Colorado and the West is running out of water . . . (Pueblo: areas, building)

[DOUBLE H]

Originally Posted by ohazco

You mean lakes are suppose to have water?! Come out and take a look at Sheridan Lake, Horse Creek Reservoir, Two Buttes Reservoir, Neesopah Reservoir, Neeskah Reservoir, most of Neenoshe, Neegronda and Adobe Creek, and worst of all... (the former) Bonny Lake State Park.

Heh, instead of surprised I should have said not surprised! And yes, I know what's going out on the plains. Sad. Those Nee Noshe reservoirs are just a few miles south of Eads. And Bonny State Park? Nice facility.

But Fruita got one rain here about 10 days ago. I'll check to see where we are at for total precip for the year. Before that rain, we were at (drum roll, please) 1.4 inches. Yep-1.4 inches. That's for the year!

[CosmicWizard]

It takes roughly 140 liters of water to grow enough coffee beans to produce a single cup of coffee.

Read the entire article here.

[phetaroi]

I have 2 questions:

First, where are those water restrictions I was hearing so much about a few months ago?

Second, when I walk in some of the older neighborhoods of Colorado Springs, some people have signs in their yards saying "Well Water". During water restrictions, do the restrictions not apply to them?

[davidv]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

I have 2 questions:

First, where are those water restrictions I was hearing so much about a few months ago?

Second, when I walk in some of the older neighborhoods of Colorado Springs, some people have signs in their yards saying "Well Water". During water restrictions, do the restrictions not apply to them?

Water districts will impose restrictions when the water reserves reach a certain level at a certain time. For now water districts are asking consumers to voluntarily cut back on water usage, especially water used on landscaping. If things get worse, you will see mandatory restrictions on outdoor water usage.

People who have access to well water do not have to restrict their usage. That is because they-- not the water district-- own their water. It is theirs to do with as they wish. Their restrictions are based on how much water they own. Some people or parks and rec districts will buy their potable water from the water district, and use non-potable water from their wells on their landscaping.

[Idunn]

"'Colorado faces "a significant gap in our supplies to provide water for future growth— a gap that cannot be met by conservation and efficiencies alone,'" Hickenlooper began in a June 5 letter sent to the White House and copied to cabinet secretaries and agency chiefs." [1]


Note the part about conservation and efficiencies alone not answering Colorado's water needs. Not because this semi-arid state doesn't have a relative wealth of water, but because it is over exploited.

So our governor is looking for federal money to divert a further 18,000 acre feet of Colorado River water across the Continental Divide, as well as siphon more water out of the Cache la Poudre River.

Why? Because Colorado's current population of 5.1 million is projected to reach between 8.7m to 10.3m by 2050. For the record, Colorado's recorded population (probably excluding Native Americans already present) in 1860 was about 34,000; this just after the discovery of gold, and the beginning of any significant formal European settlement. This state's population only topped one million between 1920 and 1930, and only just over two million by 1970.

Nature naturally suffers imbalances, although invariably balancing all out. Such as the habit of lemmings, rodents near the Arctic who have the bad habit of rapid population increases followed by near extinction. Although contrary to popular myth they do not overtly commit mass suicide, but migrate en-mass when possible when their current habitat is unable to support such a population.

Humans have a lot in common with their furry cousins. Having only reached a total of one billion in 1810, human population growth since has been exponential, with the second billion by 1930, the third by about 1960, and so on. Today that figure is slightly over seven billion, with a median projection of ten billion by 2050. This should be contrasted with scientific assessments that the sustainable human population would be more a maximum of 2.5 billion. Particularly if all of those extent were to live by and enjoy some semblance of modern Western lifestyles and norms.

But of course that isn't what the present trend is. One has only to look at the dying forests of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West to realize where all this is headed. Their barren skeletons stand as stark testimony to mankind's rapacious folly, dead precisely due our rapidly warming environment due the vast—and expanding—amount of greenhouse gases exhausted into our collective air everyday. More all the time, from this and other nations such as China. Few, save some island nations beginning to be submerged, with any great interest in changing their habits.

The water in this state, its very lifeblood, no different. Even in the mountains, its purity is not as protected as it might be. And instead of some rational semblance of a sustainable plan of what this state might be, a best maximum population and how supported—business-as-usual. Politicians like Hickenlooper do not care, because raised on a mantra of the Ponzi scheme of easy growth forever (even if increasingly seen unsupportable), because at least in their political lifetimes that is where the most votes are. Thus their greater electorate may personally recycle to an extent and profess other "green" sensibilities, but in whole we support fracking the legacy of our groundwater, burning massive amounts of coal, and buying all the more SUVs in the face of Peak Oil. That is the American way, ever more, even when making absolutely no sense.

As with water, which at last has quite definitive limits.

1) 'Hickenlooper to Obama: Colorado faces gap in water supplies,' The Denver Post
Hickenlooper to Obama: Colorado faces gap in water supplies - The Denver Post

[Josseppie]

The technology is going to be so much more advanced by 2050 that we won't have to worry about how we will get our water in Colorado.

[davidv]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

The technology is going to be so much more advanced by 2050 that we won't have to worry about how we will get our water in Colorado.

Today's technologies for water distribution are not much more advanced than the ones used in 1974. Unless we pour (no pun intended) significant amounts of time and money into the water issue, we will not see great advances 38 years from now.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by davidv

Today's technologies for water distribution are not much more advanced than the ones used in 1974. Unless we pour (no pun intended) significant amounts of time and money into the water issue, we will not see great advances 38 years from now.

Yes they are. Technology advances at a exponential rate so the technology in the 2030's with be trillions times more advanced then they are now. That will allow us to manage water in ways we cant even dream about today.

[CosmicWizard]

Yer right Joss....someone's gonna invent a dry water pill. Just add water and you'll have real water!

[brightdoglover]

Yet again, a touching faith in what "they" will come up with. Why not be prudent and wait to see what "they" come up with before it's absolutely needed?