Thanks for the update on the lake's and water management. We have had a cool start to our summer and with rain as well. Hopefully the weather patterns will stabilize over the next few years and Powell and Mead get back to their mighty full levels. Merry Christmas from New Zealand
I hope so too! Thank you for joining us in another update 👍 We have been unseasonably warm this month, even tied a record high this week from 1950 at 67F/19C in late December! It seems when you report in from New Zealand we can almost count on the weather being about opposite😎 Some folks are viewing this as omen we will not have another cool wet winter here, but I see it as the warm El Nino pushing back winter and the season just getting "primed". I think when the winter finally turns, it's going to swing hard again. We will wait and see! Merry Christmas to you as well, and hope you have a great start to the New Year 🥂 Cheers!
I've been living here for 30 years and no one talks about the Artesian aquifers that exist in the Las Vegas valley that the LVVWD taps into every spring. Stop over building and we will be fine....
Good point, we get many questions about those aquifers! Not only the natural ones like the old Springs Preserve but the concrete lined ones built by the LVVWD also. People get confused when they hear Las Vegas has been "banking" water. For a future episode I am hoping to do a full episode on the original Las Vegas springs and cover the concrete built ones a bit more or maybe even visit one and get some footage. Thank you for watching and commenting!
OH WOW! I am always amazed at the depth of your research and the graphics that helps us understand through the visual. What I am really excited about is the next step you are taking. I believe this puts you at the forefront of River Watching, just in time to ignite my reporter's need to get back to work! I didn't write one article all last year. But with your new Colorado River Watch this will bring over the top and under reported facts that make for good writing. I'd like to add one thing to this report. And maybe you can add them into your reports. Baja California receives allotments through a 1944 Treaty. The treaty is one of the most powerful form of protection. Baja was compensated for their Colorado River water loss that was cut off and retained in the US reservoirs. Baja did not have to participate in the cut back, because the treaty protected them. But Baja was first before any of the states to show up at the table and volunteer their own cut backs and they have been doing that ever since. While all 7 states were warring over how much, Baja showed up and offered. Because? Because they were the first to admit the dire situation. We are the last spigot on the pipe line. There is cause for concern. Unfortunately, the development along the coast in the northern state, as well as our vallery wine reagon has gone completely crazy. It seems no one in government understands this, or a darker thought is they don't care as long as the money flows. Anyway, just let your viewers know that Baja California is participating in all the table talks. Keep on Keeping on. Can't wait for you new WATCH!
Thanks Martina! Great to hear from you again and I appreciate the kind words😎 I'm glad to hear you're going to be getting back into it! I became burnt out myself making content here and the day job has been crazy. I am hoping the new CRW/podcast news format will help alleviate some of that! Your reports will surely motivate me again also. I really enjoy taking in all this information from so many different sources up and down the river, so thank you for that write up on Baja too. I really have little knowledge on anything going on there outside of what I've heard and read from you. I will definitely be covering Baja in a future CRW episode once I feel a bit more knowledgeable on it, I have a lot of great topics lined up already. I just can't edit video fast enough 😂 Very interesting on the "volunteering" by Baja from the start while the rest of us were upstream bickering. I'm definitely in the camp of "don't care as long as the money flows". I would think the IV farmers that just got that $125 million payoff *not to farm* would be looking at Baja like... why would you do that? for free?! I also have a suspicion that not all this "relief funding" is making to the right places. Lots of hands getting greased along the way, not much left at the end. Why not spend it on new reservoirs or desal? Because that would SOLVE the problem instead of deferring it until more "relief money" comes available. Just my opinion of course👍 I'll be looking forward to more Gringo Gazette reads!
I will send you after holidays a few things I've collected along the way and save you some research time. And it is great to hear that my articles do serve. We are sure aligned with how we are seeing things even though it holds some pretty dark aspects of human weaknesses. With this I say, Have a beautiful and blessed holiday.@@mojo.adventures
Its frustrating to hear people saying Las Vegas should stop building houses. This is what happened in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York when there are no more areas to build from the houses will keep getting extremely expensive due to supply and demand. As long as people exist the population will increase and houses will be built. The Las Vegas valley only uses 2.5% of the water and the city has severe water restrictions already.
Spot on! Las Vegas is about the least taxing city on the Colorado River and is one of the closest in proximity to it's banks, while other southwest cities move water through 100's of miles of aqueducts to get it to an end user and use substantially more. That being said, city managers around Southern Nevada continue to talk out of both sides of their mouth to appease potential residents (tax base) AND the developers that have them in their pockets. They put increasing restrictions, fines, and rates on existing residents and long time locals, while building lavish luxury communities for wealthy transplants, huge new stadiums and casinos, and high density housing crammed into every inch. In effect, YOU are subsidizing someone else's future excess water use. Sure, it works fine for now since our consumption is so low, but this plan can only go on for so long. Not to mention... none of the water used for dust mitigation and construction is returned to the river. Many wealthy folks who come here hate the desert and continue to have ornamental grass and large pools that go mostly unused. The city of Henderson is currently supplying Lake Las Vegas with vanity water for a FAKE ISLAND community, while telling existing residents to use less. The QUALITY of people moving to the desert has changed, and just because you and I follow conservation guidelines doesn't mean our new neighbours across town give 2 hoots about any of this, and most likely won't in the future. I don't think building should be stopped altogether here, but I do think we need a serious re-evaluation of our city leaders and the expectations for people moving here. Thank you for watching! 😎
Aw! I can't believe you didnt get a shot of the winning sailboat at the parade of lights! Mine!! Anyways, I heard from a good source that the water is going to go UP 20 feet by the end of January 2024...
Wow, you won?! Nice work, congrats! 🎉 I most likely *did* get ya on there too, but my footage is terrible🙃 Tricky shooting the lake at night, had to try my old SLR with no tripod or stabilization. It was a fun time though! We'll will be back next year with better skills and hopefully get some good captures👍 Thankful for all the folks who took time to dress everything up and cruising around!
Thanks for the nice video and the update. Some long-term views lean towards the whole SouthWest becoming sevelely "desertified" for the better part of a millennium or so. Well past our time.
Appreciate you checking out another update! Yes, I see a lot of articles about continued desertification of the southwest in the future. Our thinking usually seems to be too short-term as we are now finding out from the 1922 river compact.
Wow! I haven't seen those predictions but that would be something! As far as I've seen from the USBR, they don't plan on the lake rising much at all above the current level (~1,070 ft asl) throughout 2025. I'm open to reading any optimistic reports though if you have any sources pass them along!👍
@@mojo.adventures Its already above that at 1,071.59. Its partly the El Nino that is driving the higher rainfall. The water level never dropped a single day in January. This surprised some of the models. February is expected to bring heavier storms then January. I guess we will see what happens.
That is great news just checked today, you aren't kidding! I am hoping things are just a bit delayed this year 👍 The last round of storms were pretty solid here. Others say upstream snowpack is doing just fine so far. You nailed it wait and see now!
The USBR seemed to be giving serious thought to "bypassing" Glen Canyon Dam and making Mead to sole primary reservoir of the lower basin, but those talks seems to have all disappeared after last spring when we saw all the snow and flooding come again.
Wow this is interesting... I haven't heard of that! It took me about 3 years to get strawberries to take root and survive here in the desert. I am interested to know if it's wild strawberries or an actual farm. I've seen industrial grow warehouses up by the speedway, but they aren't growing strawberries. I'm not sure why we can't grow basic produce (lettuce, tomato, onion, etc) for a city in these same warehouses so we don't have to rely on single point agriculture sources.
@@mojo.adventures I’m a Dutch farmer. 40 years ago I developed a system for myself and my parents to grow strawberries in a hanging system. So we could stand straight up and pick strawberries that way. Clean, labor efficient and healthy not to be on our knees on cold soil. They are building a plastic tunnel/ greenhouse system with this system. Glasshouses are developed in The Netherlands to grow expensive products like peppers, tomatoes, aubergine, flowers and plants etc. They are not growing in soil but in cocos or stonewool. Or peat. The Dutch do this to protect produce from wind, rain and cold. In the desert that will be protection from heat and sun I imagine. We are sometimes but more frequent heat for numbers of days. For strawberries we sprinkle warm water on top of the glasshouse to keep it cool inside, this takes a lot of water. My cousin was involved in working for this project building it. But not in growing produce. The Netherlands is trying to grow produce in big industrial complexes. Large numbers of layers with LED lights to have a large yield/m2. Happy new year.
Lot's of good info, thank you for sharing! Will definitely take that to heart. I am starting a similar experiment out here in the desert👍 I've already tried strawberries on drip lines, took about 3 seasons to get them to take root without withering away in the heat of summer. Have to keep them out of direct sun. This year, I have potatoes, garlic, onions, and a planter with various spices. Lettuce/leafy greens proving to be hard to maintain yet. Everything is outdoors in a combination of shade and humidity tents, all on low consumption drip lines. Water bill is WAY lower still than neighbors with grass or pools. The goal is to eventually scale up and have everything run off the grid on solar. I'm convinced we could create regional industrial grow houses anywhere- including here in the desert. The water would be much better served in my opinion growing regional food sources than going towards ornamental lawns and non-native vegetation.
@@mojo.adventures I used to have a farm, in what I used 100% of the water. Regenerated it by heating it to 80 degrees Celsius and cooling it down with the new incoming water. We needed a lot of water anyway but nothing wasted. We cooled glasshouse with water sprinklers on the roof, Water came back in the tank and used again. Only water what vaporized got lost! Not cold water though. Little warm like air temperature
There seems to be some truth to this as the terms "drought contingency funding" and "drought relief funding" are getting thrown around a lot now and there doesn't seem to be many lasting results from it. I hope to be wrong, but much of it is looking like another slush fund for big corps and foreign interests.
I LOVE all these doom and gloom reports! All we see is the lake RISING, but we’re doomed! Go play golf at Club at Sunrise and look at that water way leading to Lake Mead. That thing is running like a RIVER, and has been for 2 years now! The draught is OVER atop trying to scare people with this 💩
The lake will rise when the USBR decides and we will be doomed when they decide also- just like 2022! Yes it's good to see the Las Vegas Wash quite healthy lately, but keep in mind the wash only makes up about 1% of Mead's yearly water supply. No matter how heavy it flows it's not contributing much. We would be taking a VERY short sighted approach to think a drought (or flood) is all that factors in here. It's good to take an optimistic approach like you have here, but the "doom and gloom" predictions from the USBR are for Summer 2025. What we see now has very little bearing on what the USBR decides to do next year!
@@mojo.adventures How’s that Lake level looking now doomsdayer? Still rising! Only 10 feet away from where it was 5 years ago! 150+% of average snow fall in Colorado in January doomsdayer! We all know those predictions are ALWAYS worst case scenario! Plus with the added rain in Southern California they’ll be using less water from Lake Mead just like last year! Which in turn will only help stabilize and contribute to a continued rise in water levels! One more good winter and Lake Mead will be 1100+ feet again!
Last year there was all kinds of pipeline talk going around, either from Flaming Gorge or even the Mississippi, but I think all those talks have mostly been abandoned by now. USBR focusing almost exclusively on DEMAND, trying to reduce usage in exchange for federal payoffs. We are yet to see if this solution will be effective in the long term at all, but for the next year or two it will be a decent band-aid.
2024 is going to be a brutal year for Lake Mead by all projections. At some point water will need to be piped in from somewhere. Conservation just kicks the can down the road.@@mojo.adventures
Thanks for the update on the lake's and water management. We have had a cool start to our summer and with rain as well. Hopefully the weather patterns will stabilize over the next few years and Powell and Mead get back to their mighty full levels. Merry Christmas from New Zealand
I hope so too! Thank you for joining us in another update 👍 We have been unseasonably warm this month, even tied a record high this week from 1950 at 67F/19C in late December! It seems when you report in from New Zealand we can almost count on the weather being about opposite😎 Some folks are viewing this as omen we will not have another cool wet winter here, but I see it as the warm El Nino pushing back winter and the season just getting "primed". I think when the winter finally turns, it's going to swing hard again. We will wait and see! Merry Christmas to you as well, and hope you have a great start to the New Year 🥂 Cheers!
I've been living here for 30 years and no one talks about the Artesian aquifers that exist in the Las Vegas valley that the LVVWD taps into every spring. Stop over building and we will be fine....
The US Will have no water in about 50 years. Texas aquifers which are also the largest are on that track. It is against laws to use ocean water.
Good point, we get many questions about those aquifers! Not only the natural ones like the old Springs Preserve but the concrete lined ones built by the LVVWD also. People get confused when they hear Las Vegas has been "banking" water. For a future episode I am hoping to do a full episode on the original Las Vegas springs and cover the concrete built ones a bit more or maybe even visit one and get some footage. Thank you for watching and commenting!
OH WOW! I am always amazed at the depth of your research and the graphics that helps us understand through the visual.
What I am really excited about is the next step you are taking. I believe this puts you at the forefront of River Watching, just in time to ignite my reporter's need to get back to work! I didn't write one article all last year. But with your new Colorado River Watch this will bring over the top and under reported facts that make for good writing.
I'd like to add one thing to this report.
And maybe you can add them into your reports.
Baja California receives allotments through a 1944 Treaty. The treaty is one of the most powerful form of protection. Baja was compensated for their Colorado River water loss that was cut off and retained in the US reservoirs. Baja did not have to participate in the cut back, because the treaty protected them.
But Baja was first before any of the states to show up at the table and volunteer their own cut backs and they have been doing that ever since. While all 7 states were warring over how much, Baja showed up and offered. Because? Because they were the first to admit the dire situation. We are the last spigot on the pipe line. There is cause for concern.
Unfortunately, the development along the coast in the northern state, as well as our vallery wine reagon has gone completely crazy. It seems no one in government understands this, or a darker thought is they don't care as long as the money flows.
Anyway, just let your viewers know that Baja California is participating in all the table talks.
Keep on Keeping on. Can't wait for you new WATCH!
Thanks Martina! Great to hear from you again and I appreciate the kind words😎 I'm glad to hear you're going to be getting back into it! I became burnt out myself making content here and the day job has been crazy. I am hoping the new CRW/podcast news format will help alleviate some of that!
Your reports will surely motivate me again also. I really enjoy taking in all this information from so many different sources up and down the river, so thank you for that write up on Baja too. I really have little knowledge on anything going on there outside of what I've heard and read from you. I will definitely be covering Baja in a future CRW episode once I feel a bit more knowledgeable on it, I have a lot of great topics lined up already. I just can't edit video fast enough 😂
Very interesting on the "volunteering" by Baja from the start while the rest of us were upstream bickering. I'm definitely in the camp of "don't care as long as the money flows". I would think the IV farmers that just got that $125 million payoff *not to farm* would be looking at Baja like... why would you do that? for free?! I also have a suspicion that not all this "relief funding" is making to the right places. Lots of hands getting greased along the way, not much left at the end. Why not spend it on new reservoirs or desal? Because that would SOLVE the problem instead of deferring it until more "relief money" comes available. Just my opinion of course👍 I'll be looking forward to more Gringo Gazette reads!
I will send you after holidays a few things I've collected along the way and save you some research time. And it is great to hear that my articles do serve. We are sure aligned with how we are seeing things even though it holds some pretty dark aspects of human weaknesses. With this I say, Have a beautiful and blessed holiday.@@mojo.adventures
Its frustrating to hear people saying Las Vegas should stop building houses. This is what happened in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York when there are no more areas to build from the houses will keep getting extremely expensive due to supply and demand. As long as people exist the population will increase and houses will be built. The Las Vegas valley only uses 2.5% of the water and the city has severe water restrictions already.
Spot on! Las Vegas is about the least taxing city on the Colorado River and is one of the closest in proximity to it's banks, while other southwest cities move water through 100's of miles of aqueducts to get it to an end user and use substantially more. That being said, city managers around Southern Nevada continue to talk out of both sides of their mouth to appease potential residents (tax base) AND the developers that have them in their pockets. They put increasing restrictions, fines, and rates on existing residents and long time locals, while building lavish luxury communities for wealthy transplants, huge new stadiums and casinos, and high density housing crammed into every inch. In effect, YOU are subsidizing someone else's future excess water use. Sure, it works fine for now since our consumption is so low, but this plan can only go on for so long. Not to mention... none of the water used for dust mitigation and construction is returned to the river. Many wealthy folks who come here hate the desert and continue to have ornamental grass and large pools that go mostly unused. The city of Henderson is currently supplying Lake Las Vegas with vanity water for a FAKE ISLAND community, while telling existing residents to use less. The QUALITY of people moving to the desert has changed, and just because you and I follow conservation guidelines doesn't mean our new neighbours across town give 2 hoots about any of this, and most likely won't in the future. I don't think building should be stopped altogether here, but I do think we need a serious re-evaluation of our city leaders and the expectations for people moving here. Thank you for watching! 😎
More people is always the answer!
Aw! I can't believe you didnt get a shot of the winning sailboat at the parade of lights! Mine!!
Anyways, I heard from a good source that the water is going to go UP 20 feet by the end of January 2024...
Wow, you won?! Nice work, congrats! 🎉 I most likely *did* get ya on there too, but my footage is terrible🙃 Tricky shooting the lake at night, had to try my old SLR with no tripod or stabilization. It was a fun time though! We'll will be back next year with better skills and hopefully get some good captures👍 Thankful for all the folks who took time to dress everything up and cruising around!
Thanks for the nice video and the update. Some long-term views lean towards the whole SouthWest becoming sevelely "desertified" for the better part of a millennium or so. Well past our time.
Appreciate you checking out another update! Yes, I see a lot of articles about continued desertification of the southwest in the future. Our thinking usually seems to be too short-term as we are now finding out from the 1922 river compact.
By 2025 Lake Mead will be close to full pool level. So the dooms day predictions are a little off.
@@MichaelFrankowiak That would be very good!🙏
Thank you.
Appreciate you checking out the update!👍
50 feet higher by the end of 2024 is the latest prediction by the experts
Wow! I haven't seen those predictions but that would be something! As far as I've seen from the USBR, they don't plan on the lake rising much at all above the current level (~1,070 ft asl) throughout 2025. I'm open to reading any optimistic reports though if you have any sources pass them along!👍
@@mojo.adventures Its already above that at 1,071.59. Its partly the El Nino that is driving the higher rainfall. The water level never dropped a single day in January. This surprised some of the models. February is expected to bring heavier storms then January. I guess we will see what happens.
That is great news just checked today, you aren't kidding! I am hoping things are just a bit delayed this year 👍 The last round of storms were pretty solid here. Others say upstream snowpack is doing just fine so far. You nailed it wait and see now!
Slowly rising...
Drain Powell and get it over with already.
The USBR seemed to be giving serious thought to "bypassing" Glen Canyon Dam and making Mead to sole primary reservoir of the lower basin, but those talks seems to have all disappeared after last spring when we saw all the snow and flooding come again.
I understand that they are starting to grow strawberries next to the airport in Las Vegas! Probably they expect enough water!
Wow this is interesting... I haven't heard of that! It took me about 3 years to get strawberries to take root and survive here in the desert. I am interested to know if it's wild strawberries or an actual farm. I've seen industrial grow warehouses up by the speedway, but they aren't growing strawberries. I'm not sure why we can't grow basic produce (lettuce, tomato, onion, etc) for a city in these same warehouses so we don't have to rely on single point agriculture sources.
@@mojo.adventures I’m a Dutch farmer.
40 years ago I developed a system for myself and my parents to grow strawberries in a hanging system. So we could stand straight up and pick strawberries that way. Clean, labor efficient and healthy not to be on our knees on cold soil.
They are building a plastic tunnel/ greenhouse system with this system.
Glasshouses are developed in The Netherlands to grow expensive products like peppers, tomatoes, aubergine, flowers and plants etc.
They are not growing in soil but in cocos or stonewool. Or peat.
The Dutch do this to protect produce from wind, rain and cold.
In the desert that will be protection from heat and sun I imagine.
We are sometimes but more frequent heat for numbers of days.
For strawberries we sprinkle warm water on top of the glasshouse to keep it cool inside, this takes a lot of water.
My cousin was involved in working for this project building it. But not in growing produce.
The Netherlands is trying to grow produce in big industrial complexes.
Large numbers of layers with LED lights to have a large yield/m2.
Happy new year.
Lot's of good info, thank you for sharing! Will definitely take that to heart. I am starting a similar experiment out here in the desert👍 I've already tried strawberries on drip lines, took about 3 seasons to get them to take root without withering away in the heat of summer. Have to keep them out of direct sun. This year, I have potatoes, garlic, onions, and a planter with various spices. Lettuce/leafy greens proving to be hard to maintain yet. Everything is outdoors in a combination of shade and humidity tents, all on low consumption drip lines. Water bill is WAY lower still than neighbors with grass or pools. The goal is to eventually scale up and have everything run off the grid on solar. I'm convinced we could create regional industrial grow houses anywhere- including here in the desert. The water would be much better served in my opinion growing regional food sources than going towards ornamental lawns and non-native vegetation.
@@mojo.adventures I used to have a farm, in what I used 100% of the water.
Regenerated it by heating it to 80 degrees Celsius and cooling it down with the new incoming water.
We needed a lot of water anyway but nothing wasted.
We cooled glasshouse with water sprinklers on the roof,
Water came back in the tank and used again.
Only water what vaporized got lost!
Not cold water though. Little warm like air temperature
THE WATER LEVEL IS WHERE EVER THEY WANT IT TO BE...THEY WANT LOW LEVELS TO GET MORE GRANTS..LOWER THE WATER MORE MONEY IN THERE POCKETS...
There seems to be some truth to this as the terms "drought contingency funding" and "drought relief funding" are getting thrown around a lot now and there doesn't seem to be many lasting results from it. I hope to be wrong, but much of it is looking like another slush fund for big corps and foreign interests.
I LOVE all these doom and gloom reports! All we see is the lake RISING, but we’re doomed! Go play golf at Club at Sunrise and look at that water way leading to Lake Mead. That thing is running like a RIVER, and has been for 2 years now! The draught is OVER atop trying to scare people with this 💩
The lake will rise when the USBR decides and we will be doomed when they decide also- just like 2022! Yes it's good to see the Las Vegas Wash quite healthy lately, but keep in mind the wash only makes up about 1% of Mead's yearly water supply. No matter how heavy it flows it's not contributing much. We would be taking a VERY short sighted approach to think a drought (or flood) is all that factors in here. It's good to take an optimistic approach like you have here, but the "doom and gloom" predictions from the USBR are for Summer 2025. What we see now has very little bearing on what the USBR decides to do next year!
@@mojo.adventures How’s that Lake level looking now doomsdayer? Still rising! Only 10 feet away from where it was 5 years ago! 150+% of average snow fall in Colorado in January doomsdayer! We all know those predictions are ALWAYS worst case scenario! Plus with the added rain in Southern California they’ll be using less water from Lake Mead just like last year! Which in turn will only help stabilize and contribute to a continued rise in water levels! One more good winter and Lake Mead will be 1100+ feet again!
Supply and demand.
Pipe water in NOW.
Last year there was all kinds of pipeline talk going around, either from Flaming Gorge or even the Mississippi, but I think all those talks have mostly been abandoned by now. USBR focusing almost exclusively on DEMAND, trying to reduce usage in exchange for federal payoffs. We are yet to see if this solution will be effective in the long term at all, but for the next year or two it will be a decent band-aid.
2024 is going to be a brutal year for Lake Mead by all projections.
At some point water will need to be piped in from somewhere. Conservation just kicks the can down the road.@@mojo.adventures