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Jan. 12, 2009
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Mulroy issues harsh predictions on global warming

By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — Southern Nevada’s top water official warned federal policymakers today that they underestimate climate change at their own risk as they consider ways to bolster the nation’s infrastructure.

“We need to understand where the floods are going to occur and where the drought conditions are going to be protracted before we start making long-term investments,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.


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    • In the short term, fixing long-neglected bridges, roads and water and sewer systems is fine, Mulroy said. But beyond that, she said, “We need to look at (infrastructure) through a 21st century lens in a very different climate and not take a 19th century climate and assume that is going to be the norm.”

    “We have not spent any time in this country investing in the science of climate change in any kind of concerted action,” she said. “We have not spent time talking about how we are going to adapt.”

    Mulroy, who directs the agency that supplies most of the water in Clark County, sounded the alarm as part of a panel assembled by the Brookings Institution to discuss infrastructure and recommendations for President-elect Barack Obama to pursue in his economic stimulus strategy and beyond.

    Investments in infrastructure create jobs as well as shore up the physical foundations of the nation, but panelists said the ways such projects are weighed and funded are grossly inefficient.

    The audience of several hundred at the think tank grew silent at Mulroy’s striking predictions. She said Southern California “is very much facing the real possibility of having a major water crisis in 2010,” and that three more years of drought along the Colorado River will cost Southern Nevada 40 percent of its water supply.

    “Two more years after that, we lose 90 percent of our water supply,” if the drought persists over the longer period, she said, referring Lake Mead levels dropping beneath the intake pipes that draw water for municipal use.

    Professional water managers recognize climate change “could destroy the very underpinnings of every economy of the United States, whether it is dikes that are going to break from rising ocean levels to whether it is wastewater or water treatment plants that are situated on the banks of rivers that can be flooded out, to if it is in the West from the most dire and desperate drought that we have ever experienced.”

    Mulroy said she was hopeful at the appointment of former EPA administrator Carol Browner to become the global warming coordinator in the Obama White House. While federal science agencies now compete for climate change funding, there might be some coordination in the new administration.

    “Once that science gets going and we get a better understanding of the true impacts of climate change, then we can look at the most at-risk situations, whether it is the dikes in California, whether it is the potential of losing a significant part of Florida, whether it is the protracted droughts that are gong to wipe out whole economies, and what are the possible solutions,” she said.

    Policymakers will need to become creative, even “outrageous,” Mulroy said. For instance, she suggested that floodwaters from the Mississippi River might be diverted west for drought prevention.

    “Why can’t floodwaters in one part of the country, through a series of exchanges, be a water supply in another part of the country?” she said. “I could show you a series of exchanges between the Mississippi and California and you could start fixing some problems.

    “When it comes to watersheds and water supplies, we are all interconnected,” she said.

     

    Contact Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.

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    D. Johnson wrote on January 13, 2009 09:37 AM: Mike @ 5:18pm -

    Stop plagiarizing. Your comments appeared on a link to a "Pravda" story Drudge this Sunday by Gregory F. Fegel:

    "The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored."

    Gregory F. Fegel is a conspiracy theorist who thinks the US Gov't was behind 9-11.

    Check this out:

    http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2009/01/i-am-a-scientist.html

    So Mike, either you're lazy and just like to rip off articles from Drudge, or you are crazy and actually believe that we're coming to another Ice Age based on stuff you read on the internet.


    Susan Lynn wrote on January 13, 2009 09:28 AM: Ms. Mulroy is "outrageous" in that moving flood water from the Mississippi to the drought prone West has serious implications for continued sprawl, air quality and health issues to say nothing of environmental and energy issues. If one looks at "green sustainability" from birth to death and cost for a project of this size, this is not the answer. Sustainable regionalism may be, but even that's unknown. The desert Southwest is exactly that, a desert. Without water and air conditioning (which requires water too), it cannot survive.


    Dash RIPROCK III wrote on January 13, 2009 01:06 AM: A FEW THOUGTHS ON GLOBAL WARMING:
    http://www.hootervillegazette.com


    Dan wrote on January 12, 2009 10:40 PM: Mulroy is a idiot. Global warming has beeen thourghly debunked as a fraud and fake. If this moron still believes in global warming, then he should not have a job. well maybe at McDonalds or something that will fit his intelligence.


    Mike Heath wrote on January 12, 2009 10:33 PM: What Ms. Mulroy fails to mention is that the Colorado rockies, headwaters for the Colorado river, have experienced above average snowpack in three of the last four years, and this year the snowpack is nearly 25 percent above average--yet Lake Mead's level has not risen. At what point do we stop blaming imaginary droughts and stop allowing states like California to exceed their alloted ration from the Colorado.


    Thomas A. Carpenter wrote on January 12, 2009 09:12 PM: Also water will become the new gold of the 21st century...


    Thomas A. Carpenter wrote on January 12, 2009 09:10 PM: Large populations were not meant to live in the desert....so we have brought some of this on ourselves. The easiest way to start solving the problem is to quit building, period.


    PATRICK IS AN IDIOT wrote on January 12, 2009 06:57 PM: Patrick, your mommy wants you to get off the computer, get a job, and move out.

    100% of us think Patrick's a moron!


    THE MESSIAH wrote on January 12, 2009 06:53 PM: YO YO YO ---
    I don't care that record cold is gripping the country --- global warming is here!

    Now smoke more crack --- LIKE ME, have more kids out of wedlock --- LIKE MY MOMMY, and lie lie lie until the stupid start to believe you --- LIKE THEY DID WITH ME!!!


    Obama is our Savior wrote on January 12, 2009 05:51 PM: Republican right wing nut jobs are history. Republicans are filthy losers and will go the way of the Victrola, typewrite, mimeograph and 8-track.

    Democrats rule! The small business owner caused these problems and now will be taxed out of existance. The Federal Government should run most of our businesses so that everyone is treated fairly


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