Sunday, April 9, 2006

Hoover Dam Here's a nice retrospective on Hoover Dam from the Deseret Morning News. They write, "If, instead of building a dam, they had used that concrete to build a road, it would have been a two-lane highway stretching from San Francisco to New York. The dam straddles the Nevada-Arizona border. If, instead of building a dam, they had built a skyscraper, it would have been 60 stories high. If they had built an Egyptian pyramid, there would be stuff left over. These are some of the amazing facts you will learn right off if you visit Hoover Dam. Everyone is impressed with the size and scope of the thing - and rightly so. When it was built in the early 1930s, nothing on this scale had been attempted before. When it was finished, it was the highest dam in the world. Who cares if it has now fallen out of the Top 10 worldwide and is only the third-highest dam in the United States. Those statistics are still impressive. As are these: Hoover Dam is 726.4 feet high, 45 feet thick at the top, 600 feet thick at the bottom and 1,244 feet across the top. Lake Mead, which was created by the dam, is still the country's largest man-made reservoir. When full, it is 110-115 miles long, with 550 miles of shoreline and a water capacity of about 32 million acre feet - or enough to cover the state of Pennsylvania to a depth of one foot. As you look at the dam, it is fun to ooh-and-awe over these numbers. Less obvious visually, but of greater importance economically, is the role Hoover Dam has played - and continues to play - in the West. If there were no Hoover Dam, there would be no Las Vegas, no Los Angeles - or, at least very different ones. Urban development, agriculture and recreation would not be the same. You learn many other things at the dam's visitors center, as well. For example, more than one million acres of America's richest crop lands - producing fruits, vegetables, cotton and hay - are irrigated by water made available by Hoover Dam. You learn that more than 18 million people in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson and other southwestern cities and towns have their domestic water needs supplied by the dam." Category: Colorado Water 10:07:15 AM     Glade, Halligan and Seaman reservoir expansion Here's an opinion piece from the Denver Post in opposition to the proposed, Glade, Seaman and Halligan reservoirs expansions. From the article, "Recently, several Northern Colorado cities and water districts have proposed three huge dam-and-reservoir projects on the Cache la Poudre. These projects will cost about $750 million of taxpayer money and include the Glade, Seaman and Halligan reservoirs. Proponents of these projects claim they are needed to provide 'drought protection' and to 'meet the demands of new growth.' "These new dams and reservoirs raise four important questions: "Fiscal responsibility - Economic analyses often show that using water efficiently and ensuring comprehensive water conservation can provide drought protection, meet growth's demands and not impact 'quality of life,' all at a lower cost than building new dams. "For example, in 2002 during the peak of the drought, the city of Fort Collins spent $150,000 marketing water conservation. Citizens responded by conserving 3,000 acre-feet of water, 10 percent of annual use. Thus, it cost $50 per acre-foot to save that 3,000 acre-feet of water. Put in context, the new dams will cost between $800 and $2,000 per acre-foot, and buying water on the open market will cost between $5,000 and $15,000 per acre-foot. "Quixotically, the city cut that cost-saving program in 2003. In contrast, progressive cities like Boulder conserve about a third of their water by spending up to $450,000 per year on conservation programs. "Environmental impacts - Fort Collins and Larimer County rivers, natural areas and ecosystems will be profoundly impacted by these proposed new dams and reservoirs. Two geographic areas are of specific concern: the Laramie Foothills north of Fort Collins, including the North Fork of the Poudre River, and the main Poudre River corridor running through Fort Collins to Greeley, where it meets the South Platte. "The Laramie Foothills project is a joint public-private conservation effort already conserving tens of thousands of acres, some of which will be flooded, and more of which will be degraded by massive water diversions out of the North Fork. All three reservoirs are smack-dab in the middle of these open-space efforts. "Impacts to the Poudre River corridor would be equally devastating. This corridor includes a unique and much-loved ecosystem supporting wildlife and some rare and endangered species. Currently, more than two dozen diversions suck out at least 80 percent of the Poudre's flow before it reaches the South Platte. At the confluence, the Poudre is but a mere whisper of its former self; its once majestic and sparklingly clear flow has been transformed into an ephemeral, 15-foot-wide muddy and stinking ditch. These new dams will mean even less water for the river. "Rapid population growth - Most of the cities proposing to build these projects already have severe budget shortfalls yet are proposing huge debt loads for new dams. This is a formula for bankruptcy or for rapid population growth. The town of Erie, for example, proposes to go more than $60 million into debt for its share in Glade Reservoir, which is about $20,000 for every family in town. "If a city has a budget crisis and it issues bonds to pay for new dams, then it must have fast growth to bring in new development fees and revenues in order to pay off those bonds. Already, a few cities have dropped out of the projects, worrying that they cannot grow fast enough to pay off the debt. In any case, growth intensifies, citizens foot the bill, and the river suffers. "Economic sustainability - Tens of thousands of citizens and tourists, including whitewater enthusiasts, fishermen, bicyclists, hikers and recreating families use the Poudre River and our natural areas every year. These people provide a large economic stimulus to northern Colorado's increasingly tourist-based economy. "The huge, recent recreational open-space acquisitions lie exactly in the zone of impact. The Laramie Foothills project is a centerpiece of Colorado conservation, about which GOCO's executive director recently said, 'This project is a great example of the landscape- scale protection the GOCO Board intended with its recent Legacy grants.' "Likewise, the Poudre River Trail as it runs through Fort Collins and Greeley is an urban recreational resource used by thousands of Larimer and Weld County citizens every day." Category: Colorado Water 9:56:53 AM     Interbasin Compact Charter Here's a short article about the Interbasin Compact Charter [created by HB1177] from the Aspen Times. They write, "Rep. Josh Penry believes Colorado's first-ever charter on how to negotiate for precious water will encourage planners to dust off old projects and put more water in the pipeline for Colorado's thirsty residents. Environmental attorney Melinda Kassen said the document will do little if anything to end Colorado's water wars. The only thing that's certain after water providers and users signed their historic document over the past week is that it will take years for Colorado to increase the amount of water it sets aside for its growing population... "Russ George is a Harvard-trained lawyer who heads the Interbasin Compact Committee that drew up and will administer the charter. He said the document provides a road map for water planners and considers the needs of users across the state - from fishing and recreation in the mountains to booming cities along the Front Range to farmers on the plains. Using the charter, the committee will review and approve projects negotiated by water roundtables in each of the state's seven river basins and two sub-basins. George, who heads the state's natural resources department, said Colorado now has a document that for the first time will require water solutions benefit the area of origin and the area of use, two groups that have been at each others' throats for decades. The charter also requires that every basin affected by a proposal agree before the compact can be approved." Category: Colorado Water 9:32:53 AM     Goldfish Cam Here's something you don't see every day - an experiment to see how long two goldfish can live in the water from the Los Angeles River. Thanks to NewMexiKen for the link. Cateogory: Colorado Water 9:16:40 AM     Water from oil and gas wells? The principals turned on the switch for the water from oil and gas wells project last week, according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan. From the article, "Most of what oilman Brad Pomeroy pumps from the ground, he considers waste. Others might call that waste - water - the most precious resource in Colorado. Tuesday, Pomeroy and farmer Richard Seaworth flipped the switch on a first-of-its-kind project that separates the deep-aquifer water from oil and natural gas and cleans it enough that it can be used for irrigation and, if water regulators agree, homes... "As oil fields get older, they produce more water. The patch on Seaworth's property has delivered oil and gas since 1923, but Pomeroy now has to pump the equivalent of 3,000 to 3,500 barrels of fluid every day - most of it water - to produce 50 barrels of oil. Energy companies have to find a way to dispose of the remaining water, called produced water, which they do through evaporating it or pumping it back into the deep aquifers. Energy companies could extract hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of acre feet of water in Colorado as oil and gas exploration increases. 'My big expense is the water,' said Pomeroy, president of Centennial-based Wellington Operating Company. The energy industry in 2000 spent $25 billion, about $1 a barrel, to get rid of unwanted water, he said... "Enter Seaworth, who needed water to pay back, or augment, well-water use and potentially supply water to a housing development he hopes to build on a piece of his property. The result was the $1.2 million treatment facility. Before they could move any water, Seaworth and Pomeroy had to prove the water they were pulling from a mile beneath the surface was non-tributary, or not connected to shallower underground aquifers, and wouldn't affect other water rights. It was a long and difficult process. 'This is the first new water in the Poudre basin in 50 years,' Seaworth said, estimating there could be about 160,000 acre feet of water available, slightly more than the capacity of Horsetooth Reservoir... "Oil and gas prices are high enough now that the project made financial sense to Pomeroy, and water prices were high enough to attract Seaworth. With the Colorado Front Range expected to face water shortages in the decades to come, produced water could help solve a looming problem, said Robert Ward, director emeritus of the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute at Colorado State University." Category: Colorado Water 9:09:48 AM

© Copyright 2006 John Orr. Last update: 12/29/06; 11:26:41 AM.