Water Supplies In Western U.S. Threatened By Climate Change: Interior Department Report

[Keith Bee]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Climate change is likely to diminish already scarce water supplies in the Western United States, exacerbating problems for millions of water users in the West, according to a new government report.

A report released Tuesday by the Interior Department said annual flows in three prominent river basins – the Colorado, Rio Grande and San Joaquin – could decline by as much 8 percent to 14 percent over the next four decades. The three rivers provide water to eight states, from Wyoming to Texas and California, as well as to parts of Mexico.

The declining water supply comes as the West and Southwest, already among the fastest-growing parts of the country, continue to gain population.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called water the region's "lifeblood" and said small changes in snowpack and rainfall levels could have a major effect on tens of millions of people.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/western-us-water-supplies-climate-change_n_853882.html

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So? C'mon, it's only water, right? It's not like we're running out of OIL or anything! Cheese Whiz, liberals are such Nervous Nellies!

:dunce:

[Buzz Clik]

1. Who knew! Let's pack a tens of millions of people into a desert ...

... and then act shocked when water becomes a problem.

This reminds me of a Sam Kinison comedy routine when he suggested that we should stop sending food to Ethopia and start sending U Haul trailers to help them move out of the desert.

[freshwest]

2. I always looked on settling those areas as a mistake. Must have been psychic.

I mean who knew?

It wasn't like the Dust Bowl ever happened, droughts never happen, there's a reason there aren't lush tropical jungles in desert regions.

What is it, we gotta reinvent the wheel with every generation?

[Buzz Clik]

3. The Force is strong in this one.

[freshwest]

4. LOL! Great gif there. I. Will. Steal. It.

[Trajan]

7. In all fairness ...

It's not as if floods happen ... It's not as if mudslides happen ...

Everybody gets a piece of the hardship pie .... Which slice do YOU want ?

People love living in those places, and so they do ....

I moved from CA 7 years ago, and now live in a world of plentiful water and cool clean air ... Even then - I still miss CA for what it DOES have ....

I can always visit ...

[DCKit]

9. Don't forget the agriculture.

All those monstrous circles of green you see when flying over the mid-west and western US are irrigated crops.

[freshwest]

10. And golf courses...

[Buzz Clik]

11. Those circles are missing from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc.

You don't need the circles for wheat and sorghum in Kansas. It's when they try to grow corn in semiarid environments to feed livestock. We can live without that.

[jwirr]

5. Is the water from the Rio Grande even usable? Didn't a bunch of

US businesses move across the border and pollute everything in sight?

[some guy]

6. The rio grande starts

in Southern Colorado.

[Krakowiak]

8. Just finished reading Cadillac Desert

subtitled: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244

by Marc Reisner..

Great book.

I am in love with the Southwest, but when you read the history of how that area has been made livable, it's hard to see it as sustainable (that goes for Los Angeles too).

[indepat]

12. File this under the "no shit, Sherlock" caption

:patriot:

[Earth_First]

13. Gee...

Gotta have these!