A sad day for the arid west

I just saw this interesting short film, and I thought I would share it with the community. I didn't know that the Colorado river no longer runs all the way to the ocean.

e360.yale.edu/feature/video…

Sad? I think its interesting too. If I lived in Vegas or visit Red Rocks I might need a little bit of that water myself.

Read Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. Made me think twice about wanting to live west of the Mississippi.

Just try and follow the river to the ocean on a satellite version of google maps.

Thats am interesting documentary

Nice video, and ditto on the Cadillac Desert recommendation; every time I go to Vegas (which I try to avoid) I just keep thinking, "wow, they dammed the Colorado for THIS?"

It is funny that the video maker started his journey down the Colorado at the headwaters in the Rocky Mtns. Most people who try the source-to-sea trip start at the headwaters of the Green, in the Wind Rivers, and consider that as the true source of the river, since it's farther inland. In fact, the section of river above the confluence that heads in the Colorado Rockies was not even called the "Colorado" until 1924 or so, when Colorado politicians pushed for a change to give their state more cred. Before that, the Colorado River was formed by the confluence of the Green and the Grand (as in Grand Junction, Grand View point, Grand County, Grand Valley, etc.).

Wow, even this thread turned in to 'rado bashing! Woo!

Good video, thanks for posting it. There's a classic full-length film Koyaanisqatsi see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaa… that's about us on the planet in a more general way, similar theme though, highly recommend it if you haven't seen it ...

camhead wrote: every time I go to Vegas (which I try to avoid) I just keep thinking, "wow, they dammed the Colorado for THIS?"

LA (Los Angeles, not Lower Alabama) / SoCal is just as much at fault for the Colorado River as Las Vegas.

+1 for Cadillac Desert and Koyaanisqatsi. Worthy works.

Wow, thanks for posting up the video, I never knew the problem was that bad.

and things are not getting better.

thespectrum.com/article/201…

this article talks about utah's plan to build a pipeline from lake powell to st george, about 120+ miles, to claim our states share of water resources. cost is 1-2 billion dollars.

It is been a pretty heated debate here in southern utah.

Here is something that should piss everyone off:
A mining company is trying to mine the Queen Creek climbing area here in Arizona. To do this, it is predicted they will need to use the same amount of water per day, as the city of Tempe AZ. This is where ASU is located for those that don't know.
On top of that, it will be the largest climbing closure in North America's history.

Write your representatives and let them know how you feel about it.

The Colorado River wasn't dammed to provide water for Las Vegas. It was sort of the other way around. Las Vegas grew from being a tiny town when workers arrived to build Hoover Dam.

shuminW wrote: Alright Dr. Historian, shouldn't you point out Nevada only gets 2% of the water per Colorado River Compact ? Of course 2% of waste is still a waste.

yeah yeah yeah, I'm being sensationalist. It's just that I've spent more time in LV than in LA, and seeing the Belagio's fountains, all the cooling mist machines, etc., strikes me as pretty wasteful in the desert, especially since the promotional language of Las Vegas emphasizes conquest and disregard for the realities of the desert, perhaps even more than any of Mulholland's early language about LA.

But yeah, LV is not taking all that much of the Colorado. That's why their sending out pipelines to wells in the Great Basin.

We must not forget that we need to keep all the Greenies from getting thirsty over the next 30 years.....

denverpost.com/news/ci_1889…

voiceforthewild.org/general…

Finally had time to watch the short film it was very interesting indeed.

John Wilder wrote: You should know that all of the Las Vegas strips' resorts that have water features get their water from their own underground aquifers- the SNWA shut down all water features on public utilities years ago.

The part of the film where they show the grass coming out and native plants going in was great. A big part of the problem as I see it is transplants from the mid west who want to have green grass lawns in the desert.

Also I saw a PBS (I think) documentary showing that the big casino's with water features actually reuse all of their gray water in the fountains. The one that they showed had all of the rooms gray water plumbed to their own treatment plant in the basement. Seems pretty legit to have a huge fountain that gets it source water from all of the showers on site.

Caleb Padgett wrote:and things are not getting better. thespectrum.com/article/201… this article talks about utah's plan to build a pipeline from lake powell to st george, about 120+ miles, to claim our states share of water resources. cost is 1-2 billion dollars. It is been a pretty heated debate here in southern utah.

Taken from this article.

Water managers already have spent $25 million studying the possible impacts of the project, which they say is needed to sustain a population that is projected to more than double over the next 50 years.

If the population doubles over the next 50 years things are going to get ugly.

Bdiddy wrote: We must not forget that we need to keep all the Greenies from getting thirsty over the next 30 years..... denverpost.com/news/ci_1889… voiceforthewild.org/general…

From the article.
"This isn't about Colorado against Wyoming. This is about the upper basin states — Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico — versus California and Arizona. We need to use the water resources we've been allocated under the interstate compact."

Us vs. them.

Red wrote:Here is something that should piss everyone off: A mining company is trying to mine the Queen Creek climbing area here in Arizona. To do this, it is predicted they will need to use the same amount of water per day, as the city of Tempe AZ. This is where ASU is located for those that don't know. On top of that, it will be the largest climbing closure in North America's history. Write your representatives and let them know how you feel about it.

Can we trade Copper for water.

The proposed Rosemont Copper mine rosemontcopper.com/ is just as bad. The mine will use thousands of gallons of water ground water scenicsantaritas.org/ and it has to be clean ground water they can't use CAP water.

Poor planning for the future.

"The Colorado Springs-based Pikes Peak Water Authority had requested state funding and will hire a firm to conduct the study for a state task force. Like suburbs south of Denver, suburbs of Colorado Springs depend on finite underground water pumped from aquifers and seek new surface-water supplies to sustain population growth."

Rather then planning for population growth someone should look at ways to curb population growth. It seems inconceivable that the planet can sustain an unlimited number of humans.

Makes me glad I am almost 50 I plan to be long gone before the shit hits the fan.

Thanks for posting the links very interesting indeed.