Lake Mead, Nevada, July 29, 2007—You can lead them away from water, but you can't make them not drink.
That's the problem at North America's largest artificial reservoir, Lake Mead, where the combination of a seven-year drought and explosive population growth have sent water levels plummeting by a hundred feet (30 meters)—their lowest levels since the 1960s.At Lake Mead National Recreation Area, for instance, a barren landscape has replaced a harbor that once attracted campers and boaters.
The lake—formed on the Colorado River by the Hoover Dam— supplies water to parts of Nevada, Arizona, and southern California.
This is how some lakes and rivers in Texas looked a few months ago. We must conserve water and be realistic in our wishes to live in desserts and other places where water is not a natural occurrence.
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8 comments:
Living in South Dakota, and seeing our main water supply, the Oahe rservoir, nearly empty makes me wonder why the city folk don't understand that if we are thirsting for water out on the Great Plains, it is a matter of time before they thirst also.
Perhaps it is because they have all the resources to pretend that there isn't a water shortage.
Why can't we get elected officials to just make cities in a proper part of region?
In Canada that's is basically what we have done in the past. Sure there is the odd community that developers put up just for the mighty buck but we do try. It just makes sense!
It must cost the US taxpayers huge dollars to ship water to the cities that need it.
Now, I suppose millions of dollars have to be spent to transport water from other cities. Unfortunately, humans don’t take care of our environment. Poor fish !!
That's horrible. It's a tragedy to imagine all of the wildlife that were devastated by the loss of the reservoir.
@igmuska-I believe it may be stupidity. I hate to think that people just do not care about the world we leave for our children. Thanks for visiting.
@chris-Well, Las Vegas was built by mobsters. Maybe they thought they could just extort water when they wanted it? LOL
@kerrson-Hello! You hit it right on. An entire ecosystem dried up. Many extinctions in one place. It is a shame.
@jack-my heart hurts when I look at that picture. That is why I had to post it. While people talk about how drought is cyclical and normal and not related to global warming, I like to have a rebuttal ready.
What an absolutely devastating sight! We are in the middle of a Stage 3 Drought in Alabama. Our little town has been on severe water restrictions for several months, with no outside water allowed of any kind. When I need water outside, I take our sink water out after the dishes are done.
I've been doing research on rain barrels and want to put a barrel on our deck, too, so I can easily save the gray water from the house for outside use. So far, I haven't found anything cheap enough to justify buying it.
It's a shame it took a drought to make me start thinking this way.
Rosemary-I left a comment on your Yesterday's Memories about how you can gray water your washing machine.
Thank, cybercelt. I saw it and responded. I put a request on FreeCycle for two 55 gal food safe drums. If I can get them, we'll buy the parts to make one into a rain barrel and the other into a container on the end of the deck to save sink and bath water and run a hose down to the yard.
We've always recycled, but until this summer, I never really considered recycling water. That photo is haunting!!!!!!!
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