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Las Vegas Will Go Dry If Water Levels Drop 7% Further - Lake Mead Hits Record Lows
Six weeks ago we highlighted how "screwed" Las Vegas is as the ongoing 14-year drought weighs on water levels. Today, AP reports, Lake Mead - the main source of fresh water for Las Vegas and its 40 million visitors - just hit record low levels at 1080 feet. Most concerning - at 1,000 feet, drinking water intakes will no longer function and Las Vegas will go dry. As analysts concluded previously, "unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid."
Once-teeming Lake Mead marinas are idle as a 14-year drought steadily drops water levels to historic lows. Officials from nearby Las Vegas are pushing conservation, but are also drilling a new pipeline to keep drawing water from the lake.
Hundreds of miles away, farmers who receive water from the lake behind Hoover Dam are preparing for the worst.
...
The lake has dropped to 1,080 feet above sea level this year - down almost the width of a football field from a high of 1,225 feet in 1983.
A projected level of 1,075 feet in January 2016 would trigger cuts in water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada.
At 1,000 feet, drinking water intakes would go dry to Las Vegas, a city of 2 million residents and a destination for 40 million tourists per year that is almost completely dependent on the reservoir.
...
Bagnall, who owns Morningstar Farms in Coolidge, Arizona, worries about the future of farming in the region. Tighter supplies mean there will be less farming and fewer dollars going to agricultural services like fertilizer suppliers.
"Eventually," he said, "the prices are going to hit the consumer. Sooner or later, it's got to go up. So it's just a domino effect."
One proposal is for landlocked Nevada to pay billions of dollars to build solar-powered desalination plants in the Pacific off Mexico, taking Mexico’s share of Colorado River water in exchange.
But Mr Mrowka said: “The Colorado is essentially a dying river. Ultimately, Las Vegas and our civilisation in the American South West is going to disappear, like the Indians did before us.”
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The bottom line - get there now, watch the fountains, drink the water, swim in the lake... (and sell your house)
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But I heard they are drilling a new outlet tunnel into the bottom of the lake. Should be done in -- what -- couple years? So it's all gonna be just fine.
Ya, to drain it to 0 feet a few years after completion. That will solve the problem.
Tuffy Toenails Las Vegas. Are cisterns legal there?
Detroit got 4.5 inches of rain and Dearborn 6 inches yesterday. Wasn't enough to wash it clean, though.
Raise your hand if you thought it was ever a good idea to "farm" some of the hottest dryest land on the planet ?
I always love the red "back to this point in time" arrows used on ZH graphics. Wasn't that the year after they finished construction on the Hoover Dam? (i.e. they were probably still in process of filling Lake Mead to capacity for the first time)
But Mr Mrowka said: “The Colorado is essentially a dying river. Ultimately, Las Vegas and our civilisation in the American South West is going to disappear, like the Indians did before us.”
Oh BS!! Yes, we are in a drought and Vegas is in trouble in the short term. The rains will return. Maybe the overreactive hippie evirons will not return.
This was posted a couple of weeks ago..... W t f
This is not so bad as to think because Nevada is still suitable for strip and flash.
Of course, without water, this is strip mining and nuclear testing, but in USSA MIC, this is big business, no!? Is add greatly for astonishing GDP!
If the water disappears, look at the positive side. Las Vegas will become the premier film prop for a post zombie apocalypse America, complete with desert, nuclear radiation, mentally deficient humans and huge monuments to human hubris and stupidity.
Even better 5000 years from now, when civilization re emerges, gray haired high domed academics will write impenetrable tomes on the religious significane of Las Vegas. For, why else would ancient humans recklessly expend huges amounts of resources and energy, ultimately destroying their civilizationfor the sake of their great God Mon-Ey, and the FEDREV priesthood.
Film prop my ass, it's going to be the real thing...
Move Las Vegas to Detroit. Its exactly what is needed to rescue the city. LasVegas has all the water it wants, and Detroit keeps on living. Win win. Plus we get to drain the Canucks of any money they have.
Global warming and Ebola will kill us all. And if they don't get you, some Muslim with a sword will cut off your head. Bitchez.
What are the odds on Vegas running dry?
What happens in Vegas will surely stay in Vegas now!
i think vegas should build another giant fountain to commemorate the water that was once there.
#WaterWars.......bitchezzzz
Still too many blacks there.
Hear, hear - I blame those assholes who brought them over on ships
@Latina Lover: If the water disappears, look at the positive side. Las Vegas will become the premier film prop for a post zombie apocalypse America, complete with desert, nuclear radiation, mentally deficient humans and huge monuments to human hubris and stupidity.
Vegas already is all of the above; they just still happen to have water...for now.
Simple math... it's only dropping 5 feet a year. So Vegas is in trouble in 16 years. Not so scary now is it?
Way before then the pipe will be lowered to less than the 1000 foot level. Never. A. Problem.
Not so.... as the lake drops, so does the surface area, therefore when the surface area is half what it was in the past it will drop twice as quickly as back then. That complicates the maths a little bit.
exponential math seems to be effecting quite a few things going on in the world.
Yeah, many Americans are stumped by simple algebra. Forget about fancy math,
Except the lake is shaped more like a funnel than a cylinder so the lower it goes, the faster it goes.
I just looked up the monthly chart. YTD it has dropped an average of 4 feet per month. Of course, that's just one snapshot of time, but since it's the most recent, maybe it's more relevant? I'm no expert, but just a thought. http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/mead-elv.html
More like the back drop for the up and comingremake of "Road Warrior"
Las Vegas as microcosm of the world: the world is running out of cheap oil and yet, more cars are being sold, more roads are being built, more infrastructure, more people....
Even if we stopped adding shit now, we wouldn't be able to maintain what we already have.
I've noticed lately quite a few sites are regurgitating old stories. I don't know what the deal is, perhaps summer vacations?
Hey this might be a good time to give all that dry land and the casinos back to the indians and let them worry about the water level
Just print more clouds, whats the big deal?
all i want to know is how much gold is resting on the bottom of the lake
You are know of boating "accident"...?
Its probably a good hunting ground for stuff..I have three pairs of nice sunglasses there somewhere......
Why not open the doors to the Israelis. Las Vegas has two things the Jews seem to love, money and deserts. They can live in Las Vegas and the Palestinians can have their land back.
Boris is not Jew, but is also love money and fine pastry!
....and how many cement blocks with mobster skeletons attached?
Yup. They took Toni out of the trunk, fitted him with a custom pair of cement shoes, and he's sleepin with de fishies for eternity. ;-)
Probably quite a few gold teeth too, as well as a few bodies.
Maybe a few mystifying big concrete blocks, too.
Tell that to the drought cycle that drives the pacific sw on North America...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140213-california-drough...
Hmmm, was at the Monterrey Bay aquarium a couple of weeks ago and they were complaining about how worm the water was they were bringing into the kelp tank from the bay. Said it was so worm that the kelp was not doing very well.
Bingo, we are killing the oceans... Once we lose the oceans, the rest of us are dead as it's only a matter of time...
http://www.businessinsider.com/were-killing-the-oceans-even-faster-than-...
Vampy, you know they call it desert for a reason.....
Lucky Luciano's Revenge.
In late August, when it is quite dry, especially in the Southwestern United States, Native American tribes used to do a rain dance. Many Native Americans still perform the ritual today, and it can be seen on several reservations in the United States. Men and women gathered together for a rain dance and wore special headdresses and clothing. The jewels used in the clothing, such as turquoise, had special significance, as well as the patterns on the clothing and the use of goat hair in the headdresses. These special clothes were worn every year for the rain dance, and usually were stored the entire year (or 14 years) for this purpose.
Start dancin' Kemosababies!!
http://www.indians.org/articles/rain-dance.html
It might have helped if there were a few more indians (non tech-support kind) around to do the dance. Too bad they all had to be "displaced." Reap what was sowed.
But then again you are probably ignorant, one day without water might as well be forever. Las Vegas would be Detroit just that fast.
A barge full of Mexicans, scaffolding and a bucket brigade are all that's needed to hoist water up and dump it into the inlet.
This will get them through until the new tunnel is completed.
or decorate that land with the fucking greenest golf courses on the planet
Detroit got 4.5 inches of rain and Dearborn 6 inches yesterday. Wasn't enough to wash it clean, though. - Anusocracy
Once they finish gentrifying and stealing the land TPTB will make Detroit a water hub for the nation.
Just build more faucets, duh
Fuck desalinization plants in the irradiated (cesium, strontium, etc...thanks Japan). WATERFX looks good to me. Waitin' for them to IPO.
Boris is learn from experience, do not keeping radioactive Cesium isotope close proximity of food or potable water supply.
Another how dy do freakout by Obama global warming chicken littles. The lakes have more water then they have had in 2000 years since jesus used to walk on them.
I'm pretty sure Lake Mead doesn't ...
If Vegas was a craps table it's trying to roll a 12 with $2 left in the stack.
If Vegas were a crap stable, it would.... oh, wait, nevermind.
You are joking... right?
Funny you think Jesus is real but not a drought. Hmmm...
That was funny.
Do it again.
do you get out much?
I'll take "Why I live next to a lake for $400" Alex
"Las Vegas gets sucked dry!"
Not a headline any of us would've expected. I'm shocked. Shocked, I say.
Maybe this is a good time to start bottling sweat.
Las Vegas = Arrakis The Femen put sweat to good use. Melange: the gold dust washed into the lake all these years... it could happen! (SNL) ;-)
How ironic. Usually Las Vegas is the one that does all the "sucking dry."
Strength through exhaustion!
Drill Baby Drill!
If everyone would just pee in the lake it'd be all good dog.
All tourists are now required to empty their bladders before leaving the state.
Tip-o-the-hat to Douglas Adams.
Im going this weekend... Ill probably drop a duce as well just to do my part.
I was just there last weekend with the in-laws. Actually won $500 playing blackjack.
L.A. is the town that needs to worry about the colorado river drying up. They get the bulk of the water via a water treaty, but when push comes to shove everyone knows white man speak with forked tongue. They'll just shutdown the damn thing & keep the l.a. water
Of course, someone else will shut it down further up stream...
Take a jerry can of water and they'll love you.
Deuce. Drop a deuce. Use the plumbing via the direct route, crap in the lake. ;-)
recycled beer
Shut down the fountains, drain the pools, stop the ice machines and problem solved.
How about switching off lights and putting the same electricity that's wasted on mindless entertainment to pumping water into the region. Though that would not in the slightest bit compensate for the amount of energy wasted to date.
I know!!
Obozo can just sanction the Colorado River!
That'll fix it!
"I made clear to President Putin that we want to work with Russia as a partner on a variety of important issues, and to do so, Russia has to come to the table as a partner. They really need to withdraw their support from anti-government groups which seek to impair the flow of the Colorado River. Additionally, they need to work to prevent the conditions which give rise to such groups.
Let me be clear. The Colorado River is one of America's most vital foreign interests. Our embassies in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Argentina are working in close coordination with our partners there. Security and extremists, and transparent threats to the homeland, to keep Americans safe both at home and abroad. So sanctions, carefully targeted to send a message, is the message we are sending. We hope that sends a message to President Putin, and that he steps up to the plate."
-- Barrack José Obama
well done, and without a teleprompter.
We need Russian expertese in changing direction of major rivers. I think rerouting the Mississipi should suffice.
Scary...I could hear his fuckin' voice when reading that shit. Fuckin' scary.
You hammered it, TheFourthStooge. Well done.
Who would down arrow that? That was fin hilarious!
"No water? Then let them drink Mead!" - Marie Antoinette
Perhaps a pipeline up into Canada to bring water down from the frozen north might work. Oh never mind obama would never ok a pipeline from Canada.
lets not go crazy...replace the water with vodka...everyones happy! I myself would like a faucet with everclear for teeth brushing
We'll there's always toilets to tap water. It would be a shitty solution though.
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Flocc it, that sounds OK to me. I don't gotta live there.
The grass on the golf courses is still green and the fountain jets are squirting to the beat of Abba tunes. There's no crisis here. Keep dropping quarters in the machine, bitchez.
I love Dancing Queen.
And, there's a tape-loop of that song in my skull now. Thanks.
Pfft. Try Chiquitita in spanish.
I have the antidote right here, but you'll have to move fast before it gets pulled (again)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJUyqhj4zMM
Say, how did you die from dehydration?
Slowly, then all at once.
And the street hustlers are still slapping the naked chick cards as you walk by on the sidewalk. All is well...
Some of them are pretty good. Flick it right into an unsuspecting passers by bag of goodies. I saw it all the time when I was there. I'm sure there were some awkward convo's when hubs had to explain that to the Mrs. upon return to the motel.
All is swell?
the angel Moroni will bringeth forth more water to save his people, so sayeth the Book of Moron, sorry i meant Mormon
You don't know what you're talking about at all. The Angel Moroni's people have all been dead for centuries. You are the Moron. Read the book before you criticize it.
i read it
it reads like a nickel news paper
great for a few laughs before tossing it in the garbage or using it to line your bird cage
I keep my copy right next to the toilet. Strangely it seems to be missing about half of it's pages.
Are you sure it's not misspelling, and should be angel Mormoney?
I was thinking Mo-Romney. But More Money works.
There is more than enough misspellings and lousy English Grammar in a "Perfect" Book...
That Prophet Joseph Smith was such a remarkable "Egyptologist" and "Hieroglyphic Translator". Doctrines and Covenants has that evidence written within...*gag*...in the so called "lost" Book of Abraham.
(Yes I am aware of the inconsistencies in the Torah and New Testament...No hypocrisy here. Just pointing it out.)
I call bullshit until I see that dumb fucking fountain run dry. Until then, this is just more doom porn.
I wouldn't mind seeing it happen just to fuck over tens of thousands SEIU dipshits. Communists union slugs.
You would think that the billions spent on chem trails and HAARP and all those government patents on weather modification, the government would give old harry reid some rain for his state. Me thinks it's all a complete waste of taxpayer dollars with little to show for it. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe the government can really influence the weather much, but I do believe they would spend billions trying to.
Dasani's new product....."H2UhOh" or "H2NoMo"
It's ok, once it hits 1000 feet, no more water will be drained from it.
Problem solved.
Who drinks water in Vegas anyway?
Can't they import all the water they need from Reno?
Got plenty of water up in Lake Tahoe, only problem is the lake huggers would clog of the pumps trying to stop flow lol. No we have our own water problem up here in Reno, though they say we are still good for a few years even if the drought keeps going. California on the other hand is fucked if we don't get a good snow pack this year.
NV has 5 years worth of water credits. LA and Mexico goes dry before Vegas. They can just slow down the release thru the dam.
Right. The freshwater sources are infinite in Nevada from what I hear.
So what is everybody worried about???
.
You know it, bro. Fucken A. I mean, Vegas itself is built over a huge underground freshwater reservoir. There are gushers of it everywhere, especially in and around casinos.
That's why the more casinos they build, the more water they'll have.
Cant Obamao sign an exec order banning droughts? He has a pencil
God punishes a thieving criminal shithole run by Mormons like Hairy Reid, gangsters and dual citizens from Israel.
I guess you get some major karma after stealing from the millions of suckers who go there.
They are willing players. They believe that they are smarter than the Casinos who have the edge (most of the time, although if you are clever...).
Just how were they stolen from, Freddie?
This BS again. I live here in Las Vegas. We use 2% of the lake and even less of the Hoover Dam energy. Aesop wrote The Boy who cried wolf centuries ago.
Look, everybody knows if you flip a coin 14 times and it comes up "dry" that INCREASES the odds that the next toss will come up "wet".
There's nothing to worry about, bet it all on "wet" !
Is it really the prices that are going to be a problem? My local produce place seems to have less and less of everything everytime I go. I wonder if I will be paying record low prices soon for nothing.
Fonz - You hit the nail on the head and that concept can be applied to just about everything.
Boy, with pessimists like you guys, Vagas never woulda been built.
Where's the pathological optimism that made this goddamn country what it is today?
amen brother! havent these short sighted critics ever heard of a bucket brigade......... a little community service can lift the spirits.......... these soft lazy modern americans fear a little work, a little cooperation........... amazing.......... get their asses out to the lake and start hauling. at 1000 feet, there is still plenty of water....our forefathers are rolling in their graves!!!!
http://www.adaptiva.com/wp-content/uploads/fire-bucket-brigade.jpg
They are even wearing kate spade.
kate spade is so yesterday. dollar store jeans are in....................
I totally agree. If everyone in all of the other 56 states bought just once case of bottled water and shipped it UPS to the Freemont, we could all solve this here Las Vagas water crisis in less than a week. For those who can afford to do more, maybe shipping a case of sparkling water would be nice.
I forget who built Vegas? Was it Moe Greene or Bugsy Siegel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DZNDEqcSi0
Alex Rocco was great as Moe.
>> less and less of everything
I've got the opposite problem, oversupply. I'm two years behind on my vegetbles so I'm going to forgo most of my spring garden. I'll just spend a year piling organic material and tilling it in. Spring 2016 should be a banner garden if I'm still around.
same situation here. I decided to go full throttle this year and watch and see what shape the ecomony is in by harvest of early green peas. As for Fonz noticing less, the season is winding down for the fresh local stuff. In the south farmers are able to get 2 plantings in on crops which makes availanility better for me.
I'm having little luck with my own stuff too. Cuc's finally popping out and some tomato's. Kale barely making it out. Last year I had stuff everywhere.
Veggies growing like crazy in my yard in Minneapolis. Except I put the broccoli in an area that seems to get too hot for its liking. Cukes doing great this year. As are green beans, eggplant, summer and winter squash, tomatoes. It's always a race to get tomatoes in before a freeze, as the better-tasting and yielding heirloom varieties need 80-95 day growing seasons and we don't always get that here. Still you can throw green ones in a paper bag and they ripen up ok for canning or sauce. The texture and flavor aren't great for eating when you do that, but the can up just fine.
I'm thinking along the same lines as greatbeard, oversupply. My cucumbers have been awesome, as usual. Three vines have produced roughly 30 massive cukes (about 3/4 pound each) with more on the way. They've been fighting for space with the spaghetti squash, which I didn't plant, just came up on its own from last year. Three plants, huge (5+ pounds each) yellow and delicious. Broccoli came in OK, basil, oregano, parsley, excellent, Hungarian yellow peppers and green peppers beginning to produce, but my four varieties of tomatoes are struggling. I planted too many, too close and we've not had enough sun. They are producing, but not turning red. Lettuce and endive doing OK too. Saw the beginnings of some Sicilian eggplant.
Other than that, if I actually knew what I was doing, I could feed myself for six months easy and this is on a plot of land that is maybe 20X25 feet. Figuring the time and effort, I'd probably be better off buying what I need at the local supermarket, but, I love to beat the system and nothing tastes as good as your own home-grown crops.
Additionally, if I didn't devote about 30 square feet to tobacco, I'd have more food, but, since I live in upstate NY (Irondequoit, north of the city of Rochester), free tobacco is like striking gold. I'll have enough tobacco - once dried and cured - for about 10-12 cartons of smokes, good for maybe three months for me.
Next Spring, I'll expand more, start earlier and grow a better variety of crops. This is just my third year, so I'm starting to get the hang of it. Putting up a greenhouse in September, which should provide some nice winter crops. In the summer, when I'm eating my own produce, my food bill is about $10 a week, all on meat. I don't do breads (thecandidadiet.com) much, but love Italian sausage and other grill-ables. So, bottom line, I could, with some effort, eat OK for about $500-800 a year and save $200 (reservation prices) to $800 (regular NY state prices) on smokes. Not bad for a 60-year-old rookie gardener, I guess.
The other thing I've notices is that as I've gotten older, I don't eat as much, so there's that. What was this thread about? Oh, water. We have oversupply here. Does anyone think maybe they overbuilt in Nevada and Arizona? I mean the water supply is limited and the population growth the last 40 years has been stupendous. Mass exodus coming, I believe.
Wow you have it good if you can get away with growing tobacco plants. In my part of the world (South Australia) we can cop a $10,000 fine for growing one tobacco plant. This is from the state that 20 years ago would allow us to grow up to ten MaryJane plants with an on the spot fine of $150 and no offence. Much has gone backwards since then.
My cucumbers are going apeshit too. 2 feet long some
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Yep. Ask any of the regular gamblers, they'll tell you. Vegas is due for a wetting streak.
If I flipped any coin 14 Times and it came up with the same result, 14 Times, THEN it INCREASES THE ODDS that on the next toss it will come up with the same exact result.
Most likely it is a Two Headed coin. Two raised to the 14th Power is 16,384.
There is a 1 in 16384 chance that it could happen random!!! That MEANS that the odds are 16,383, in 16,384 that it was not random. And since that ratio is so close to ONE then it is almost a CERTAINTY that the next flip will yield THE SAME RESULT.
I'd wager EVERYTHING on the Same Result happening. One would be a FOOL not to do so.
Thirty Two fucking people have demonstrated their lack of understanding ANYTHING about PROBABILITY.
The ignorance here is UNREAL.
Why don't you learn some fucking Math?
+1
I wonder if, instead of running @home's protein folding software, I ran a coin flip software on my 2 quad-core xeon 24/7, would it improve the chance of a wet 2015?
I'll bear the electricity bill
.
Such a streak would certainly call into question the fairness of the coin itself.
Of course, if it could be established that the coin is indeed fair, then the probability of it coming up heads on any flip would be fifty percent, irrespective of any previous results.
Another possibility is that they understood the implicit sarcasm in the comment. ;-)
:)
Bet on tails for sure! or at least, tail risks...
Anyone here know why/how the level dropped so fast during 1963-1965? Controlled releasr?
That is when Lake Powell was built upstream and less water flowed through to Mead. . .
didn't Al Gore have 500 milion or so gallons dumped out of the lake for a photo op--I seem to recall that happend during an election cycle???
I'm looking for a link but can't find any
Desert
This sounds like a job for Superman Poland Spring.
build a big fucking water sucking city in the middle of the desert.
yeah, sounds like a good fuckin thing to do
much like ferguson, nuke the entire shit house. i'll be sure to throw a rager in the name of all the dead vegas degenerates
We should just give everybody a nuke.
Take George Carlin's skit about everybody getting to kill one other person in their life-time to the X-treme sports level (maybe ESPN will televise it).
Trashcan Man gonna come rollin in ridin' a sweaty nuke to the sweet strains of Dancin Queen once the QEbola finishes it's dirty work.
Cadillac Desert, great book.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cadillic+desert&oq=cadillic+desert&aqs=c...
The misuse of existing water and depletion of supplies (ESPECIALLY deep ground aquifers) is a long running story. Like many other resources in the US policy has been to KEEP USING IT UNTIL IT RUNS OUT..... never mind the mess left behind..... you see it in the mining tailings, open pits filled with toxic brews and land left too salty to grow anything (long term irrigation brings up salt levels in soil).
We paved over some of the best farm land in the US in the east and midwest while trying to grow food in some of the driest places in the US.....WTF? At least in Europe they preserved local farms - go not too far outside any city and you can get food from a farm... not so easy in the US. What happens whne California's Central Valley goes dry and you can't afford rthe diesel to truck food 3000 miles?
Cadillac Desert was published over 25 years ago....... yet the deniers are still screaming. When fremont went west in 1800 NEBRASKA was a desert. We had a good couolpe hundred years - it's getting DRIER - - MUCH DRIER.
Trashcan Man riding a nuke is from the Stephen King book The Stand. Props.
That was my prediction 6 weeks ago after Darth Cheney said we could expect a "terrorist group" to use a nuke in the next few years.
Awful lot of Zionist casino owners in Vegas...Think Sheldon Addleson is double covered for terror attacks on all his properties, like his buddy Lucky Larry was in NY???
http://zionismsucks.com/2014/06/30/las-vegas-the-next-false-flag/