First visit to Arizona
I made my first visit to Arizona when I visited the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in 2019. Built in the 1930s Depression era, the dam has made life in the West possible. It allowed Los Angeles and Las Vegas to grow up, and canals made year-round life in Arizona possible. Everything has been working according to plan for over eighty years.
I must confess to often wondering why people would create a city like Las Vegas in the middle of the Mojave desert. I also confess to having fun during my visit. Our walk along the Vegas strip was fun: the kids had lots to look at and I photographed the landscaping; especially the palm trees.
My visit to the Hoover Dam was a nice diversion from a Las Vegas soccer tournament my son was playing in. Since gambling and topless dance shows would blow the budget and aren’t my style, we opted for this nice side trip. And the place was full of tourists, even in February.
Climate change is here
Now, Timothy Egan reports in a recent New York Times article that Las Vegas and other desert oasis towns may be threatened. In the 1930s, engineers had a problem to solve and they did it. They poured tons of concrete and controlled the Colorado River which travels 1450 miles from the Rockies to the Gulf of California. The river serves 40 million people.
Egan writes that the news is grim. The West has been experiencing a megadrought and Las Vegas is among the fastest warming cities in the United States.
The Colorado River flows have gone down by about 20% in the last century, largely because of climate change, the article reports.
When I visited Lake Mead in 2019, there were previous water levels visible on the other side of the lake. Now I suspect that the water may never reach that high again; but that wasn’t exactly on my mind in 2019. I had to watch the coach’s son who was getting dangerously close to the guardrails. I managed to slow him down with a story of Lake Mead freshwater sharks.
Now what?
Engineers can dam rivers and control dry years. But climate change? Good luck. It’s not happening. It might be a rough ride for the arid West.
