Daniel Salzler No. 1247
EnviroInsight.org Five Items March 29, 2024
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1. Here’s How Much Lake Powell Is Expected To Rise This Year.
It will get a nice bump this season, but is not expected to reach the same levels it peaked at before the region’s latest severe drought.
Lake Powell remains at the center of attention as the seven Colorado River Basin states figure out how much water is withdrawn from it this year and beyond.
But those who rely on it for water and electricity — and the millions who enjoy recreating on the reservoir — are equally focused on how much Lake Powell receives this spring.
The good news is, it is expected to receive a decent bump in the coming months. The bad news is, it’s not expected to reach the same levels it peaked at before the region’s latest severe drought.
Lake Powell is projected to receive about 5.4 million acre-feet of water based on conditions this winter, National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center officials said on Friday. That would hoist the reservoir from 32% to 37% capacity after the snowmelt process wraps up in the early summer.
The reservoir gained about 65 feet in water levels last spring, jumping from 21% to 38% capacity following last year’s record snowpack. If this year’s projections come to fruition, it would also be close to the reservoir peak in 2021. It would also be much lower than the 2010s average peak.
However, experts explain the figure is a bit fluid, and several variables can adjust how high the reservoir reaches.
Additional water
The center’s projections are based on a possible inflow of 85% of normal. Snowpack levels are generally between 85% and 130% of normal across the Upper Colorado River Basin region, and 120% and 125% across the Great Basin, Colorado Basin River Forecast Center officials wrote in a water supply report Tuesday.
Officials clarified on social media the lower inflows are tied to drier conditions within the Green River and San Juan river basins, which flow into the Colorado River upstream of Lake Powell. They also said inflows were nearly twice the normal last year, which is why the reservoir gained so much in a short period.
But the 2024 snowpack collection season isn’t over yet in the regions that matter most for Lake Powell, which may be the biggest variable. What has helped is “storm activity” has lingered across the Colorado River Basin and Great Basin this month after an above-normal February, Colorado Basin River Forecast Center officials wrote in a water supply report Tuesday.
“The water supply outlook has improved due to wetter than average weather during the first half of March,” the agency wrote, adding that the “water supply volumes are most favorable” in the Great Basin, including Utah.
Last week’s storm was also huge for areas near Lake Powell or upstream of it, including Colorado and southeast Utah. The Escalante-Paria snowpack basin, for instance, gained 3.3 inches of water from the storm, about a quarter of the region’s snowpack collection since Oct. 1, per Natural Resources Conservation Service data.
But Jordan Clayton, a hydrologist for the agency, said more would be needed to “move the needle” regarding Lake Powell’s rise this year. National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center outlooks note the river basin and Great Basin have some of the highest probabilities for above-normal precipitation to close out March, so that could help improve inflows.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may release a more detailed Lake Powell projection after the snowpack collection season ends.
“We’ll take as much water up in the larger Upper Colorado basin as possible,” Clayton told KSL.com on Tuesday. “(Lake Powell) has a tremendously long way to go.”
Diversions
Clayton adds that bodies of water like Lake Powell are also harder to project because there are multiple diversions upstream and most reservoir or lake projections are based on snowpack data. While agencies try to account for depletion, there’s no way of knowing when someone will pull from the river and how much they will consume.
Conversely, projections typically don’t account for human-made measures that could boost inflows like controlled reservoir releases. Water managers upstream of Lake Powell could decide to release stored water into the Colorado, Green and San Juan rivers to avoid flood risks, which would add to the water that flows into Lake Powell.
Other Factors
Some additional factors can change how much water ends up — or stays — in Lake Powell this year.
Warmer and drier conditions this spring could cause snowpack to melt early or create an inefficient runoff, which means less snowpack water may end up in rivers, streams and creeks that flow into Lake Powell.
“You lose a little bit of the water to upland areas and less of it makes it to the reservoir,” Clayton said. “So there are consequences for having more of a spread out runoff period.”
The two divisions of the Colorado River Basin system have different ideas of how to manage the future of the country’s two largest reservoirs in the long term.
That was a fear with last year’s snowpack; however, the snowmelt process ended up being about as efficient as possible. It helped many reservoirs refill, while the state avoided widespread flooding.
Warmer and drier conditions during the spring and summer result in more evaporation, as well as withdrawals from Lake Powell or systems that flow into it. Long-range forecasts don’t offer much insight into what’s expected this summer, but some parts of the river basin have slightly higher odds for above-normal temperatures this spring.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation anticipates starting a plan for the Lower Colorado River Basin states to cut water consumption by at least 3 million acre-feet between 2024 and 2026. That may not factor much into Lake Powell’s peak this spring, but it could help reduce the amount pulled from the reservoir later in the year and prevent the reservoir from shrinking so quickly.
So it appears those who rely on Lake Powell should expect to see similar reservoir conditions as last year, but much more water is needed before it returns to levels before the latest severe drought.
2. Ten Simple Things You Can Do To Help Protect The Planet.
1. Put on a sweater. A great alternative to cranking up the heat inside your home. You’ll be burning fewer fossil fuels, thus having less of an impact on Climate Change.
2. Put one foot in front of the other. Whenever you can, walk. Driving to work, driving to lunch all have negative implications on the environment.
3. Go For Seconds. Reuse container two, three, four times or more before you toss them into the recycle bin.
4. Control The Waste You Produce. Perhaps the “Stuff” your throwing away could be composted or recycled instead of sent to the landfill.
5. Paper Nor Plastic. Bring you fabric bags and reduce the number of plastic bags by 350 per year. Fill up
6. BYOB. Last year, Americans went through about 50 billion water bottles. Use a refillable bottle and if your tap water taste “bad”, get a filter. After all, most commercially bottled water is filtered tap water.
7. Turn Off Your Outside Lights. And turn off all of your inside lights except for the room that you are in.
8.Plant a tree or Garden Organically. This is good for the soil, helpful to reduce climate change and improve your breathing.
9. Get Off Unwanted Catalog Subscriptions. If you receive catalogs from companies you do not buy from, call them and tell them to take you off their list. Less paper waste.
10. Support World Wildlife Fund, Heifer Inc., EnviroInsight.org and more to support environmental groups.
3. Have You Ever Eaten One Of These By A Different Name?
a. Big Burger
b.Blue Ribbon Burger
c. Aristocrat
d. Big Double Cheeseburger
4.White House To Work With State Administrations To Address Cyber Risk In The Water Industry. On March 19, 2024 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent a letter to all U.S. Governors inviting state environmental, health and This virtual meeting will take place on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 1:00pm – 2:30 pm EST. EPA will be sending meeting registration information to the states separately via email.
“Drinking water and wastewater systems are a lifeline for communities, but many systems have not adopted important cybersecurity practices to thwart potential cyberattacks,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “EPA and NSC take these threats very seriously and will continue to partner with state environmental, health, and homeland security leaders to address the pervasive and challenging risk of cyberattacks on water systems.”
“We’ve worked across government to implement significant cybersecurity standards in our nation’s critical infrastructure, including in the water sector, as we remain vigilant to the risks and costs of cyber threats. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the EPA to bolster the cybersecurity of America’s water and wastewater systems,” said National Security Advisory Jake Sullivan.
“EPA will strive to collaborate with the Water Sector and Water Government Coordinating Councils in forming a Water Sector Cybersecurity Task Force to identify near-term actions and strategies to reduce the risk of water systems nationwide to cyberattacks,” the release further stated.
For information about EPA’s cybersecurity program or details about the upcoming meeting please visit EPA’s Cybersecurity for the Water Sector website. homeland security Secretaries to a convening by their deputies to discuss the urgent need to safeguard water sector critical infrastructure against cyber threats. The meeting will address what is being done to promote cybersecurity in the water industry, priorities for both levels of government and emphasize timely action. Read the entire Press Release of this Biden-Harris water safeguard.https://www.waterworld.com/home/press-release/14310576/white-house-to-work-with-state-administrations-to-address-cyber-risk-in-the-water-industry
5. April 1st – April Fool’s Day – The History of Day. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. In the Julian Calendar, as in the Hindu calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1.
People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.” These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person. As a prank, tails were stuck to one’s derrière as “April Fool!” was called out in a jeering fashion (origin of the child’s game “Pin the tail on the donkey”.
The Gregorian Calendar same about to change the date of Easter. In 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar, Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Since the Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons. This concerned Gregory because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.
The Julian calendar included an extra day in February every four years. But Aloysus Lilius, the Italian scientist who developed the system Pope Gregory would unveil in 1582, realized that the addition of so many days made the calendar slightly too long. He devised a variation that adds leap days in years divisible by four, unless the year is also divisible by 100. If the year is also divisible by 400, a leap day is added regardless. While this formula may sound confusing, it did resolve the lag created by Caesar’s earlier scheme—almost. https://www.history.com/news/6-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-gregorian-calendar
Answer To Number 3Above: b & c. In 1967 when this sandwich was invented by franchisee Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh, it was firstly named as ‘Aristocrat’, meaning ‘the people that a particular social order considers in the highest social class of that society.‘ This word might not be that familiar to most of people, neither is it easy to pronounce and being understood. Imagine one man walked into a McDonald restaurant, staring at the board and said, ‘Can I have one Aristocrat?’, which is pretty funny isn’t it?
Of course those managers ran the corporate noticed this lethal name crisis, not too long after the name ‘Aristocrat’ was used, it was changed to ‘Blue Ribbon Burger’ to make it lot easier to read and imagine. I am not sure whether at that time the packaging of Big Mac was a paper box with blue ribbon around it but this change-name-action was definitely to put this sandwich to an iconized, symbolized stuff.
Just one year later, in 1968, a 21-year-old girl named Esther Glickstein Rose, worked as advertising secretary at McDonald corporate Headquarter in Oak Brook, Illinois, decided to give the sandwich a new name. One day, a product development manager approached her, as Ms Rose recalled, ‘He said I need a name for this new bigger hamburger. He described it to me, and off the top of my head I said, ‘Big Mac’, coz I dislike the two previous names.’ This combined word was not invented by that accidentally, in fact the name was established to compete with ‘Big Boy’ sandwich from another restaurant called Big Boy.
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