Hundreds of Millions of Gallons of Water Vanish From California Lake

This phenomenon is directly linked to the recent record-breaking temperatures in the area, which have accelerated the rate of evaporation significantly.

Don Bader, area manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, noted, “It’s probably been higher the last nine days because we haven’t seen weather like that in a long time.”

The scale of this loss becomes starker considering the broader timeframe: over the first nine days of July, approximately 2.2 billion gallons of water have transformed into vapor and dispersed into the atmosphere.

Over the same nine-day period, Trinity Lake lost 828.5 million gallons, and Keswick Lake saw 47.1 million gallons evaporate.

“The amount of evaporation in the cylinder is extrapolated to water in the lake,” explained Don Bader, which helps estimate the broader impact on the reservoir.

This seasonal dynamic changes drastically in the summer months, leading to significant water loss.

“That is significant enough that it affects where our projected reservoir levels will be at the end of the season,” Don Bader said, highlighting the challenges faced in planning and resource allocation.

These proposals aim to mitigate the effects of high evaporation rates on reservoirs.

This initiative, while temporary, demonstrated the lengths to which cities might go to preserve their water resources.

As the largest man-made lake in California, the feasibility of implementing large-scale evaporation control methods is complicated and requires careful consideration.

This report illustrates the critical need for ongoing research and adaptation strategies to address the issue of reservoir evaporation.

Daily high temperatures over 110 degrees are expected to continue, affecting not only Lake Shasta but other reservoirs as well. The continuation of these conditions necessitates a vigilant approach to water management and conservation efforts.

“You could get up in the morning and it would be relatively cool and you could enjoy outside, even in the dead of summer,” said Palm Springs resident Joe Pascale. “That doesn’t exist for us anymore, and it’s a huge loss.”

The city of Palm Springs hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit on July 8, which was the hottest on record since the National Weather Service started keeping track.

“Sometimes we feel like we’re screaming into the void,” Pascale says. “There’s a problem that we need to be addressing.”

In particular, the United States is warming faster than the global average, meaning more evaporation events like this could become more common in the future.

“We’re going to continue [breaking temperature records] as long as we keep increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,” Russell said.

A global energy report found the use of fossil fuels increased by 1.5% last year.

“In advanced economies, we observe signs of demand for fossil fuels peaking, contrasting with economies in the global south for whom economic development and improvements in quality of life continue to drive fossil growth,” said Nick Wayth, chief executive of the Energy Institute in June.

Back in 2018, Los Angeles dumped 96 million “shade balls” in its reservoir in an effort to slow down the evaporation of the water there.

Originally these were called “bird balls” and were meant to keep birds from landing in drainage ponds near mining sites. They have also been used to prevent chemical contamination in supplies of water.

An article published in Nature back in 2018 found that manufacturing the shade balls creates a bigger water footprint than they save.

“We know that high-density polyethylene itself is made using oil, natural gas, and electricity,” said Erfan Haghighi, an environmental scientist and mechanical engineer at MIT, and lead author of the paper. “And each of these energy sources are water intensive.”

“Savings in just May through June 2010 [with mandatory water restrictions] is 10 times larger than the 300 million gallons which they’re getting per year for the shade balls,” said Aditi Bhaskar, a hydrologist at Colorado State University.