Why is Lake Mead drying up? Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Without wet hydrology to replenish the reservoirs, the basin finds itself in an all but certain shortage condition for the first time." . "It would kill 50 to 60% of the businesses in town," said Franz. So water from the Colorado River is now pumped across the state of Arizona via the Central Arizona Project (CAP). The finding is ominous for the region's future drinking-water supply. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. Water managers in the four Upper Basin states and the federal government are expected to start monthly planning calls this year to consider options for propping up the reservoir if needed. Lake Mead and Lake Powell rise and fall together, said Chuck Cullom, the Central Arizona Projects Colorado River programs manager. Weve seen declines in snowpack at the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. Before that, he covered the worlds largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska. JOHN DANKOSKY: So obviously, people are preparing for worse times. The study was financed by the district, which is based in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, along with the Southwestern Water Conservation District in Durango, and four water groups in Western Colorado that represent various interests. "I've been here since 2007 and obviously this is way lower than I've ever seen it.". I mean, what sort of disputes are coming to the forefront because of this? The wells that now supply Tucson are at 400 - 500 feet under the surface. Extremely dry years that produce eye-popping statistics tend to grab officials by the shoulders and give them a good shake. The future of the reservoir is largely uncertain, but climate science and recent actions by the government are providing some hints as to what might happen in the near future. It takes sustained changes in order for these systems to recover. We called several of them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current state of the Colorado River basin. The D4 category is something that is only supposed to be designated when youre seeing conditions that are so extreme theyre only happening once every 50 to once every 100 years, said Becky Bolinger, Colorados assistant state climatologist. The Glen Canyon Dam, D'deest'in Htsaa, marks where the water level in Lake Powell on the Colorado River, reaches. The sp_landing is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content. The two. And there is some evidence that this dry period would have happened without our greenhouse gas emissions. He and his wife have four cats, thousands of bees, and a yoga studio in the sleepy Northwest hills of Connecticut. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. JOHN DANKOSKY: When you use the term megadrought, that sounds like a newer term. As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. House Democrat nods to Kellyanne Conway in push to make Hatch Act violations a Hemorrhaging losses, the Feds problems are now the taxpayers, Lukashenko arrives in Beijing as concerns rise around China-Russia relations. And you know, thats way beyond any sort of voluntary conservation that Arizona has done up until this point. Dry conditions are the worst theyve been in almost 20 years across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the American Southwest. That deficit could easily put us below power pool within a year, just as a back of the envelope calculation, said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. Together, these reservoirs, fed by the mighty Colorado River, provide the water 40million Americans depend on. The low levels arent just causing hand-wringing among the Wests water officials. "We can make up energy through fossil fuels, but if we fall short on water, we have to restrict supply because there are little to no replacements," he said. Such is the nature of the climate change beast that we have unleashed.. And most of those cutbacks are going to fall on the Central Arizona Project system. Experts think that eventually, Lake Powell might dry up altogether, in the face of the droughts plaguing the Western U.S. Over two thirds of the entire country is now in some degree of drought conditions, with the area of state borderland where Lake Powell is situated being classified as in "Extreme Drought," according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Despite the storms that brought heavy rain and snow to California and other Western states in January, experts say it would take years of such weather to replenish the West's water resources. The lake isn't low enough yet to cause concerns about getting water out, but any hope of it refilling is years away, if ever, due to lowered rain and snow and increasing evaporation. Getty Images. The lake that once covered 400 square miles has shrunk 90 percent, leaving behind oxygen-deprived, highly salinized water with a rotten-egg odor that permeates the surrounding area. Credit: Alex Hager. Applying data from three droughts from a 25-year period starting in 1988, it predicted that even with little new growth in that basin, a moderate drought would trigger shortages of 350,000 to 500,000 acre-feet. Seen from above in time lapse over the years, Lake Mead looks like a spindly puddle withering away in the Mojave Desert, as nearby Las Vegas, which gets almost all of its water from the lake and . Work on the dam that created Lake Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966. The lake ended at a sediment-choked delta, where Balken jumped out into the muck for a hike up the canyon. If the lakes levels drop below 3,490, Hawes added, the Bureau of Reclamation will have to run water through a series of river outlet tubes, the lowest delivery mechanism in the lake, for the first time since the 1980s, and bureau officials dont actually know if they can handle that much water, she said. Even though conditions may be evolving and getting even worse, we dont really have a way to depict that, because D4, thats that ceiling, she said. Satellite images show the dramatic impact of the 22-year-long mega-drought that . It also helps in fraud preventions. It is not creating certainty in the water market, Mankin said. And data updated Monday from the California Department of Water Resources' tracker show the reservoir climbing to 60%, still below historical levels for February 72% but significantly higher than it had been. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. The Glen Canyon Institute has advocated for draining Lake Powell, both to replenish Lake Mead and to restore Glen Canyon, which was flooded to create Lake Powell. The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. The southwestern states have been gripped by drought for over 22 years, experts say. A subscription helps you access more of the local stories that keep you connected to the community. Meanwhile, Lake Powells projected decline in 2021 recently triggered the Upper Basin plan to be used for the first time. And its staring down the possibility of losing access to a third or more of its water in the next year. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. JOHN DANKOSKY: Yeah, so a lot of people, a lot of wildlife, and many, many jurisdictions, too. With the dropping water levels, this industry is likely to be extremely impacted, as seen by a boating ramp that used to be used to launch boats now having a 50 foot drop between the end of the ramp and the water. In the year 2000, the two reservoirs were 95% full. The Los Angeles Times reported that at a recent Colorado River conference in Nevada, negotiations continued about how each state can reduce its water usage. What states, what tribal nations, does this cut through? Here are five facts about the situation at Lake Mead and what needs to be done to address the urgency of water scarcity for future generations: At full volume, Lake Mead and Lake Powell had. Big Water, Utah It's hard to believe a place as beautiful as Lake Powell is also a shadow of its former self. 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His uncle, Stewart Udall, voted to create Lake Powell as an Arizona congressman in 1956 and shepherded construction of the Glen Canyon Dam that holds back the lake while he was interior secretary in the early 1960s. It will be painful but it doesn't mean the area can't thrive. Lake Powell generates power for about 5.8 million households and businesses in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. In case of a drought like that of 2000-2005, Lake Mead would get 7.48 million acre-feet, worsening the structural deficit that is already causing Mead to drop by up to 12 feet a year due to the Lower Basin states chronic overuse of river water compared to supply. In . After more than 22 years of drought compounded by warmer temperatures with climate change, Lake Mead and Lake Powell have declined to their lowest levels since they were filled. As part of 2019s Drought Contingency Plan, water managers agreed that the reservoirs water should be kept above 3,525 feet to provide a buffer before it got even lower, giving the agencies in charge some time to come up with a fix. Thousands of Tucson homes use 250% more water than you. For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages athttp://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/. This story was reported by Luke Runyon on KUNC. We are still facing a nearly 1 in 4 chance of Lake Powell returning to "minimum power pool" by 2024 - a risk that remains steady through 2026, the latest year for which Reclamation has forecast. Lake Powell is facing such a high degree of risk that federal water managers recommended taking emergency action to hold additional water in Lake Powell, an action all seven states in the Colorado River Basin . The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. And it's not a backroom voodoo mystery that only fortune tellers can forecast. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. which could funnel up to 300,000 acre-feet from Powell.One of those projects, Utah's Lake Powell pipeline to St. George, would . Both reservoirs still need to drop several hundred feet before they are considered to be at dead-pool levels. But a new study warns that the lake could virtually dry up in as few as six years if the region gets a repeat of the dry spell it experienced from 2000 to 2005. Just as water demand is going up, the supply is going down. This is prompting a lot of people to ask whats going to happen next. As of Thursday, Lake Mead was at 1,045.79 feet. And youre able to say, oh, the rivers high, or the river is low. It stores water as part of the Colorado River Compact and produceselectricity through the hydroelectric turbines in Glen Canyon dam. JOHN DANKOSKY: This is Science Friday. Institute Executive Director Eric Balken said taking such a step would better position stakeholders to address the drought on their own terms rather than simply running out. LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. Lake Powell, the nation's second-largest reservoir and one that provides water and power to millions of people in southern California, has reached its lowest levels since its first filling in. At Lake Mead's current capacity, one foot of elevation in the lake equals 85,000 acre-feet. And theres already a supply-demand imbalance on the Colorado River, and the supply is shrinking faster than officials are able to shrink the demands that we have on the river. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. If the Salton Sea dries up, for instance, the amount of dust that the wind blows up from . As of Tuesday, the lake located in northern Arizona and Southern Utah had recovered to 3,538 feet without help from rain clouds. Lake Powell is in crisis. If the drought and excessive water use continues, Lake Mead could reach dead pool in the next two years and Lake Powell could soon follow. Nothing physically changed at that threshold, but its the agreed-upon alarm bell for trouble in the near future. Hawes noted that the lake has never reached that point before, creating substantial uncertainty about what would happen. The Glen Canyon Dam forms Lake Powell and the Hoover Dam forms Lake Mead. Im John Dankosky, and now its time to check in on the state of science. The dam's evil has had no more prolific publicist than the writer Edward Abbey, whose Monkey Wrench Gang aspired ultimately to bring down the dam. So the upper watershed, you have the headwater states. The lake was just under 24 percent full as of. Its lagging in both the Upper and Lower basins, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects much of the watershed totilt toward hotter and drier weatherfor the rest of the winter. A water level of 3,490 feet is known as "minimum power pool." YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. For those talks to start in the middle of another record-breaking dry period should make it clear to everyone involved: the future of the Colorado River is all about learning to live with less. VigLink sets this cookie to show users relevant advertisements and also limit the number of adverts that are shown to them. The fact that they're becoming involved in this manner points to real concerns that they must have and they must view the situation as one of extreme difficulty that requires them to act more directly. "Its unfortunate that thelargely natural occurrence of a drought has coincided with this increasing warming due to greenhouse gases," said Flavio Lehner, aprofessor of atmospheric sciences at Cornell University. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. In the desert of California lies another manmade lake condemned to death, the Salton Sea. A pair of before and after photos at Lake Powell . 30 Broad Street, Suite 801 The Hoover Dam is therefore also at risk of declining hydroelectric power generation as Lake Mead approaches deadpool levels. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Water levels have been getting lower and lower, and for the first time ever, a shortage seems almost certain. Lake Mead's decline is not happening in isolation, but is the result of a two-decade drought hitting the western U.S. and causing critical water shortages on the Colorado River. And really, what were seeing in the basin is that warming of just a couple degrees has the potential to completely upend how the water cycle functions in the Southwest. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin. Lake Powell is rapidly drying up as a result of the scorching megadrought in the Western U.S., and may completely disappear in just decades. It survives, she said. Newsweek previously reported that Lake Mead's dead pool level is 895 feet, while Lake Powell's is 3,370. The increase in temperatures means the atmosphere is thirstier. LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. The cookie does not store any personally identifiable data. Lake Mead's water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. . Some of Americas largest cities depend on the water from Lake Mead. The lower basin is made up of Arizona, Nevada, and California. In this column provided by Writers on the Range . People should definitely not feel like the agencies managing the Colorado River have it under control, he said. Earlier this year, the Bureau of Reclamation released about 500,000 acre-feet from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah and Wyoming to Lake Powell, increasing its elevation about 16 feet. JOHN DANKOSKY: So its not just the reservoirs, though, where you see these dramatic pictures of just how low the water is. The bureau's report for June, added on to previously scheduled reservoir updates for January, April and August, paints a dire picture. At the same time,demand has risen due to increased population growth in the West. In addition, Mankin said, interventions like the Flaming Gorge release treat the western U.S.s 20-year drought as a localized phenomenon rather than a regional one. A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. The website to function properly or the River is now pumped across state! 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