BOARD00179 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 5/23/2007
• Description: Director's Report - CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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The study, published online in the journal Science, predicted a permanent drought by
2050 throughout the Southwest - one of the !fastest-growing regions in the nation.
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Richard Seager, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at C;:olumbia
University and the lead author of the study, S~id the changes would force an adjustment
to the social and economic order from Colora~o to California. Seager said the
projections, based on 19 computer models, shpwed a surprising level of agreement. The
future effect of global warming is the subject qf a United Nations report to be released in
Brussels, the second of four installments being unveiled this year.
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The rest of this story can be found at: I
http://WWW.latimes.comlnews/Sciencefla-sci-JWdrought6apr06.o.122112.story
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Hopes for lake refill melt away: Early spr~g, vanishing snow reduce water supply
forecast. Spring arrived about two months early at the headwaters of the Colorado
River, prompting rapid snow melt and anothe~ ugly change in the federal water supply
forecast for the region. Forecasters now predict: barely half of an average year's flow for
the river system that fills Lake Mead and supplies most of Las Vegas' drinking
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water. The water projection for the river basically has been cut in half as a result of an
unusually hot and dry March in the Rocky MoUntains.
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The river's diminishing forecast poses no immeciliate threat to the local water supply, but
it is likely to accelerate Lake Mead's decline. In ~ar1y March, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation was predicting that by September 2008 the lake could see its water level fall
below 1,100 feet above sea level for the first timJ since 1965.
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New bureau projections set for release in the ne~t few days could be revised downward
as a result of the latest snowpack numbers. The latest downturn in the forecast comes as
the Bureau of Reclamation holds public hearings! on new guidelines for sharing
shortages and operating Lake Mead and Lake P~well during prolonged drought.
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Nevada and the six other states that share the Coiorado River have already agreed to the
new shortage guidelines. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is expected to sign off on
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them late this year or early nexl year. I

But if the river fails to recover and Lake Mead continues to shrink, it could force the
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authority to accelerate work on a so-called "third straw" that would draw water from the
deepest part of the lake. The $650 million project i~ slated for completion by the end of
2011. Read the rest here: http://www.lvrj.com/ne\V.s/6882002.html
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