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. The negotiations promise to be a more intense process than the basin saw in the lead-up to the last set of guidelines in 2007, or the effort to bring together drought contingency plans in 2019. Mountain snowpack is generally below average for this time of year, so that boost may not be as big as it has been in years past. According to the National Park Service, contaminants from the newly exposed shorelines are reentering warm, shallow areas and becoming more concentrated. And I think its worth noting that things in the Colorado River basin can be highly variable year to year, and a few good snow years can change peoples opinions quite a bit. Thousands of Tucson homes use 250% more water than you. "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. Colorado River tribes pose statewide leasing idea, Risks to Lake Mead, Colorado River intensifying greatly, federal officials say, Arizona basketball | Tommy Lloyd on the wild, fun nature of college hoops | Feb. 28, 2023, Millions at Risk of Slipping Into Poverty as COVID-Era SNAP Benefits Set to End, More than 300 words have been added to the English dictionary. Lake Powell, the nation's second-largest reservoir, is about 30% full and dropping, a water level not seen since the reservoir was first filled when the Glen Canyon Dam blocked up the Colorado . I would say less than 20 percent, Ostler said. At full capacity, Lake Powell holds enough water to flood the entire state of Kentucky a foot deep. Every year, it stores water that flows downstream from the four Upper Basin states. "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would.". He and his wife have four cats, thousands of bees, and a yoga studio in the sleepy Northwest hills of Connecticut. Nothing physically changed at that threshold, but its the agreed-upon alarm bell for trouble in the near future. 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. It sucks up moisture from forests, backyard gardens and crop fields with greater intensity. At 70 feet below the level of Lake Powell as of spring 2021, this stage of Fill Mead First would allow much of Glen Canyon's world-renowned landscape to reemerge and be restored. University of California professor Jay Lund previously told Newsweek that the cuts already implemented aren't enough, and in order to give the reservoirs ample time to recover through rain and snowpack melt, people will need to reduce their consumption even more. So the question is, how bad is it going to get? 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. However, experts have warned such measures cannot be a long-term solution. The Glen Canyon Dam, D'deest'in Htsaa, marks where the water level in Lake Powell on the Colorado River, reaches. However, the receding water levels have already greatly reduced the reservoirs generating capacity, to about 800 megawattsabout 60 percent. And how can certain policy agreements, policy negotiations, be structured in order to allow tribal nations to come to the table and negotiate for future policies? Climatologist Jon Meyer with the Utah Climate Center said the number that captures the severity for him is 12 inches. This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. The loss of generation from the lake would deprive the grid of about a quarter million households worth of power. 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. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Depending on how you define "dry up." It's doubtful that all 1,450 miles of the Colorado River will turn to dust, even if we drain Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation's two largest. 40 fun events happening in Tucson this weekend Feb. 23-26 , Opinion: Help protect Lake Mead and Colorado River water, Colorado River runoff forecast keeps dropping, Warm weather reducing Colorado River runoff, study finds, Feds back off from Lake Mead water demand, Businesses, residents paid to save water in this Arizona valley, Tucson to leave nearly 20% of its CAP water in Lake Mead, 'Toilet to tap' water treatment will soon be legal in Arizona, officials say, Big snowstorms put Colorado River drought plan on ice, Colorado River tops group's 'endangered' list again, CAP-California water deal that Arizona nixed provokes ongoing conflict, Water bailout? What happens if Lake Powell runs out of water? With modest reductions in flow, they would be meaningful.. I mean, what sort of disputes are coming to the forefront because of this? Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. You have permission to edit this article. 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. Credit: Alex Hager. It doesn't strain the mind to imagine us losing power within a year. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. Okay. Theyre already low, because the entire watershed has been experiencing above-average temperatures and below-average river flows since the year 2000. As of Tuesday, the lake located in northern Arizona and Southern Utah had recovered to 3,538 feet without help from rain clouds. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. Down the Colorado River lies Lake Mead, which is also seeing lower water levels than ever before. It is not creating certainty in the water market, Mankin said. Before that, he covered the worlds largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska. Lakes in the Colorado River Basin are drying up and losing water, with severe water cuts now expected across four states - the start of a water crisis in the West. LUKE RUNYON: So in the Colorado River basin, a lot of the management of the river is tied to the level of its two largest reservoirs. Definitions explained. "The federal government generally prefers to let the stakeholders work things through, Sorensen said. And it's not a backroom voodoo mystery that only fortune tellers can forecast. You cant go into a drought like that today if its half full. This cookie is set by the provider Akamai Bot Manager. Back-to-back dry years years with below-average runoff have left little water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, a reservoir upstream. In addition, the river itself experiences more evaporation. Hes also been a long-time guest host on Science Friday. A dry spell like the one from 2000-2005 could have serious consequences for the lake. The sp_t cookie 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. A years worth of rain and snow is missing from Utahs ground. The repercussions of a draining water supply are immense -- farms are drying up, a once-thriving marina now sits more than a mile from lake water and Arizona's Department of Water Resources is . "You might not see the lush lawns of today and endless fields of alfalfa, but you will see thriving communities and agricultural regions. It stores water as part of the Colorado River Compact and produceselectricity through the hydroelectric turbines in Glen Canyon dam. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. This Statista chart shows the share of the continental United States' area under different levels of drought between 2018 and 2022. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. But the warming temperatures that were seeing make it considerably worse than it would have been. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. The water levels behind the Colorado Rivers biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. Complicating matters are the ongoing talks on allocation between the seven states on the Colorado River, the source of the lakes waters. After seeing 30 inches of rain in one day in Louisiana, 20 inches in Houston, unprecedented drought in California over the last 5 years, not to mention the flow reductions in Colorado River, Udall said, I think we need to seriously consider water-related climatic events that have no historical precedent.. If its dry there, that means many more problems as the water flows downstream. This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website. Share on Facebook; . Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. The basin is made up of portions of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. Pause your chores until you have a full-load for the dishwasher. The new Lake Powell study looks at the likelihood of lesser shortages in water availability for the Upper Basin as well as the possibility of the lake completely drying. Lake Powell, the nation's second-largest reservoir and one thatprovides water and power to millions of people in southern California, has reached its lowest levels since its first filling in the 1960s. You cant do that with groundwater. : Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter, READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. I said at the top that we dont have an official water shortage. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said it will push water managers further in the direction of finding more permanent solutions. Its 90% of the water supply to Las Vegas, 50% to Phoenix, effectively 100% to Tucson and 25% to Los Angeles, said Udall. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better experience for the visitors. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. It doesnt matter if we get an incredible snowpack, our soils are so depleted right now that thats not going to really translate to water coming down through the river systems, Meyer said. In the second stage of Fill Mead First, the reservoir's level would near 3,374 feet, near the river outlet works. Overall, the river's flowis down 20% in this century relative to the 20th century. Lake Powell has been called "Jewel of the Colorado" by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. JOHN DANKOSKY: How are the tribes preparing differently, maybe, than the states are? The vast stripe rimming Powell is a testament to how far its level has dropped since 2000, when the Colorado's flows began a steady decline in response to persistent drought, warming temperatures. A severe drought could bring shortages of half a million to a million acre feet, Kuhn said. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. 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. The historic megadrought that is squeezing some Western states water supplies will also likely start showing up in energy bills, because those dams cant produce as much electricity. If the water level continues falling on its own, below minimum power pool, the dam is physically incapable of releasing a lot of water. Its impossible to even guess the odds of the Colorado Basin getting another six-year arid spell any time soon, said Udall and another longtime Colorado River researcher, Connie Woodhouse, a professor in the University of Arizonas School of Geography and Development. If the reservoirs reach dead-pool levels, more than a million people using the electricity could be required to find new power sources. We don't know if the dam will operate as expected. 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. Welcome back to Science Friday, Luke. Both reservoirs have troublingly low water levels at 1,054.79 and 3,524.22 feet above sea level, respectively. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. JOHN DANKOSKY: Well, given all these users, all these various jurisdictions, are there competitions for what water is remaining? Even if nothing is done, he believes the risk quite low. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. He covers the Colorado River basin. Joining me to shed a little bit more light on this is Luke Runyon. A drastic drought could bring shortages of one to 1.5 million acre feet, he said. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". What are the effects of climate change? Air entering the system would also damage the generators. They don't have it under control. Officials say the lowest level at which Glen Canyon Dam can . Every other state in the watershed had one of its top five driest years on record. The shoreline it creates, in a red rock desert, is longer than the entire U.S. West Coast.. And it would increase the likelihood of cutbacks in river water deliveries to Arizona, in particular. And you know, those are cutbacks that users are actually going to feel and that municipal leaders, farmers, tribal users in Arizona are having to plan for right now. Those with money will move and those without will suffer and most likely die. First of all Lake Powell is not gonna dry up. JOHN DANKOSKY: When you use the term megadrought, that sounds like a newer term. And what does that mean for the users on the river? The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. 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 . Forecasts are calling for 4.1 million acre-feet of water to flow into Lake Powell from April to July this year, but water managers are obligated to release more than 7 million acre-feet out of the lake. A water level of 3,490 feet is known as "minimum power pool." 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. 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. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. In the long term, probably not. We called several of them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current state of the Colorado River basin. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. Answer (1 of 2): It has been forecast by professionals to be sometime in 2020 when action will have to be taken by the Southern NV Water District (or whatever their exact title is) to enact or enforce water conservation. Now what? Glen Canyon Dam can release water below minimum power pool through bypass jets until an elevation of 3,370 feet, which is then the top of dead pool and no further water can be released. Give us an idea, if you would, just how low the supply is in the basins reservoirs right now. "Its hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.. Drought Conditions Affect Two-Thirds of the U.S. Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year. So Luke, I dont know is this all just because of climate change? We're most likely witnessing the end of this reservoir. The dropping water levels are indicated by white marks on the canyon wall, often likened to a bathtub ring. This drought will only be exacerbated by climate change, as the increased global temperatures are expected to increase the severity of drought weather and frequencies of wildfires, as well as influencing a vast range of other extreme weather events. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. At that point, Upper Basin states would start delivering water from their other reservoirs to Powell. But if the regions dry period repeats itself, he said, youll need fundamental change. 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. Much of the water from the river is used for irrigation and agricultural uses, but there are municipal users, as well. Are experts looking at this saying, its just going to get worse in the Colorado River basin? Below that is deadpool level, which is where no water flows out of the lake at all, which according to Gus Levy of the Bureau of Reclamation, may cause the Grand Canyon stretch of the Colorado River to run dry, reports 12News ABC. Climate change is driving more than two decades of drought across the region, and making it increasingly unlikely that Lake Powell will ever climb back to previous levels. Keep reading with a digital access subscription. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. 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. The water in Lake Powell is low because the amount of water in the Colorado River has been falling for decades. Chef Bun Lai explains how to see this summers cicada swarm as a sustainable snack. But there is still this fundamental supply-demand imbalance in the Colorado River basin. So the upper watershed, you have the headwater states. As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. 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. Big Water, Utah It's hard to believe a place as beautiful as Lake Powell is also a shadow of its former self. And it takes several years of good weather in order to bring the system out of drought. 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. Lake Powell is in crisis. The Colorado isn't running low on information about water supplies. Glen Canyon Dam, Colorado River, Arizona. What does the forecast look like? Federal and state officials have committed to a more inclusive process that integrates the needs of tribes, environmental and recreation groups, and Mexico. What states, what tribal nations, does this cut through? The nations second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low. The study is aimed, in part, at trying to help guide efforts at devising a contingency plan, to keep things from getting out of hand, Kuhn said. This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. The nation's second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low. The first warning sign would come if a drought pushed the lake below 3,525 feet, almost 85 feet below where it is now. It took 16 years for it to fill. But it plays a huge role in the Colorado River basin. Lake Mead is the nation's largest reservoir, a companion to Lake Powell. The reservoir is integrating all the problems we have, all the challenges we face show up in that one number, in that one place, he said. Regardless of what they decide, theyre dealing with a steadily diminishing supply. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Lake Oroville (of the enormous spillway failure fame) and Lake Shasta, two of California's largest reservoirs, are at critical levels. Correction: A previous version of this story indicated that 3,490 feet is Lake Powell's "dead pool" level. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. LUKE RUNYON: So seven US states make up the Colorado River basin. Climate scientists call it D4. "Climate change makes these extreme weather events both more frequent and more severe, '' Matthew Casale, Environment Campaigns Director at non-profit advocacy group PIRG, previously told Newsweek. 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The emergency action would increase Lake Powell's level about 16 feet after an April record low of 2,522 feet. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or the amount of water that will flood an acre of land to a depth of one foot. At 3,522 feet, Lake Powell's water surface elevation is at its lowest point since it was first filled in the 1960s, per a statement. The dropping water and the reservoirs expanding bathtub rings are also tied to policy. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. But the last time it was anywhere close to that level was 1999. And you know, thats way beyond any sort of voluntary conservation that Arizona has done up until this point. 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Other reservoirs to Powell, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California the problem coming for and! Record lows a sustainable snack USA today its water levels are slipping dangerously low interaction. Been falling for decades to 3,538 feet without help from rain clouds Powell is low because the amount water. Your browser only with your consent soil moisture classified into a drought pushed the Lake conservation Arizona.