Stay Thirsty My Friends [A Las Vegas Thread]

JPL and NASA chime in with a study of water resources in the Western US:
"The ability to look underground paints what might be the most accurate picture we have of the drought. It's also very bleak one, as the Colorado-fed Lake Mead is already at its lowest levels ever—so low that Nevada has mounted a massive infrastructure project to "suck" water from a deeper part of the lake. Now it looks like no straw is going to be long enough to get the West the water it needs."

The map displayed at NASA Undeground Water Study is quite dramatic.

In case anyone is concerned, . . . DonDiego's little piece of Appalachia is doing OK water wise, . . . much better than the "Extreme Drought" areas surrounding El Paso, TX and Prescott, AZ, where he used to live.

Looks like somebody best be figuring to start recycling urine.....and toliet water

From California Water Prices Soar :

"Farmers in California’s Central Valley, the world’s most productive agricultural region, are paying as much as 10 times more for water than they did before the state’s record drought cut supply.

Farmers and local water officials say the surge in water prices stems from the government decision to limit the water they provide. The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation supplies water to a third of the irrigated farmland in California through a 500-mile network of canals and tunnels. In February, the agency made its initial allocations, and has since said it would reduce its California water distribution to between zero and 75 percent of contract supply this year.
Those with senior water rights, many of which date to before 1914, are getting from 50 percent to 75 percent of their water, he said. The rest didn’t get any federal water this year because of the severity of the drought, he said.

The drought threatens to boost produce costs that are already elevated following a December frost, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The price of fresh fruit is forecast to rise as much as 6 percent this year, the department said last month. Dairy products, of which California is the biggest producer, may rise as much as 4 percent."

Nature can be unkind. Especially when She raises prices for the vegetables which poor old DonDiego needs for roughage in his diet.

It probably makes people feel good to conserve water for their personal use...showers, landscaping, and what not. And that's a good thing...and I fully support it....but I think ultimately the percentage of water used for personal use is a single digit percentage of the whole compared to that use for agriculture and fracking.

Either California needs to aggressively pursue desalinization plants for agriculture...or we need to aggressively plan to move or agricultural basin someplace that is not a desert. Lets hope mother nature throws us a bone in the meantime with some precipitation.

Or maybe we could grow the Delta Smelt in fish farms instead of letting hundreds of thousands of acre feet of our fresh water resources wash out to the Pacific Ocean...all to support natural habitat of a 2 inch fish over the lives of a few million humans. It's insanity.

https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/13/us-usa-california-water-idUSBREA2C1MB20140313

Maybe we should focus on our water infrastructure with new dams and raising existing dams and desalination plants instead of spending billions on the high speed train to Boondoggleville.

Vegas Casinos loosen up machines to pay lots of jackpots.

Players shed tears of joy... tears stream into the lake.

Our cups runneth over.

*****UPDATE*****

Classic case of the little boy who cried wolf.

That does make you wonder, I've never heard of the smelt fish conservation, seems pretty silly to take that side while there's such a drought going on.

Also wonder if CA will finally start building a couple desal. plants.

Apparently there are already quite a few:

Active desalination plants

That helps for drinking water, but not for agricultural use.