The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. All signs point to a hotter, drier future for the Western U.S. 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. JOHN DANKOSKY: So Colorado is obviously the name of this water system, but for people who dont know the Colorado River, maybe just give us a little geography lesson. He says such measures can help, for sure. DeSantis says he insisted on no Disney characters at his Disney World FBI director says origin of COVID-19 pandemic most likely a lab 10 key figures who will and wont be at CPAC, What Bidens FHA mortgage fee cut means for buyers, Watch live: White House monkeypox response team holds briefing, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. 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. Nimbull: It dries up a lot of people will be hit with high priced water in stores. 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. 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. It takes sustained changes in order for these systems to recover. 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. JOHN DANKOSKY: How are the tribes preparing differently, maybe, than the states are? The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering a plan to keep extra water in Lake Powell. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. "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. 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. There is also 29 federally-recognized tribes in the basin, of which 10 of those tribes hold a significant amount of water rights from the river. Lake Mead and Lake Powell rise and fall together, said Chuck Cullom, the Central Arizona Projects Colorado River programs manager. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We are really in unprecedented territory right now, and its not even close, Meyer said. At the time of publication, Lake Powell was sitting at only 3,529 feet only four feet above this important threshold. Both Utah and Nevada experienced their driest years on record in 2020. 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 Salton Sea dries up, for instance, the amount of dust that the wind blows up from . Lake Powell is also a popular tourist destination for water recreation. The latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show there's a. The combined reservoirs in Utah are below 50% full. House Republican eyeing legislation to prevent Santos from profiting off Murdoch: Hannity was privately disgusted with Trump after 2020 election, Trumps polling strength causes heartburn for Senate GOP, Top takeaways from student loan forgiveness arguments at the Supreme Court, Student loan forgiveness: Key statements from each justice. Every other state in the watershed had one of its top five driest years on record. Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. The water levels behind the Colorado Rivers biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. Then after all that maybe people will start doing what they should have done years ago at least until the share holders send checks to the politicians again. And this is just the beginning of what. Definitions explained. 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. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Im John Dankosky, and now its time to check in on the state of science. The water in Lake Mead on Wednesday reached a new low 1070.6 feet above sea level since it was filled in the 1930's, according to data provided by the US Bureau of Reclamation. The Colorado River cuts through dry land that was once covered by Lake Powell on September 7, 2022, near Hite, Utah. Lake Powell is the town's lifeline. The dropping water and the reservoirs expanding bathtub rings are also tied to policy. Glen Canyon Dam, Colorado River, Arizona. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. 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. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage. Water levels at . In addition, the river itself experiences more evaporation. Created by Bluecadet. Page mayor: Lake Powell is not drying up. What is the long-term future of Lake Powell? Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. The challenges are really hard, Fleck said. Hes also been a long-time guest host on Science Friday. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. Lake Powell has many functions, one of them as a major recreation center for fishermen, houseboaters and other tourists. Luke covers the Colorado River basin. The four Upper Basin states Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are devising a three-legged stool plan to protect Lake Powell. Climate scientists call it D4. Thats the first time it has ever dipped below the buffer elevation of 3,525. In the year 2000, the two reservoirs were 95% full. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Keep reading with a digital access subscription. At 3,370 feet, the reservoir hits. 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. Pause your chores until you have a full-load for the dishwasher. Are experts looking at this saying, its just going to get worse in the Colorado River basin? Theyre roughly 25% full now, saidBrad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University. 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. Much of the water from the river is used for irrigation and agricultural uses, but there are municipal users, as well. This cookie is set by the provider Akamai Bot Manager. A . The year as I write is now 2018. The low levels arent just causing hand-wringing among the Wests water officials. 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. This story was reported by Luke Runyon on KUNC. JOHN DANKOSKY: Luke Runyon is a reporter based at KUNC in Fort Collins, Colorado. I'm not sure a lot of Las Vega. Contact reporter Tony Davis at tdavis@tucson.com or 806-7746. 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. All told, about 40 million people in the region depend on the Colorado River and its tributaries, not to mention the fish and the birds and the other wildlife that depend on its water as well. She compares the current drought conditions to 2018, another record-breaking hot and dry year just a couple years ago. The second would step up cloud-seeding programs to try to boost snowfall in the region. 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. ", States that use Colorado River Basin water mandated to cut use. Lake Powell has been called "Jewel of the Colorado" by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. They don't have it under control. Air entering the system would also damage the generators. The government predicts that Lake Mead's water level will fall below 1,075 feet (328 meters) by June, the level . YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. 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. Broadly speaking, dropping levels have created a lot of unanswered questions about the future. Weve seen evaporation increase from reservoirs and streams at higher temperatures. At its height, the lake surface sits over 1,200 feet (365 meters) above sea level. 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. Correction 01/16/23 10:56 a.m. Theres an increasing body of work that I would say puts climate changes fingerprints on this megadrought. As a key ingredient in everything from asphalt to microchips, scientists are trying to make sand extraction more ecologically friendly. 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. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. Its also in the groundwater, something that you cant see. 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. LUKE RUNYON: So seven US states make up the Colorado River basin. Many of the. 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. Balken said depositing the lake's water in Lake Mead, which isn't made out of sandstone,. A drought that has gripped the Southwest is creeping the nation's two largest reservoirs toward a dead pool, which would have catastrophic consequences for water users in the Colorado River's lower basin. So water from the Colorado River is now pumped across the state of Arizona via the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Its also headed toward a record low later this year. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. Those cutbacks are likely to grow steeper in 2021. 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. That deficit is about the same amount of precipitation that falls across Utah in an entire year. Forecasts dont paint a pretty picture for snowpack either. How does climate change affect you? And that group includes the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute tribe, the Quechan Indian tribe. which could funnel up to 300,000 acre-feet from Powell.One of those projects, Utah's Lake Powell pipeline to St. George, would . As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. 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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. The idea that these smaller upstream reservoirs can continue to compensate Powells losses, thats not the case, he said. Throughout the history of the American West, water issues have shown their ability to both unite and divide communities. If water levels at Lake Powell drop just another 32 feet, those generators will stop spinning. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Water levels in Lake Powell dropped to a new record low on Tuesday. This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. The river basin is governed bya centuries-old agreement that allocates more water than flows through the river, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation has called on states to reduce water use by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. The Santa Cruz River is now a giant bed of dust and sand. They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. You have permission to edit this article. "Its hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.. Thats important for the entire region, Fleck said, because the backdrop of an impending crisis will set the tone for those negotiations. Choose Tap Water Think ahead and cool a jug full in your refrigerator, so there's no need to buy bottled or leave the tap running. In the desert of California lies another manmade lake condemned to death, the Salton Sea. As of Thursday, Lake Mead was at 1,045.79 feet. Hawes noted that the lake has never reached that point before, creating substantial uncertainty about what would happen. Lake Oroville, a key component of California's water supply, also benefited from the early-winter storms, as . The new studys analysis is consistent with the studies and analyses CAP has been doing and is part of the reason its been focusing on trying to protect Lake Mead, Cullom said. Glen Canyon Dam in Lake Powell near Page, Arizona on July 4, 2010. 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. As of Tuesday, the lake located in northern Arizona and Southern Utah had recovered to 3,538 feet without help from rain clouds. LUKE RUNYON: Yeah, and this is a question that has been of intense interest to climate scientists. The Lower Basin states of Arizona and Nevada have begun to see their deliveries from the river curtailed. Experts say it wont be a silver bullet, but could stave off near-term danger. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The . New York, NY 10004. The latest data shows the reservoir at 3,523 feet above sea level. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. It survives, she said. And thats really what were watching right now, is how low is Lake Mead going to go? 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. It doesn't strain the mind to imagine us losing power within a year. By the end of the summer, its projected to be even lower, at 29% of its capacity, which is a record low. In an average year, Lake Powell gets enough water that it can release a bit more 8.23 million acre-feet a year. It stores water as part of the Colorado River Compact and produceselectricity through the hydroelectric turbines in Glen Canyon dam. Without wet hydrology to replenish the reservoirs, the basin finds itself in an all but certain shortage condition for the first time." . The nation's second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low. So Im guessing over the next several years, as policies are negotiated, youre going to hear a lot more about how tribes are being involved in that process. What are the effects of climate change? Work on the dam that created Lake Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966. And the reservoirs expanding bathtub rings are also tied to policy thats not the case, he said be! Necessary '' is the town & # x27 ; s water supply, benefited! 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Website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks updated or amended in the category `` ''. Decades and decades an increasing body of work that i would say puts climate changes fingerprints on megadrought. Sea level hand-wringing among the Wests water officials 's audience year 2000, the reservoir at 3,523 above! They 've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades # ;. Of 3,525 for decades and decades a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are..
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