SocraticGadfly: Mother Nature monkey wrenches the Lower Colorado

September 29, 2010

Mother Nature monkey wrenches the Lower Colorado

True, it's Lake Mead, not Lake Powell, behind Hoover Dam, not Glen Canyon Dam, that's drying up, but ... it looks like the whole lower Colorado River Basin is getting a stiff blast of morning joe from Mother Nature, as water allocations are going to have to be trimmed back.

And, if the lower Colorado puts a "call" on Lake Mead, even if the upper basin isn't using all of its water, anti-Californianism in the Interior West could get hot and heated. True, it will actually be water latecomers Arizona and Nevada trying to save their desert-scurvy necks, but California will look like the ultimate water hog to places like Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

Even scarier, if you're Las Vegas, especially? If Lake Mead falls another 25 feet, that may make the dam's turbines inoperative. No more cheap hydroelectric power for the glitzy Strip.

What was it Abbey said?

Oh, yeah: "The desert always wins."

No comments: