. In other words, over time there will be a lot less water to divvy up between rapidly growing states than originally thought.

Interestingly enough, Pat Mulroy, who manages the Southern Nevada Water Authority, has held up the report as proof that conservation won’t solve water problems, as reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Instead, sprawling Las Vegas needs to find new sources of water, she says, namely the aquifer that lies beneath Lincoln and White Pine counties north of Sin City.

Mulroy, as told by the Journal, had this to say:

“It confirms a lot of things that we’ve been saying,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “It says there’s no way you can conserve your way out of this. There has to be a larger solution somehow.”

For the Las Vegas Valley, which gets 90 percent of its water from the Colorado, that solution is to develop an alternative supply, Mulroy said.

“In my mind, it underscores the critical need for Nevada to diversify.”

Sounds like that old Manifest Destiny mindset still survives. Instead of thinking of ways to use less of something — minerals, energy, land, water — we just move in and conquer a new place, as though there is an infinite supply to be had “out there.” Problem is, there’s not many “out theres” left anymore, even in the West. Perhaps it’s time to change the way we think.