The most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world.
|
 |
 
|
We may need to BACKFILL Lake Mead in a huge civil engineering project
| ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,. | 04/18/26 |
Poast new message in this thread
Date: April 18th, 2026 11:36 PM Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,. mead keeps dropping over time, and if it gets below c. 900 feet, it will become a 'dead pool' which will no longer flow into the lower colorado river, nor will it generate any more hydropower (since the turbines at the hoover dam sit above that level).
the two main solutions are to either add more water to the lake, or to raise the elevation of the lake's bottom by dumping a bunch of crap in there.
adding more water is difficult, since the colorado river is a trickle of what it used to be, and since water demand competes directly with upriver basins like lake powell.
even though mass-dumping into mead would increase turbidity and kill all the fish, it may be the only realistic option to prevent a dead pool scenario. |