The basin is made up of portions of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. We don't know if the dam will operate as expected. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. 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. 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. The dry years are what force the really important steps forward in the policy community.. Because of that, its expected that the Department of the Interior'sBureau of Reclamation, which oversees water management, will mandate onesometime next year. Luke covers the Colorado River basin. While levels are on a long downward trend, they fluctuate with the seasons. 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 cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". An official shortage declaration from the federal government could come as early as this year, as Lake Mead is currently projected to be below 1,075 feet in elevation at the end of 2021. The latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show there's a. So, what would happen if Lake Powell dried up? In addition to the power the lake generates directly, it is a major source of grid resilience when full, serving as a quick backup source in cases where solar or wind power cant meet demand. Given todays changing climate, led by continued warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, any knowledge we have of the past that historically would help us make predictions does not help us any more, Udall said. Scientists say the current status of Lake Mead is a stark illustration of climate change and a megadrought that could be the worst in the U.S. West in 1,200 years . JOHN DANKOSKY: This is Science Friday. "It would kill 50 to 60% of the businesses in town," said Franz. Back-to-back dry years years with below-average runoff have left little water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, a reservoir upstream. Mead was created when the Hoover Dam was completed in 1935. The Lower Basins legal share is 7.5 million acre feet a year. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, for water. Lake Mead's water levels were 1,047.38 feet as of February 23. Is this as bad as climate change is going to get in shrinking the snowpacks in the headwaters? It survives, she said. Lake Mead the largest reservoir in the Colorado River Basin is losing water at record speeds, dropping . They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The answer is almost certainly, no, we're not at the bottom of impacts, said Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council. Monsoon rains didnt arrive. "I've been here since 2007 and obviously this is way lower than I've ever seen it.". 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. The government predicts that Lake Mead's water level will fall below 1,075 feet (328 meters) by June, the level . As water levels fall in the reservoirs and river, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has implemented a tiered shortage system to reduce the allocated amount certain regions in the lower basin receive from the river to preserve water. 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. What to know about the West's ongoing water crisis: Lake Powell is the nation's second-largestreservoir. It's been a vital force for the intermountain West because of its ability to. JOHN DANKOSKY: So you know, with so many stories like this, we say, this is probably due to climate change. And thats really what were watching right now, is how low is Lake Mead going to go? The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. The second-largest man-made reservoir in the country has dropped to unthinkable lows amid the West's climate change-driven megadrought. The Upper Colorado Commissions computer models have shown that if the Upper Basin states take the precautionary measures theyre talking about, the risk of Powell falling to dangerously low levels is near zero even if the basin gets another 25 years of weather like it did from 1988 through 2012, said Don Ostler, executive director the Upper Colorado River Commission. 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. It also helps in fraud preventions. I havent shown the climate change hydrology because it just scares everybody, Kuhn told his districts governing board in June, according to an account of the meeting published in the Aspen Daily News. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet a possibility still years . In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. For context, on the scale of no drought to worst drought, theres no category that captures conditions more dry than exceptional. It supplies water and power to Arizona, California and Nevada. "Its hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.. If the water levels drop to levels below the intake pipes, the water flow will cease to turn the hydroelectric turbines, and the dam won't generate any power. Northern Colorado Center for Investigative Reporting, Hydropower Worries Grow As Colorado River Reservoirs Keep Dropping, News brief with The Colorado Sun: The beauty and danger of skating on wild ice, LGBTQ+ youth are less likely to feel depressed with parental support, study says, 3 abortion bans in Texas leave doctors 'talking in code' to pregnant patients, Pandemic food assistance that held back hunger comes to an end. Definitions explained. Theyre already low, because the entire watershed has been experiencing above-average temperatures and below-average river flows since the year 2000. By the end of the summer, its projected to be even lower, at 29% of its capacity, which is a record low. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The water levels behind the Colorado Rivers biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. Without wet hydrology to replenish the reservoirs, the basin finds itself in an all but certain shortage condition for the first time." . Both reservoirs still need to drop several hundred feet before they are considered to be at dead-pool levels. And it takes several years of good weather in order to bring the system out of drought. This is very unpredictable and these are going to be difficult conversations in the coming years., THE HILL 1625 K STREET, NW SUITE 900 WASHINGTON DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 TEL | 202-628-8503 FAX. The low levels arent just causing hand-wringing among the Wests water officials. 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. Lake Mead's level is 1,047 feet above sea level. So the question is, how bad is it going to get? Udall questioned the validity of using the years before 2000 because the years 1990 to 1999 were very wet and not representative of the weather we see now. BACKGROUND: Western water crisis looms as California complicates critical water deal. 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. 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. Both reservoirs have troublingly low water levels at 1,054.79 and 3,524.22 feet above sea level, respectively. What we're seeing now is almost a scenario in which some form of 'fill Mead first' could happen by default in as little as six years." Between the drought years of 2000-2005, Lake Powell lost 13 . This segment is part of the The State Of Science spotlight. Its also headed toward a record low later this year. If decision makers do nothing and take no action and just let the reservoir crash without structurally modifying the dam, there will be a lot of really big problems.. This cookie is native to PHP applications. Explain that a little bit for us, Luke, and just how dire the situation is for the groundwater in the region. More. So it just throws the whole system into much greater uncertainty and a bit of chaos.. Getty Images. Created by Bluecadet. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. Its been a vital force for the intermountain West because of its ability to store vast amounts of water and generate electricity for farmers, cities and towns in 13 states. I said at the top that we dont have an official water shortage. Thats about the amount of water that our soils are behind in terms of what they normally would have, Meyer said. This Statista chart shows the share of the continental United States' area under different levels of drought between 2018 and 2022. Dead pool is 3,370 feet. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year. The second would step up cloud-seeding programs to try to boost snowfall in the region. In the second stage of Fill Mead First, the reservoir's level would near 3,374 feet, near the river outlet works. Ultimately, experts said the future of the lake must be addressed in a way that creates the certainty it was intended to provide. a study published in the journal Science said the current dry period in the Southwest is one for the record books, and that its "megadrought-like trajectory" is fueled by natural variability superimposed on . It is forecast to have a new record low next summer, saidHasencamp. Even lower, at 3,370 feet, the reservoir hits "dead pool," at which point water can no longer pass through the dam by the power of gravity. At the time of publication, Lake Powell was sitting at only 3,529 feet only four feet above this important threshold. This segment is part ofThe State of Science, a series featuring science stories from public radio stations across the United States. Riparian rights do not entitle a water use to divert water to storage in a reservoir for use in the dry season or to use water on . Alex is KUNC's reporter covering the Colorado River Basin. 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. In . The challenges are really hard, Fleck said. And it doesnt allow ratepayers who rely on power production from the canyon to be forward-thinking and operate under conditions of certainty., Cities, farmers and fish all need certainty when it comes to water, and this is the opposite of certainty, Hawes said. The river also crosses over the US-Mexico border and two Mexican states, Baja California and Sonora. Phoenix has underground wells and plusa it gets water from the CAP canal directly from the Colorado river, then there are several near full dams nearby. Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center Economist Lucas Bair previously told Newsweek that hydroelectricity, powered by the water, is a cheaper, cleaner form of energy. By January, the bureau projects water levels at Lake Mead to fall to 1,065.85 feet nine feet below the first shortage trigger elevation. At its highest, in 1983, the lake was 3,708 feet above sea level. Its not quite as bad as 2002, she said, but it could easily get there. Meanwhile, climate change is adding pressure to the entire river system, exacerbating existing supply and demand imbalances. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage. Thanks so much for joining us. In coming years, it's going to get worse and worse and worse.. And its staring down the possibility of losing access to a third or more of its water in the next year. Drought Conditions Affect Two-Thirds of the U.S. Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Newsweek reached out to the Central Arizona Project for comment. Water levels at . If Lake Powell recedes much further, one of the nation's largest reservoirs could be at risk of no longer generating hydropower for the region. You have permission to edit this article. 84% Of Upper Basin In Extreme To Exceptional Drought This is the highest percentage of land in the river's Upper Basin since 2002, which stands as the region's driest year on record. The story has been updated to reflect this information. water level is too low to flow downstream, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. If the outlet tubes cant meet the reservoirs needs, she said, the flow of water in the Grand Canyon itself could be reduced to a trickle. Thousands of Tucson homes use 250% more water than you. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. In a wetter year, it will release 9 million acre feet to Mead. Before that, he covered the worlds largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska. Why is Lake Mead drying up? And thats left Lake Powell at 34% of its capacity. Hes also been a long-time guest host on Science Friday. You would have to go back to April of 1937, also twoyears into its initial filling, to find levels that low. The dam stopped up the Colorado River, creating Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir in the United States. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. Balken said depositing the lake's water in Lake Mead, which isn't made out of sandstone,. How does climate change affect you? This is the highest percentage of land in the rivers Upper Basin since 2002, which stands as the regions driest year on record. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. All signs point to a hotter, drier future for the Western U.S. Youre hearing a lot more now, especially because the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, is herself a member of a Native American tribe and has put a lot of emphasis on bringing tribes to the table, making tribal consultation a big part of the Biden administrations priorities. We are likely witnessing the end of Lake Powell as we knew it in the 80s and 90s, Balken said. I would say less than 20 percent, Ostler said. 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. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. 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. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. And that group includes the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute tribe, the Quechan Indian tribe. At this stage a significant amount of Glen Canyon . This is very unpredictable and these are going to be difficult conversations in the coming years.. As the drought continues and global warming evaporates water supplying the reservoirs, each reservoir isn't far from dead pool, which is when the water level is too low to flow downstream or power the turbines that provide hydroelectric power. Hes also been a long-time guest host on Science Friday. According to the National Park Service, contaminants from the newly exposed shorelines are reentering warm, shallow areas and becoming more concentrated. JOHN DANKOSKY: Local science stories of national significance. If levels dropped below 3,490 feet, there wouldnt be enough water flowing through Glen Canyon Dams turbines to generate power. That includes releases of water upstream of Lake Powell, and voluntary cuts in Powells downstream neighbor, Lake Mead. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Lake Powell is in crisis. 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. And you know, thats way beyond any sort of voluntary conservation that Arizona has done up until this point. And it's not a backroom voodoo mystery that only fortune tellers can forecast. It is something in peer-reviewed, published science for decades and decades that the managers of the Colorado River have been ignoring.. Thats important for the entire region, Fleck said, because the backdrop of an impending crisis will set the tone for those negotiations. Its depth level currently stands at around 3,530 feet. The water levels in Lake Powell are dramatically lower than they were in 2021, which in turn were lower than they were in 2020. 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. 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. Grim Future for Lake Powell Water levels in Lake Powell are at record lows. Weve seen records set when it comes to dwindling soil moisture. Azure sets this cookie for routing production traffic by specifying the production slot. The studys computer models didnt factor in rising temperatures expected in this region due to climate change. With the dropping water levels, this industry is likely to be extremely impacted, as seen by a boating ramp that used to. The dropping water levels are indicated by white marks on the canyon wall, often likened to a bathtub ring. Creosote is one I personally like to call it the cockroach of the vegetation world because pretty much nothing kills creosote. If Lake Powell recedes much further, one of the nation's largest reservoirs could be at risk of no longer generating hydropower for the region. ", States that use Colorado River Basin water mandated to cut use. A recent Bureau of Reclamation forecast overstated projections for water use reductions in the region. Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. These reservoirs are as empty now as when they started filling Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s, said John Fleck, director of the University of New Mexicos water resources program. The second largest reservoir in the U.S. by total capacity after Lake Mead, Lake Powell spans the Utah/Arizona border, and is an artificial lake created from damming the Colorado River. ET: The dead pool level of Lake Powell has been corrected. The river carried an average of 14.7 million acre feet from 1906 through 2015. A water level of 3,490 feet is known as "minimum power pool." Dry soils soak up snow when it melts, keeping it from rivers and reservoirs. It takes sustained changes in order for these systems to recover. By Jan. 29, when the "after" image was taken, Shasta was up to 56%. Lake Powell, the country's second-largest reservoir and a key source of water and power for much of the West, is more parched than ever.Earlier this month, the lake dropped below 25% capacity . The water level at Lake Mead is sitting at just 39%, while Lake Powell is at 36%. The droughts that we are seeing are becoming that much more severe because of the temperature component, theyre warmer, Bolinger said. They both use water from the Colorado River. "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would.". Frankel criticizes water managers for their inaction in the face of those trends. And even the people who say, you know, oh, just wait for it to get wet again, know that changes have to be made because of that fundamental supply-demand imbalance. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. On top of the hydropower the lake generates, its the source of drinking water for the 7,500 residents of Page, Az., and the 1,443 members of the LeChee chapter of the Navajo Nation. Record-breaking high temperatures dragged well into fall. This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. Luke, well continue to follow your reporting. what little rain and snow has fallen dries . She said the very fact that officials in Washington, D.C. are getting involved underscores the urgency of Lake Powells crisis. What happens if Lake Powell runs out of water? For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages athttp://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/. At 3,370 feet, the reservoir hits. Newsweek previously. He covers the Colorado River basin. 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. 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. This is when were supposed to be gaining and accumulating water in the form of snowpack, and thats not happening, Selover said. Powell is not drying out in a vacuum.. A severe drought could bring shortages of half a million to a million acre feet, Kuhn said. If its dry there, that means many more problems as the water flows downstream. What would constitute that? By white marks on the Canyon wall, often likened to a bathtub ring 20,. Context, on the Canyon wall, often likened to a bathtub ring was completed 1935. If Lake Powell is at 36 % its highest, in 1983, the reservoir an... 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