Drought in the Southwest: watch how Lake Mead has shrunk in recent decades

[Brad]

Las Vegas's new strategy for tackling drought – banning 'useless grass'

The ban targets what the Southern Nevada Water Authority calls "non-functional turf". It applies to grass that virtually no one uses at office parks, street medians and the entrances to housing developments. It excludes single-family homes, parks and golf courses.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/07/las-vegas-drought-ban-useless-grass

[ergophobe]

2021 is shaping up to be worse than 2015 and much, much worse than 2020.

This is bad (17 years of drought severity maps and other charts)...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/11/climate/california-western-drought-map.html

Already, twice as many acres have burned in California as during the same period last year. The state's fire season has expanded in recent decades, starting earlier and ending later than it used to. "Not everything is predictable," said Dr. Swain of U.C.L.A., referring to events like the dry lightning strikes that ignited many major fires in 2020. "But of the predictable elements — how dry is the soil? And will it get better in the next months? — those are as bad as it can be."

[Drastic]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/06/16/earth-heat-imbalance-warming/

[rcjordan]

WA: Officials say wild salmon runs on Tucannon River are in dire straits

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jun/17/officials-say-wild-salmon-runs-on-tucannon-river-a/

CA: Drought-hit California scales up plan to truck salmon to ocean

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-drought-hit-california-scales-truck-salmon.html

[DrCool]

>WA

I don't have any data to back this up but based on what I am seeing they are really trying to keep as much water dammed up in the lakes and reservoirs as they can so there is irrigation water in the Columbia Basin this summer. One big lake up in Idaho we visited last weekend had the water level up 6-8 feet vs what it was about a month ago.

[ergophobe]

>>truck salmon to ocean

Wow. Speechless.

>>earth-heat-imbalance-warming

Again... speechless.

>> water level up 6-8 feet vs what it was about a month ago.

That sounds right. At least in CA reservoirs should peak in July normally (though it appears not this year). Essentially, most of the runoff is May-June and the biggest irrigation needs are June-September, so that ideally yields a high point in July.

[rcjordan]

Oroville water drop will force hydro-power plant offline

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/us/california-drought-oroville-power/index.html

[rcjordan]

"keeping the rows of powerful computers inside the data center from overheating will require up to 1.25 million gallons of water each day"

Drought-stricken communities push back against data centers

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/drought-stricken-communities-push-back-against-data-centers-n1271344

[ergophobe]

Wow. I never thought about that. Thanks for posting.

exploring ways to incorporate circularity,

That was my first thought. I guess it's just a lot more expensive to capture the water and cool it back down (especially in Arizona).

[rcjordan]

> capture the water and cool it back down

Wildly so.  All I can think of is cooling towers or many, many miles of deeply buried pipe in a closed loop.  I guess it could be pumped back into the aquifer, but what would be the long-term ramifications of slightly raising the ground water temperatures? Dunno.

But the water could be potable (though it might be salty). The 'mineral water' discharge of my geothermal heat pump is fine to drink, in fact we use it for daily coffee lately.  So pump it into retention ponds then over to city reservoirs?

[rcjordan]

+

AMZ: Reducing Water in Data Centers
https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/the-cloud/data-centers

[ergophobe]

>>AMZ

Thanks. Interesting read.

It seems that if San Diego can filter out feces, drugs, cleaning products, and make the water fit to drink, data centers could certainly treat their water and make it fit to recirculate as coolant.

One of the fundamental ideas in Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert is that through most of the West, water is artificially cheap and that until it gets priced according to its actual cost, it makes sense to build a data center in the desert and let it use 1.25m gallons per day.

The book is old and there have been some positive changes. When it was written, many districts made it illegal to meter water. In other words, state law prohibited municipal districts from putting meters on houses or irrigation pipes. That's all past. In Fresno, as they rolled out meters sector by sector, they saw a 50% reduction in usage very quickly. But overall, I think most of what Reisner says holds up.

[rcjordan]

'We live in a desert. We have to act like it': Las Vegas faces reality of drought

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/09/las-vegas-climate-change-drought-water-conservation

[ergophobe]

But we've heard that from Vegas for decades. To me the quote that sums up the situation is rather

"I had hoped I would've worked myself out of a job by now. But it looks like I will retire first."

[rcjordan]

"Las Vegas reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 Celsius) to equal a mark also set in 1942, 2005, 2013 and 2017, and could hit that level again Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

Readings reached 113F in Sacramento as heat continues to grip the western U.S. at least for a few more days"

Heat Scorches U.S. West as Records Fall Across the Region - BNN Bloomberg
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/heat-scorches-u-s-west-as-records-fall-across-the-region-1.1627640