Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire West of the Divide.......Water

Water situation is bleak.......60-70% snowpack at best.....for many years now

Coming to Utah or the west.......don't bitch about the dust

Pray for rain..........

https://www.ksl.com/article/50149717/western-us-prepares-for-possible-1st-water-shortage-declaration

its Romneys fault , get rid of that useless pos

Our idaho republican senator is busy trying to remove 4 dams on the lower snake or Columbia. I think it's to help the salmon. Seems like reservoirs aren't a terrible idea with climate change and all.

Bb

Unbelievably dry in mountain California, snowpack 50%, reservoirs less than 50%, wildfires already, look for serious food price hikes this year, spuds, onions, orchard, veggies, beer/hops, grapes/wine, coastal rivers very low and warm...maybe a salmon die-off...it's gonna get ugly.

Most of the west and southwest.

We are in the red zone too.

Here on the northern border we've dodged the drought so far but it's doubtful our luck will hold.

really sucks.........

I do blame mittens for it too........

Iffin we could turn our wind to rain.......

we'd be building arks........

holy schidtt...right now 39+ from the NW

and it ain't warm

We need another El Nino weather pattern.

Here on the North Coast we have 65% of all the fresh water in the world flowing leisurely past our doors, and no you can't have any.

We have been dark red for a while here.

Get a 1/2 in.of rain then next day get 4 in.of wind.

Repete every once in a while.

same here in Podunk

We got some snow earlier today. It’s already blowing dust right now. Drier than a popcorn fart.

The SW has been in a long period of drought, about 20 years. If it keeps the water wars will be really starting next year when the Colorado river compact goes into severe drought rules.

I believe I read that Hoover Dam will not have enough water backed up to generate power in Sept, 2022.

What happens to places like Vegas then? Think about millions of people in civilized society without potable water. Might make Minneapolis look like summer camp.

Try selling electric cars then.

Went fishing yesterday, reservoir was a good 20 to 25 feet low

Not that I support taking those out, but those four are regulatory reservoirs, not storage. Used to slow down flood stage, provide for barge transportation, and electrical generation.

Removing them would not have a large impact on the water woes downstream. It would impact other things, like wheat transportation off the Palouse, and Bonneville Power rates.

It might help the salmon and steelhead runs though. Until they get to the Columbia that is. But, at least then they only have a 300 or so mile swim to the ocean, instead of a 400 mile one.

tikkanut,

what is this "water" stuff you speak of?

The dust and dry was turrble south of Podunk last June.

Well...it is a desert after all.

What happens is Las Vegas keeps drawing water. The Water Authority recently completed a 3rd straw intake that is well below the dead pool water elevation. So, none can flow downstream but we can keep drawing and recycling.

Hasn’t rained here in a week and a half or so. Ditch at the end of the drive way still flowing. 🤪

Talk about making up numbers

Rivers, salmon, dams, politicians, Indians, Warren Buffet. Who knows what these sons of bitches are plotting, with the dam removal program. Follow the money. I DO know when drought hits, ice cold water is drawn off the bottom of the dam and released into the river to lower fish mortality...take out the dams? I DO know that hydro power is clean and renewable...take out the dams?
I DO know that Irongate dam hatchery on the Klamath has been very successful since 1919 when the dams were built....take out the dams? I DO know that flood control and irrigation are positive forces for the economy...take out the dams? I DO know that a hundred years of silt accumulation will have some serious consequences...take out the dams? I'm waiting to hear the pro's for dam removal...you don't need a biology degree to see the cons.

Dry as hell out there( I am from the west) and yet they still keep building golf courses, in the desert!

We got several inches of snow the last few days so that will help. nearby lakes and rivers all low.

It's been getting dryer and hotter for a long time here in the shadow of the Sierras, about the last 40 years or so. We've seen the hottest summers on record year after year, setting new records almost every year.

Weird how they are always surprised.

Simpson is a congressman, not a senator. He's outlived his usefulness. The problem is that he can't get primaried because they never have anyone decent running against him.

Getting rid of 10,000 sea lions would go a lot farther in solving the salmon problem. It's estimated that they eat 50,000 lb of salmon PER DAY. The Marine Mammals Act was llike the Wild Horse Act. A bunch of do-gooders who had no foresight ran laws through congress with no sunset clauses. They didn't consider what would happen when their save-the-animals bills were successful and the populations just kept growing.

What does sea lion taste like?

Chicken?

There was a situation a few years ago when the spring runoff had all the dams running at peak power production, enough to fill the grid and them some. They shut down all the windmills for a few weeks because the grid couldn't handle that much power. Normally when a company over produces something and can't sell it all, they pull in, lay off, and wait it out. Not in this case. The Bonneville Power Admin. paid the windmill owners for the power that they weren't producing. Your tax money at work.

We've already had at least 13 wildfires in Utah this year. Gonna be an ugly, ugly summer.

Nothing made up.

Ever hear of the Great Lakes?

I've said for years now that water is a national security issue and we should treat it as such.

not in the sense of rationing, but in the sense of capture, diverting and desalinizing to meet the nation's needs for agriculture and residential growth.

Up here there was a low snow pack, now it hasn't rained or snowed in a couple months. It warm and windy, we broke a temp record on April 15th by 6 degree's. Rivers and lakes are way down.

The bush is really dry now, that and the fact that the forest mgt has been bungled. The millions of acres of dead and dry timber is going to burn, leaving People to run for their lives...again.

The hippies and freaks wont allow proper measures to be taken to mitigate forest fires, more backward thinking.

A young friend told me the world will run out of fresh water before oil.

Played by Christian Bale in the movie adaptation of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short (2015), Michael Burry is famous for having called time on the subprime lending market years before anybody else – profiting hugely in the process. Yet, the film’s sting in the tail comes just before the credits, as a quote flicks up on the screen noting that nowadays:


This may seem surprising. But the Western world is slowly drinking itself dry. Think of a cup of coffee. A delicious cup of Joe requires 140 litres of water to travel from bush to table. That’s nothing compared to beef though, which requires 15,415 litres per kg[1], about the same as a single T-bone steak. Or if you flip it around, it takes roughly the water from two Olympic swimming pools to produce the meat from just one (largish) cow. All this consumption, from our morning coffees and steak dinners to the showers we have, means that the average American alone uses 575 litres of water a day.

For a planet that’s 71% covered in water, the gap between clean, accessible freshwater (less than 1%) and all the other types, however, is stark. Agriculture and food take up 69% of the world’s water resources. And this is set to only grow, both as a response to population growth, as the world hits 9.7 billion in 2050[2], and the increased wealth of that population, whose rise out of poverty leads to a demand for more ‘luxury’ foods, such as meat.

This continually increasing need will draw on aquifers that have been in decline since 2003, especially in areas of the world where water scarcity is already an issue. NASA has discovered that 21 of 37 of the world’s aquifers are currently being depleted[3]. Other freshwater sources, although not being drained are rapidly becoming polluted beyond repair. The Chinese government, for instance, admits that roughly 80% of the country’s surface groundwater is not fit for drinking, 90% of groundwater in urban areas is contaminated, and that 40% of its rivers are too polluted to use for either agricultural or industrial use. Jacques Cousteau long ago pointed out that, “water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”

https://www.killik.com/the-edit/why-michael-burry-is-investing-in-water/

Colorado has no problem sucking down water for golf courses and new home developments that require blue grass.

New home developments, and things that make them attractive to buyers...such as golf courses...generate property taxes. And extortion of as much money as possible from the taxpayers is part of the absolute chief mandate of government here in America, at the local, state, and federal levels.

He is a POS and I Would enjoy seeing him gone!

May run out of "fresh water", but not water.

May get ugly for a bit and like KFWA said above we[USA] needs to be looking at this item as a national treasure and protect it.

Might have that much of North America's fresh water, but not the world's fresh water.

This is an easy one: the OR and CA governors are planning a on replacing the hydroelectric energy with new “green energy”, and having the public line the wind turbine and solar cell contractors pockets as payback for campaign contributions. It’s just a little bit about the fish. The salmon run improvements are really only for show and not the primary reason to remove the three dams.

Yeah, those dams are so effing great; it's a wonder God didn't build them at the outset. GD

The ag biz out west always scared me a bit. When someone else can regulate your water supply you are living on the edge.

God regulates our water supply here in Iowa and he's been plenty fair with it.

People moving to drier climates and bring their mentality that they can plant whatever they want regardless of the native landscape's needs and support structure. This applies to vegetation too.

Bluegrass. A local farm store sells a low water grass mix they call Desert Green. It has several good looking varieties but no bluegrass. It looks good and uses half the water. Its courser than blue and doesnt stay as green in the winter but it does cut water use.
Its also resistant to sod webworm if you have that problem

It's bad here, saw a rattlesnake dragging a canteen.

Here in Arizona we don't get much rainfall as it is even though we have two rainy seasons. We have a winter rain and the monsoon in the summer and both have been sadly lacking for years. We've also been running warmer than usual and IIRC, February was one of the warmest, if not the warmest on record. I hate to think what this summer may be like.
Paul B.

Apparently people are still arguing about if Twain wrote this or not. Either way it's still pithy

"About the turn of the century Mark Twain took a trip out to the West, passed through Nevada and California, and I believe Arizona. He returned to the East and summarized his view of this rather contentious area by saying, “Out there they use whiskey for drinking and they save the water for fighting.” Indeed, that was something of a prophecy about how we have handled our problems in the past"

Does anyone know how expensive desalination of water on a large scale is? If that really isn't practical it seems the smart move would be to plan to move large scale farming to areas with better water supply. I'd guess that we would loose some early season fresh fruits and vegetables? Personally I'd rather have to eat canned of frozen through the Winter and early Spring than not eat....

The battle kill timber up in BC is terrible. Huge fuel loads for forest fires. Am sure the art teacher Justin has it under control.

Many easterners don't understand how western water rights work. Just because you have water on your land, it usually moves to somewhere else in a creek or river. Someone downstream might have filed a right for that water. The rule is 1st in right gets the water. If there are more rights filed than there is water to fill them, the senior, or earliest, rights get their full amount before anyone else gets any. In water short years like this one, the junior rights might not get any at all. It's not divvied up, it's all or none. You might not like that rule but it was initially set up that way and the laws still exist. Changing it now would disrupt the entire western water supply system.

We had a discussion a while back about people in OR not being able to catch rainwater off their roofs in barrels for watering. To a westerner familiar with water rights, it's very understandable. That roof water will run off into a stream and someone downstream has a right to all water in the watershed. If you catch the water, it won't make it to the stream and you're depriving someone with a senior right of his water.

There's a ski area near here that would love to develop a new run. However, the land where the run would be doesn't get enough natural snow so they'd have to pump water from a creek near the current lifts to make snow. Sounds simple, right? Not so. A rancher down below has the rights on water in the creek. They can use it to make snow where it is as it will still be in the creek when it melts. The new run, however, would require the water to be pumped over a ridge. When it melted, it would go down a different creek and the rancher wouldn't get it. So, he refuses to allow the ski resort to use it as he would lose it. He has the rights, he gets the water.

There are some seemingly exceptions to the rights laws, but not really. An irrigation district can own the rights and sell shares to land owners. The district determines how much water a share will receive each year. My place is under the Twin Falls Canal Company. Generally, you own 1 share/acre and it entitles you to 1 acre foot per share. That's enough water to cover the acre a foot deep during the irrigation season. During a dry year, the Canal Co can reduce the amount of water per share if there isn't enough. This isn't an exception as the Canal Co holds the rights, not the individual land owner. The Company still get it's water under state law and it can divide it up among shareholders at it sees fit.

for example here in Utah

You own water shares in the Canal/Water Company to irrigate with

People inside the city limits have a untreated secondary water source....late April-mid September

Lawns..gardens etc....an annual set fee per season---with restrictions---no watering between 11am-6pm for example

Especially with only 60% of snow pack on the hill

I'd have no problem giving the Tribes '06 ammo and saying go get you some sea lions.

Sign my ass up!

Yes, I was working on the river then. Every dam had their spillways AND powerhouses allowing as much water as possible to get through. By the time it hit Bonneville they were pushing over 500,000 cubic feet per second through the system. One is welcome to calculate that out to gallons per minute if they wish, I don't. I think they may have been pushing closer towards 600K cfs. And you're correct, the grid isn't designed for that kind of generation.

Maybe we should look at regulating "residential" growth too?

Dry as a Baptist picnic here in SoCal yet the idiots running this state allow runaway development. No thought as to where we will get water to supply them all.

Did you know that only about a quarter of the water a plant receives is used for growth?

The rest is lost to evaporation.

transpiration, eh?

We need to get rid of a few billion junipers here, that would certainly help get our aquifers back in some shape, and help with soil moisture during dry periods. Some sources say 40 gal per day for them sunsabishes.

probably, my focus would be on making sure our agricultural needs are met as the first priority

My Dad used to run cows up where Valsdad lives, and the photos from the '20's and '30's show that Junipers were not that plentiful back then, pines were a hundred yards apart. I wonder if the oldtimers and the Injuns kept the rangeland healthy by annual burning in the fall...or the result of over enthusiastic fire suppression hadn't started to show it's downside yet? In any case, we are sure paying the penalty for bad policy now. We have 4 seasons here now, fall, winter, spring and fire.

I had a 6 month job in K Falls in the summer of '98, but was a resident of Cali still so I put in for a tag in the Shasta, Tulelake, Tionesta area (X1 now, not sure about back then) and was lucky enough to draw. I hunted around Tionesta/Lava Beds NN a few days. When I moved back this way in 2016 I was stunned at all the 6'-10' junipers covering areas that were open grassland/sagebrush when I was here in '98.

So yeah, I have a sneaky suspicion different human behaviors have had some effect on things like that juniper intrusion that's happening now.

Wish we could send some out to the west. We are 10 inches above normal just for the month of April.(that's what she said)


Clyde

Chicken of the Sea


Clyde

Modoc and Lassen and Washoe had a helluva drought back from 1928 to around 1935, little cow and sheep outfits were desperate for grass and water. The little guys had to push their cows continually for years, across other peoples land, government land, keep 'em moving. Big outfits were screaming bloody murder over 'trespass' to the county sheriffs, Forest Service and BLM agents were tearing their hair out trying to keep the grass thieves under control...it was a mess, with hot tempers, fences cut, guns pointed, threats made and received, some arson charged but never proved, bad bitter times. He often said of that time, "We thought the drought would never end, I looked for a buyer, but there weren't any, so I had no decision to make, had to keep going no matter how hopeless it looked".

Kinda like a cross between a spotted owl and a desert tortise.

The Great Lakes pass leisurely past your door?
You live on a boat?

U.S. EPA
Facts and Figures about the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are, from west to east: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. They are a dominant part of the physical and cultural heritage of North America.

Shared with Canada and spanning more than 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) from west to east, these vast inland freshwater seas provide water for consumption, transportation, power, recreation and a host of other uses.

The Great Lakes are one of the world’s largest surface freshwater ecosystems.

84% of North America's surface fresh water
about 21% of the world's supply of surface fresh water

Ever hear that lakes have shores?

Duh!

Might need some flown in from Lake Superior when the verdict is announced. I wonder if the air tankers have been staged.

84%? I didn't know it was quite that high.

21% of the world's water?

Whatever it is, it's more than the 10 western states combined. It all flows East out the St.Lawrence River. It has nothing to do with the Oglala Aquifier, which is declining.

The Romans longest aqueduct was around 310 miles long serving Constantinople. They had it figured 700 years ago, you'd think we could figure it out today.

I’d love to have a year with below average rainfall. Nothing but rain for 2 1/2 years.