Water in the West- Lake Tahoe- Nevada

We were unable to visit Lake Tahoe when we were in Reno, Nevada on June 28 but I will tell you a little about the Lake. Lake Tahoe is the oldest lake in Norht America being 4-5 million years old.

It is easy to see why people vacation here.

Lake Tahoe is the second deepest freshwater lake in the United States-1,685 feet deep (second to Crater Lake in Oregon). The lake is 22 miles long and 22 miles wide. It is located along the border of California and Nevada west of Carson City, NV. The lake is a major tourist attraction- home to ski resorts and of course summer recreation activites- boating, fishing, swimming, canoeing etc.

The water quality in the lake has been decreasing since the 1980s. The lake is becoming increasingly eutrophic ( having an excessive richness of nutrients).The water clarity is decreasing at an average rate of 0.25 meters a year and the priamry producation fo the lake is increasing by 5% annually. The eutrophication is mainly due to the runoff coming from homes and streets, casinos, golf courses, and septic systems and the lake has lost adjacent marshes  that would filter than runoff because of increased development.



Water in the West- Hetch Hetchy Reservoir- California

We visited the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on June 27, it is winthin Yosemite National Park. Becasue Hetch Hetcy is a municipal water supply and the water is not filterd (the Tuloumne is a protected watershed) swimming and boating are prohibited. Fishing is pemirtted formt he lake shore.

The Reservoir, harming wilderness? what! Isn't it beautiful.

Photo Credit: Eric Robinson

The reservoir holds 360,000 million acre feet of water, very small compared to Lake Powell and Mead.
The O'Shaughnessy Dam 364 feet talls form the reservoir and is gravity fed. There was a long battle against the dam, led by famous John Muir.

O'Shaunghnessy Dam.

Photo Credit: Eric Robinson

The Raker Act signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 allowed San Francisco to buy the rights to the Tuolomne River and begin construciton of the dam that wasn't complete till 1923.  Wait when did San Francisco get invovled? The primary purpose of the dam was to supply fresh drinking water to the San Fran. Bay Area.  Hethc Hethcy holds 25 % of the cities water supply.

Hydroelectric power is also produced from the dam by the  Moccasin Powerhouse, which has a capacity of 100 megawatts. We had a tour of the Moccasin faciliy by Dr. Bruce McGurk.

San Francisco Public Utilites Comission Water System Hetch Hetchy to San Fran.

Water in the West- Federal Water Projects- California

This map nicely shows all the federal water projects in California.

There is the Central Valley Project:

Orginallly, a state project but had to become federal ( under the Bureau of  Reclamation) because in 1933 the state had no money to build such a water system during the Great Depression. The project has 13 million acre feet of storage capacity and produces 1, 880 megawats of electricity.

The CVP would transport water to the arid Central Valley of California via canals, aqueducts and pump plants- some shared with the California State Water Project. The once water-poor San Joaquin Valley is now productive farmland.

Coachella Canal:

This is a 122 mile aqueduct that take water fomr the Colorao River from the All-American Dam to the Coachella Vally in Riverside County, CA- where it is used for irrigation. Construction began in the 1930s but was interrupted by WWII and then resumed after the war and was completed in 1949. The Coachella Canal has a capacity of

39.2 million acre-feet.

All-American Canal:

This is a 80 mile aqueduct in the southeast of California. It transports water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley and nine cities. It is the valleys only water source.

The Imperial Dam diverts water into the All-American Canal  and has made farming possible in this semi-arid place. The Imperial Irrigation discuss manages the water that runs out of the Canal and is resonsible for delivering  3.1 million acre feet of water to the valley. 



Water in the West- California State Water Project

California State Water Project:

More than 2/3 of the people in California receive part of their water from the California State Water Project. The project was built and is operated by the Department of Water Resources and was started in 1960. It was built from north to south beginning with the Oroville Dam, the tallest dam in the U.S. (770 feet tall)

Parts of the state get over 100 inches while other parts get 2 inches, and most of the growth occurs in the more arid parts of the state. Water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Colorado River is pumped to growing cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Central State Water Project spans over 600 miles of California- it has 34 storage facilities, 20 pumping stations, four pumping-generating plants, five hydroelectric plants and approximately 700 miles of pipelines, canals and tunnels. 70% of the water is used for urban uses and the other 30% agricultural uses.

Water in the West- Central Arizona Project

The Central Arizona Project diverst 1.5 million acre feet from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu and directs in to Pima, Pinal, Maricopa counties and inclduing the Phoneix and Tuscon metropolitan areas.
The CAP was created by the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968 whihc was signed by President Lyndon. B Johnson. The Central Arizona Porject consists of 336 miles of aqueducts, tunnels, pumping plants and pipelines.

Water in the West- San Luis Reservoir and O'Neill Forebay- California

Nestled in the grassy hills of the western San Joaquin Valley near historic Pacheco Pass  (windiest road in America), San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area.

San Luis Reservoir.

After hectic driving from the Channel Islands we arrived at the reservoir after midnight on June 23; the stars at the resevoir were incredible.The next day we stopped by the resevoir and had a discussion about it.

The San Luis Resevoir has 2, 040,000 million acre feet of storage and is the largest off stream reservoir in the United States. San Luis Reservoir was constructed as a storage reservoir for the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project. It stores runoff water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta that would otherwise flow into the  Pacific ocean. The water arrives through the California Aqueduct and the Delta-Mendota Canal to the O- Neill Forebay.

San Luis Reservoir and O'Neill Forebay serve as the upper and lower reservoirs for the Gianelli Hydroelectric plant, whihc began operation in 1968. The plant has eight turbines that pruce a comibed 424 megawatts electricity. During non peak electricity times when cost is low, water is pumped fomr the Forebay to the Reservoir and then during the day is released through the San Luis Dam thus creating hydropower that you now can sell.

Water in the West- California State University

Early evening on June 20, we stopped at the University of California in Fullerton, CA and had a discussion there with Harmone Hawley, Ph.D about water and air qualtitles issues on the West Coast. The talk mainly concentrated on Orange County in California near Los Angeles and the MWD or Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Map of MWD of California.

This water district delivers over 1.7 billion gallons of water daily to an area of about 5,200 square feet. That is over 19 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside,San Bernardino, and Ventura counties.

Orange County itself gets half of it water from local sources and then the other half from Northern Calfornia and the Colorado River. Orange County also does not operate its water basin in a safe yield mode. They pump as much groundwater as they need from the basin ata time and average its use over a few years. As a consequence, the ground as been sinking from the overpumping.

Sinkholes can occur after overpumping.

Another concern in Orange County is salt water intrusion. They have one of the most aggressive prevention systems in the country- this includes the Alamintos and Talbert Gap. There is also a desalination plant near Santa Barbara, CA but it is too exensive still to put into use yet.

On to air quality, Los Angeles is the direst city concerning ozone in the United States. Just being near it for the short time we were for the talk at the University, my throat hurt fomr the air pollution. The amount of automobiles in the city are to blame- pushing the PM 2.5 and PM 10 through the roof. Particle matter 2.5 is inhalable (the one to be more concerned about) and Particle matter 10 gets caught in your mucus in your lungs. Los Angele's situation is partly to blmae for it location; the city if located in a valley so all the pollution is trapped there. The CA-ARB, California Air Resources Board has been monitoring the citie's air quality since the 1970s.

Los Angeles' location is partly to blame for the air qualtiy.

Water in the West- Hoover Dam

We drove by the Hoover Dam on June 19. I only saw the dam from the road, but we stopped by and took pictures at Lake Mead.  Lake Mead is the largest man-made resevoir in the United States. It can hold about 28.5 million acre feet of water.

Lake Mead.

Aerial view of Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam was built between 1931 and 1935 during the Great Depression. Thousands of workers' hard work was put into the dam and many workers died as well (no bodies as we know of buried within dam). The dam is controversially named after Presidnet Herbert Hoover.

The inner workings of the dam.

Tha dam is located on the border between Nevada and Arizona (gives power to NV, AZ, and CA). It has a maximum production of 2,080 megawatts of electricity with its 17 generators.

The massive Hoover Dam.



Water in the West-Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell/Horseshoe Bend

We stayed the night of June 15 at the Wahweap Campgorund, downstream of Glen Canyon Dam. Our camp was right next to the Dam’s reservoir- Lake Powell-which holds 24.3 million acre feet of water.

Lake Powell.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

It felt so good to swim in the reservoir which felt like a natural lake and looked like a lake (it was complete with houseboats on it). The night at Lake Powell the sunset and the moon rose orange at the same time- it was a beautiful sight to behold.

Sunset at Glen Canyon Recreation Area.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

The next morning we did not know if it was Mountain or Pacific Time (half of the recreation area is in Utah and the other half in Arizona) so we showed up one hour early for our tour of the Glen Canyon Dam. They had a very extensive visitor center so we kept ourselves busy. 

Rachel became a junior ranger while we waited for our tour!

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

The official sign.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Our tour guide was Curtis and he was very enthusiastic. The Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation part of the Department of Interior. It took 400,000 buckets to complete the project in September 1963; that is enough concrete to make a four lane highway from Phoenix, Arizona to Chicago, Illinois. One can see 583 feet of the dam but it is truly 720 feet tall.

View from the top of the dam.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Glen Canyon Dam has eight generators that produce electrical current at 13,800 volts each aka 1.3 million kilowatts of power. Hydropower is 85% efficient compared to coal that is 50% efficient.

Turbines of the dam.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

While at the dam we also had a ranger talk, her name was Katie. She brought to our attention about hidden water in the cloths we buy and food we eat.

In food: one hamburger- 708 gallons

Pair of jeans: 100 gallons

In electricity- one hour of watching TV is 10 gallons

 So how many jeans do you have in your closet?

Contemplating life at the Bend.

Photo Credit: Kristen Meidt

After our tour and discussions at dam, we headed to good old Wal-Mart to stock up on food for our trek down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Then we went for lunch at Horseshoe Bend, a lovely geological feature carved out of the canyon rock by the Colorado River located in Page, Arizona.

Horseshoe Bend.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire


Diagram of a dam that produces hydropower.

Water in the West- Salt Lake City, Utah

At Antelope Island, the morning of June 13 on our way to Bryce Canyon – the South end of Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake in all her glory.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest U.S. lake located west of the Mississippi River. It was once called Bonneville Lake -14,000-30,000 years ago. The lake was 131 miles by 131 miles. Yearly, 2.9 million acre feet evaporate from Salt Lake and 2.2 million metric tons of minerals enter. The salinity of the Lake varies from 5%-30%. The salinity of the Dead Sea is close to 30%.

           

 In the 1800s, a railroad divided Salt Lake into a North and South end- it did not allow water flow between the two ends and we see the effects of that now. The South side has a higher level of water and a lower salinity because fresh water enters the Lake. The North end which does not have water entering from another body of water it has a higher salinity.

The Lake has many uses:

The salt in the Lake is used to make salt licks for cattle and other livestock. The salt is also used in hydrochloric acid, fertilizers and chlorine gas. There is an industry in the collecting the shrimp to feed fish. Millions of birds feed on the shrimp. It is too expensive to make table salt out of the Lake and recently there has been oil discovered under the Lake- but that would disrupt the ecosystem of the Lake and cause pollution as well so the oil has not been excavated yet.



Water in the West- Colorado River Compactt/Flaming Gorge, Utah.

The Colorado River, is the most litigated river in the world and it is only 1450 miles long. (The Mississippi is over 2,000 miles long and the Nile and Amazon are over 4,000 miles long.)

The Colorado River Basin Compact is divided like this:

Upper Basin States Allocations:

Colorado 3.88 million acre feet

Utah 1.73 million acre feet

New Mexico 0.84 million acre feet

Wyoming 1.05 million acre feet

Lower Basin State Allocations:

California 4.4 million acre feet

Arizona 2.8 million acre feet

Nevada 0.7 million acre feet

To get the water to the states dams had to be built along the Colorado River. There are two reasons to build dams for hydropower and of course for their reservoirs which people can slowly release water when they need it in droughts.

We camped next to the reservoir of the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah (very close to the border of Wyoming) the night of June 11. Flaming Gorge has 3.78 million acre feet of water storage and generates 150 megawatts

of activity.

Unloading the vans at the campsite.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Resevoir, mountains and campsite.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Resevoir, mountains and beautiful rocks.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Sunset at Flaming Gorge campground.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

  Other major dams along the river are the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell its reservoir, Hoover Dam and its reservoir Lake Mead, the Davis Dam and its reservoir Lake Havasu and the Parker and Imperial Dams.On our journey, we will camp next to Lake Powell and take a tour of Glen Canyon Dam and we will stop by and talk about the Hoover Dam.