She said the very fact that officials in Washington, D.C. are getting involved underscores the urgency of Lake Powells crisis. 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. In addition, the river itself experiences more evaporation. LUKE RUNYON: Well, Arizona is in the line for the steepest cuts from the Colorado River. And thats really what were watching right now, is how low is Lake Mead going to go? "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would.". The Colorado River feeds both reservoirs, then supplies the lower-basin states of California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico with water. Alex is KUNC's reporter covering the Colorado River Basin. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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. Throughout the history of the American West, water issues have shown their ability to both unite and divide communities. As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. The Southwest United States is wrapping up an abnormally dry winter. The plan calls for a cut of 480,000 acre-feet, and is specifically designed to prop up Lake Powell before it dips too low to generate hydropower. This cookie is set by the provider Akamai Bot Manager. Lake Powell upstream of Lake Mead on the Colorado River is at its lowest level on record. At its highest, in 1983, the lake was 3,708 feet above sea level. 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.. It stores water as part of the Colorado River Compact and produceselectricity through the hydroelectric turbines in Glen Canyon dam. Levels on Lake Powell, which stores water for the. Thats important for the entire region, Fleck said, because the backdrop of an impending crisis will set the tone for those negotiations. In the short term, yes. He and his wife have four cats, thousands of bees, and a yoga studio in the sleepy Northwest hills of Connecticut. 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 . 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. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. This is prompting a lot of people to ask whats going to happen next. And what does that mean for the users on the river? They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. Hes also been a long-time guest host on Science Friday. California broke from six other Western states in proposal to cut Colorado River use as water levels reach historic lows. It took 16 years for it to fill. 2002, 2018 and 2021 are the most intense dry periods on record for the basin. Its not quite as bad as 2002, she said, but it could easily get there. But after more than two decades of drought it is now less than 1,050 feet the lowest since the lake was filled, and falling about a foot a week. Work on the dam that created Lake Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966. So when Lake Mead declines, certain policy triggers are put in place. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Today, the lake has about 13 million acre-feet left, said Eric Kuhn, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, which is helping to oversee the study. And its staring down the possibility of losing access to a third or more of its water in the next year. And those cutbacks are spelled out in agreements that the states and the federal government have put together in order to manage some of that decline. . Weve seen declines in snowpack at the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. 2020. On the contrary, he said, its actually become this locus of huge uncertainty, which doesnt allow downstream users to make effective plans, because they dont know what their allocations are going to be. Lake Powell has been called Jewel of the Colorado by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. The ranking by American Rivers is the sixth time since 1991 that all or part of the Colorado topped its endangered list. Future conservation efforts are highly uncertain. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. The Glen Canyon Dam forms Lake Powell and the Hoover Dam forms Lake Mead. Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin. Glen Canyon Dam, Colorado River, Arizona. 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? You would have to go back to April of 1937, also twoyears into its initial filling, to find levels that low. The third would transfer some water stored in the smaller Upper Basin reservoirs to Lake Powell. Falling water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell have been concerning for several years. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. As of August 10, water levels were measured to be 3,534.51 feet above sea level. Back-to-back dry years years with below-average runoff have left little water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, a reservoir upstream. water level is too low to flow downstream, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. 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. 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 . New York, NY 10004. She compares the current drought conditions to 2018, another record-breaking hot and dry year just a couple years ago. If Lake Powell recedes much further, one of the nations largest reservoirs could be at risk of no longer generating hydropower for the region. 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. The river is a lifeline, providing water to more than . Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. This is very unpredictable and these are going to be difficult conversations in the coming years.. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". 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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 cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Lake Powell is supposed to buffer water supply during times of drought [and] it is not performing that function now. If levels dropped below 3,490 feet, there wouldnt be enough water flowing through Glen Canyon Dams turbines to generate power. I would say less than 20 percent, Ostler said. Lake Mead is the nation's largest reservoir, a companion to Lake Powell. And Lake Mead is currently at 37% capacity. Lake Powell has been called "Jewel of the Colorado" by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. The April-July forecast for Colorado River runoff into Lake Powell is 74 percent of average. However, the receding water levels have already greatly reduced the reservoirs generating capacity, to about 800 megawattsabout 60 percent. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Conditions have been deteriorating across the river basin since the summer of 2020. 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. The challenges are really hard, Fleck said. : Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter, READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY. Share on Facebook; . It supplies water and power to Arizona, California and Nevada. Complicating matters are the ongoing talks on allocation between the seven states on the Colorado River, the source of the lakes waters. We are likely witnessing the end of Lake Powell as we knew it in the 80s and 90s, Balken said. Its also in the groundwater, something that you cant see. Created by Bluecadet. Climate scientists call it D4. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. By the end of the summer, its projected to be even lower, at 29% of its capacity, which is a record low. Last week, the lake reached a disturbing new. Every other state in the watershed had one of its top five driest years on record. Theyre roughly 25% full now, saidBrad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. That leaves a sizable deficit and little time to turn things around. 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. Kuhns analysis is the worst case, said Pat Tyrrell, Wyoming state engineer who has been involved in the Upper Basin water talks. Glen Canyon Dam in Lake Powell near Page, Arizona on July 4, 2010. Climatologist Jon Meyer with the Utah Climate Center said the number that captures the severity for him is 12 inches. What about the idea of a water shortage? The basin is made up of portions of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. "You might not see the lush lawns of today and endless fields of alfalfa, but you will see thriving communities and agricultural regions. This cookie is native to PHP applications. In an average year, Lake Powell gets enough water that it can release a bit more 8.23 million acre-feet a year. which could funnel up to 300,000 acre-feet from Powell.One of those projects, Utah's Lake Powell pipeline to St. George, would . At that point, Upper Basin states would start delivering water from their other reservoirs to Powell. Because of the record dry soils and lagging snowpack, theyrelikely headed to their lowest levelssince they were filled decades ago. The Lower Basin states of Arizona and Nevada have begun to see their deliveries from the river curtailed. It will be painful but it doesn't mean the area can't thrive. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. 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. Whether the six-year cycle of 2000-05 repeats itself is anybodys guess, said Pat Tyrrell, Wyoming state engineer who has been involved in the Upper Basin water talks. LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. Officials managing the effort say computer models show that taking these steps would reduce the risk of catastrophically low levels to near zero. First of all Lake Powell is not gonna dry up. NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. Balken said depositing the lake's water in Lake Mead, which isn't made out of sandstone,. Lake Powell is the town's lifeline. Extremely dry years that produce eye-popping statistics tend to grab officials by the shoulders and give them a good shake. "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. As Lake Mead outside Las Vegas and Lake Powell in Utah decline, certain policies are triggered into action. Its depth level currently stands at around 3,530 feet. Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. 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. By Jan. 29, when the "after" image was taken, Shasta was up to 56%. Is deleted when all the browser windows are closed coming for decades and decades of 2020 the River... 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