Upper Colorado River Basin snowfall gives Lake Mead some replenishment

Wet winter and spring will raise the reservoir for the first time in a decade-

Recently we posted an article how Lake Mead would soon fall to a level that it would no longer be able to generate power. I recently visited (see photo). The drawdown was amazing, but the extreme wet winter and spring upriver will raise the lake for a year for the first time in a decade. The future is still probably bleak for the river’s many water consumers and the downriver wildlife.

Lake Mead replenished by snowfall. Arizona Republic. By Shaun McKinnon.

"Bathtub ring" at Hoover Dam shows the water level of Lake Mead in March 2011. Photo copyright Ralph Maughan

Will dryup of Lake Mead prompt Western conservatives to think of climate change?

Secretary of Interior Salazar thinks so-

I don’t think it will, not as the so-called conservatives in office today look at the world.  However, back in the world of facts where Lake Mead isn’t far from the level of “dead pool,” there will be enormous consequences for all the Colorado River Basin states: Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California.

Salazar: Colorado River issue could push conservatives to face climate change. By Karoun Demirjian. Las Vegas Sun

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego places Lake Mead at a 50% chance to run dry by 2020, with its enormous power production inoperative by 2017.  They gave a 10% chance it would be  inoperable by 2014.