The volume of Lake Mead has dropped by more than 50% in under ten years and there is every reason to be concerned that a decade from now Lake Mead may once again become the Colorado River. Whatever has caused global warming, the general impact of it has been to increase the momentum of high-altitude moisture traveling north and south away from the equator. This moisture does eventually drop back to earth, but it is now doing so at progressively greater latitudes (resutling in a “wider” dry band to the south).

No one knows the future with certainty, but the mathematics suggest that runoff into the Colorado River will not appreciably increase anytime soon. Unless a truly massive shift in consumption occurs, the technicalities of the Colorado River Compact will be perfectly moot in ten more years.

Thankfully, a call on the water supply from Mead will serve little to no purpose. Four fifths of the water drawn from Mead is directed to agriculture and, call or no call, Calfornia and company have only a handful of years to dramatically reduce the water consumed on farms. A call will alientate the Upper Basin States and only buy the Lower Basin another year or two. Politically, it makes no sense.

The deepwater outtake pipe currently being constructed in Lake Mead is scheduled to be complete in four years time. I expect that the completion of that pipe will strengthen political pressure to sustain the lake. Whatever the elevation of that pipe inlet is, it will mark the elevation that Lake Mead can never be allowed to reach.

The western United States has always shown a collective ambition and visionary interest in ways of doing things and it has served you well over the years. Whatever transpires in the coming few years, I wish you the very best.

I suggest that thoughtful readers should look at “Chinatown” again, because we're there.

Thomas' comments about aquifer storage suggests that we may continue to place our faith in the notion that some magic bullet technology will save us. Artificially recharging the aquifer is a good idea already being implemented, but let's don't fool ourselves into thinking that this or any other technology will capture the all water lost to evaporation in Elephant Butte.

VB's theme about losing all our San-Juan Chama water forgets that the intent of the Colorado River Compact was to equitably share the Colorado River between upper and lower basins. I'm willing to predict that, drought and climate change notwithstanding, a Lower Basin call will not alientate “every drop” of SJC.

That said, Albuquerque and its fast-moving satellites need to get serious about living within the actual limits of their available water supply.