Lake Level rapidly rising!

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JFRCalifornia said:
So the string of consecutive days of 1+ foot rise ended on June 24. But the 16 days in a row equaled the 1993 record, which lasted from May 19-June 3 that year.

Maybe more impressively, this year has now had the second highest rise in any three-week period in the lake's history (not counting when the lake was filling in 1964).

Here's the largest 21-day rise since the lake exceeded 3500 elevation:

2005 - 22.96 inches (May 20-June 9)
2019 - 22.16 inches (June 7-June 27)
1993 - 21.19 inches (May 19-June 7)
1973 - 20.87 inches (May 12-June 1)
1968 - 20.05 inches (June 1-June 21)

Notably, this year is the latest in the season such a rise has ever happened... also notable that the rise this year is more impressive than in 2005, which took the lake from 3572-3594, compared to 3588 to nearly 3610 this year... it takes a much greater net volume to achieve that kind of rise at a higher lake level...

Overall, 1993 was the most impressive of the bunch, since the lake went from 3633-3653 in the same 21-day timeframe...

Still, a great year so far, and it's still going on...
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Feet, not inches...right?

Love your updates, look forward to watching the records fall.
 
David Fordham said:
Well, that is a really old number and I am sure Wayne told me the number back in the day so I have to assume it is correct. Powell has not been that high since 2001 or something...
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As stated above, the 3650 is the official paved ramp. You can launch at much lower levels than that...

Rivers here in the Upper Green are rising again, it is finally warm. The snowmelt is going to give one more good pulse of water in the next couple weeks....
 
Rivergoer said:
@JFRCalifornia do you study Lake Mead at all? Just took a gander and was surprised to see Mead’s been holding steady at 1084-85’ for the past 2 weeks, despite the major rise at LP over same period.

Assumed Mead would be rising at similar rates to LP......??
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Yeah, I look at Mead too, but it's not nearly as interesting, because the lake level almost completely depends on the timing and amount of the Bureau's releases from Lake Powell. The only significant input other than that are the Little Colorado, Virgin, and a few smaller streams like the Paria--nothing like the Green, Colorado and San Juan plus their tributaries that feed Powell. Drawdown of Mead from downstream users is pretty predictable too. This year, BOR's releases from Powell are set to max out at 9.0 MAF over the course of the water year, and you can see that the releases from Powell have been consistent with that--roughly 10-14K cfs these days. Those kind of releases aren't going to help Mead all that much. It's only in years where you've got huge releases from Powell (1983-84 was extreme) that you notice a real rise, and that only happens when Powell is closer to full. If you go back in time, to past Junes, the last time there was any kind of larger releases from Powell was in 2011 (25K cfs), and before that 1997....then it's back to the mid-80s, when everybody was flush. No wonder Mead slowly keeps dropping over time... The only other way Mead rises is if the storms are focused over the lower basin watershed, including the Little Colorado, Paria, and Virgin River, and that's relatively rare...

Of course, now it's pretty critical at Mead, because you can't get much lower without losing the ability to generate power from Hoover...

The bottom line is that there really isn't enough water in the Colorado system (Mead + Powell + all other reservoirs + what's in the rivers themselves) over the long haul to supply the amount allocated to the seven basin states plus Mexico (via pipelines, direct riparian use, percolation/groundwater extraction, plus evaporation). The numbers just don't add up. You might have a big year like 2019, but that's something like hitting the occasional jackpot on the slots--eventually, you will run out of quarters (or dollars, if you go for higher stakes) if you play long enough...

...so in the long haul, everyone's got to cut back on using this as a water supply (and write it into the Law of the River), and other sources (notably desalination and recycled wastewater--groundwater is already getting depleted and not sustainable) have to come into play...
 
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Rivergoer said:
@JFRCalifornia do you study Lake Mead at all? Just took a gander and was surprised to see Mead’s been holding steady at 1084-85’ for the past 2 weeks, despite the major rise at LP over same period.

Assumed Mead would be rising at similar rates to LP......??
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I've got a spreadsheet similar to my Lake Powell one and while I'm not as good at crunching Data as JRCalifornia there are some very noticeable differences.
While Lake Powell bottoms out around the first week of April each year, Lake Mead is actually on it's way down, having peaked around the 1st of March.
Lake Mead's average elevation variation is about 7.7 feet vs Lake Powell's 25.8 feet

This info actually surprised me in that I always viewed Lake Powell as a Savings account for water and Lake Mead as a checking account. Much as my checking account has wild swings in value every month, I thought it would be Lake Mead that would vary while Powell would be the shock absorber for unknown emergency expenditures.
 
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In Orange County Calif. there has been a big push lately for a desalinization plant in Huntington Beach. It was a Southern California Edison power plant, but they plan on changing it. Only time will tell on this one, but they are making their plans known.
 
I have a crazy idea for gravity fed desalination and hydro-power. The Salton Sea sits 400' below sealevel and the Sea of Cortez is only about 100 miles away. Dig a canal with locks, have gravity feed water in the direction of the Salton Sea and that depression on the Mexican sight. The locks, instead of being ship locks, could be filled with gravel, sand and other desalinating material, and some locks could just be hydro-electric generating locks. This would rejuvenate the Salton Sea, slowly desalinate that body of water, and you could divert water into the Imperial Valley agriculture lessening the use of Colorado water. I think you could get a constant flow of water through those locks generating energy and desalinated water 24/7.
 
It is an interesting idea, though has a few logistical hurdles. Probably the main flood control issue is to somehow avoid having uncontrolled flow of ocean water into the Salton Sea, since you might end up with a similar problem as when the Salton Sea was formed in 1905. Assuming your concept could be safely engineered, your biggest issue is going to be what you do with the removed salts. That’s usually not a big problem at coastal desal plants, but if the idea is to remove salt along the way, you will soon end up with tons and tons of salt on the land somewhere...and if it gets into the ground, that’s the end of the groundwater basin and irrigated agriculture. A third big hurdle would be the method of salt removal. Normally you need something more active than sand and gravel, which requires enormous amounts of energy. Perhaps some of the hydropower generated could offset the energy use, as could solar farms, but with only a 400-foot head from sea to sea, you’re not going to be able to generate that much power.

Then there’s the international aspect of who controls the desal water, Mexico or the US. If the decal plant is at the coast, it’s Mexican water, and would presumably require Mexican energy to produce the water. If desal facilities are on US soil, you have major salt disposal problems....

But as a concept, it’s very interesting and worth exploring if you can figure out those problems...
 
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Dig a level canal for 12.5 miles, desal or hydropower lock with a 50 foot drop, repeat 8 times and you have a constant controlled inflow into the Salton Sea. Salt removal through Gourmet Stores across the world. Just kidding, but maybe not? Just redump into ocean. Plus you rejuvenate the "SoCal Riviera" with slowly but surely desalinating the Salton Sea which has a higher salinity than the Sea of Cortez, and create waterfront properties along that canal in the middle of the desert.
 
I love the idea of a canal (or even pipeline) from the Sea of Cortez to Salton Sea. Isn't Salton Sea on 236 ft below sea level? I like the idea even if it is just bringing water to Salton to keep it filled, and then let the water that is going there from the Colorado go back into Mexico
 
Bjorn Steller said:
I have a crazy idea for gravity fed desalination and hydro-power. The Salton Sea sits 400' below sealevel and the Sea of Cortez is only about 100 miles away. Dig a canal with locks, have gravity feed water in the direction of the Salton Sea and that depression on the Mexican sight. The locks, instead of being ship locks, could be filled with gravel, sand and other desalinating material, and some locks could just be hydro-electric generating locks. This would rejuvenate the Salton Sea, slowly desalinate that body of water, and you could divert water into the Imperial Valley agriculture lessening the use of Colorado water. I think you could get a constant flow of water through those locks generating energy and desalinated water 24/7.
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I hate to burst your bubble, but sand and gravel are not capable of desalination. Typically, desalination has required high-pressure membranes that require significant pressure rise (300-1200 psi), which is significantly greater than the driving head of the coast to the Salton Sea surface elevation, even without pipe losses considered. Research is ongoing for lower pressure and cost desalination methods, with some commercial units being developed, but there is no silver bullet.

Jordan has been looking at desalination from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea for some time, with brine from desalination plants going to the Dead Sea. It has been under development for years and will require significant expenditure. This Salton Sea solution is not as advantageous, since you would be trying to send your clean (valuable) permeate to the natural water system, while you would have to do something non-advantageous with the brine.

-Nate
 
Just think about it the simplest, easiest way to revitalize a body of water that has attracted a lot of tourism in the 50' as the "Riviera of SoCal". Even if you can't filter any salt out or create electricity, you still rejuvenate a very blighted area that is just a few hours from major metropolitan centers with digging a "ditch". Anything to create or mimic the natural 400-500 year cycle for that body of water should be a plus.
This is about a similar problem with Lake Powell and Lake Mead which are reducing sedimentation with the river being blocked. It is about time that we find ways to support our natural systems when using them instead of just abusing them and facing negative consequences. One of the biggest issue in that region might be the loss of aquifer groundwaters with no rivers reaching the Sea of Cortez anymore and feeding those aquifers on the way. Reversing the flow, instead of the Colorado River and tributaries feeding it have the Sea of Cortez doing that, might have some benefits no one is thinking about it as in replenishing those pumped out aquifers. Usually we work the other way around with harming the environment with unintended consequences. Time to think backwards to get a positive outcome out of unintended consequences?

Those heavy inflows this year into Powell might have ultimately rejuvenated the natural cycle of the Salton Sea with no dam in the way. But since I do not want to give up Lake Powell or Lake Mead that water has to come from somewhere else. Anything above that as desalinated water or electricity would be just a welcomed plus.
 
The Salton Sea is not a natural body of water. The Imperial Valley is not naturally farmland. Unless we develop less expensive electricity or recognize to true costs of water in these ecosystems, we will not be able to correct these water issues. Once you begin allocating the true costs of water to these areas instead of pursuing unsustainable water uses in areas that don't support them, you will begin to correct the deficiencies.
 
Sorry to burst your bubble of human creation and superiority. "Over millions of years, the Colorado River has flowed into the Imperial Valley and deposited soil (creating fertile farmland)," until mankind interfered. "For thousands of years, the river has alternately flowed into and out of the valley, alternately creating a freshwater lake, an increasingly saline lake, and a dry desert basin, depending on river flows and the balance between inflow and evaporative loss. The cycle of filling has been about every 400–500 years and has repeated many times." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea
This is the problem and biggest issue we are facing today, engineering minds of "can't do" and financial minds of "true costs" without ever knowing what price nature has to pay for our usage and abuse. At this point we do not even know the price for depleting Mojave and Indian Wells Water Groundwater resources? Ridgecrest in Kern Country just made the news. Mojave and the Imperial Valley/Salton Sea has the big brother of fault-lines running right through it. San Andreas.
The biggest deficiencies in that whole equation is us. If we acknowledge that we could actually use it to our advantage and use nature as it was given to us and do something good for a change. Something good that benefits us, even if it is just a body of water for recreation, and our environment, if we accidentally do it right and it actually refills those aquifers.
 
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