This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. This year, because things have been so dry some of the states in the Colorado River watershed have had the driest year on record over the last year, and thats left the soil incredibly parched. Conditions have been deteriorating across the river basin since the summer of 2020. The lake was just under 24 percent full as of last week, and had lost 16 feet in the last year. This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC with financial support from the Walton Family Foundation. And most of those cutbacks are going to fall on the Central Arizona Project system. The Glen Canyon Dam, D'deest'in Htsaa, marks where the water level in Lake Powell on the Colorado River, reaches. I said at the top that we dont have an official water shortage. which could funnel up to 300,000 acre-feet from Powell.One of those projects, Utah's Lake Powell pipeline to St. George, would . The April-July forecast for Colorado River runoff into Lake Powell is 74 percent of average. But while Lake Mead . The third would transfer some water stored in the smaller Upper Basin reservoirs to Lake Powell. 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. Theyre already low, because the entire watershed has been experiencing above-average temperatures and below-average river flows since the year 2000. The loss of generation from the lake would deprive the grid of about a quarter million households worth of power. Its not just like, you get a miracle year and youre out of it. Before that, he covered the worlds largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska. Luke Runyon is the water reporter at KUNC in Greeley, Colorado. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. 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. Even hardy desert plants, the ones well-adapted to water scarcity, have struggled. We are likely witnessing the end of Lake Powell as we knew it in the 80s and 90s, Balken said. That is incorrect. VigLink sets this cookie to show users relevant advertisements and also limit the number of adverts that are shown to them. Since Lake Powell is primarily sandstone, the lake actually leaks water into the porous rocks. He spent two years at Aspen Public Radio, mainly reporting on the resort economy, the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. LUKE RUNYON: Sure, so much of the attention in the basin goes towards the rivers largest reservoirs, which also happen to be the biggest reservoirs in the entire United States. Because of the record dry soils and lagging snowpack, theyrelikely headed to their lowest levelssince they were filled decades ago. Credit: Alex Hager. 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. Just as water demand is going up, the supply is going down. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". JOHN DANKOSKY: Local science stories of national significance. The climate crisis is forcing both federal and state governments to make tough choices and take. And youre able to say, oh, the rivers high, or the river is low. It also helps in fraud preventions. The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. This story was reported by Luke Runyon on KUNC. Monsoon rains didnt arrive. It sucks up moisture from forests, backyard gardens and crop fields with greater intensity. Lake Powell is also a popular tourist destination for water recreation. The studys computer models didnt factor in rising temperatures expected in this region due to climate change. 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. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering a plan to keep extra water in Lake Powell. The nation's second-largest reservoir is under pressure from climate change and steady demand, and is now . If its done intentionally, the drawbacks of losing the reservoir could be minimized and the benefits could be maximized, Balken told The Hill. Give us an idea, if you would, just how low the supply is in the basins reservoirs right now. Nancy Selover, Arizonas state climatologist, says the Upper Basin figure is concerning because that accounts for the rivers headwaters. And that group includes the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute tribe, the Quechan Indian tribe. 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. Lake Mead, which is fed by Lake Powell upstream, would likely be the first of the two reservoirs to hit dead-pool levels. Both reservoirs still need to drop several hundred feet before they are considered to be at dead-pool levels. Shes a big fan of stories related to strange animal facts and dystopian technology. Lake Mead is the nation's largest reservoir, a companion to Lake Powell. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. 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. Throughout the history of the American West, water issues have shown their ability to both unite and divide communities. You would have to go back to April of 1937, also twoyears into its initial filling, to find levels that low. What would constitute that? Thats about the amount of water that our soils are behind in terms of what they normally would have, Meyer said. 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 district entered 2021 with a record 3.2 million acre-feet of water storage saved up, including 1.3 million acre-feet in Lake Mead. A large portion of the water in the Colorado River and Lake Powell comes from high-mountain snowmelt in Colorado and Wyoming. They are trying to negotiate a three-state deal that would reduce water deliveries even further, he said. Tony graduated from Northwestern University and started at the Star in 1997. They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. They don't have it under control. All rights reserved. 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 is the highest percentage of land in the rivers Upper Basin since 2002, which stands as the regions driest year on record. Levels on Lake Powell, which stores water for the. 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. 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. The increase in temperatures means the atmosphere is thirstier. 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. Are experts looking at this saying, its just going to get worse in the Colorado River basin? Lake Mead, which is fed by Lake Powell upstream, would likely be the first of the two reservoirs to hit dead-pool levels. But it plays a huge role in the Colorado River basin. "The West might look different," said Hasencamp. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. 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. . JOHN DANKOSKY: Luke Runyon is a reporter based at KUNC in Fort Collins, Colorado. LUKE RUNYON: Yeah, so this is something that is harder for us to visualize, because were so used to looking at reservoirs and rivers. The emergency action would increase Lake Powell's level about 16 feet after an April record low of 2,522 feet. If levels dropped below 3,490 feet, there wouldnt be enough water flowing through Glen Canyon Dams turbines to generate power. Nimbull: It dries up a lot of people will be hit with high priced water in stores. 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. Its also in the groundwater, something that you cant see. And thats Lake Powell in southern Utah and Lake Mead, which is on the Nevada-Arizona border near Las Vegas. And its split into two watersheds. Experts say it wont be a silver bullet, but could stave off near-term danger. The water levels behind the Colorado Rivers biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. What to know about the West's ongoing water crisis: Lake Powell is the nation's second-largestreservoir. 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 . For the Upper Basin states, the reservoir storage has ensured theyll be able to meet their legal requirement under the 1922 Colorado River Compact to deliver 75 million acre feet to the Lower Basin every 10 years. It does not store any personal data. She said the very fact that officials in Washington, D.C. are getting involved underscores the urgency of Lake Powells crisis. The Colorado River feeds both reservoirs, then supplies the lower-basin states of California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico with water. This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. If that does come to pass, Tyrell said he is fairly confident we can deal with worst case scenario if it ever happens.. 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. Twitter sets this cookie to integrate and share features for social media and also store information about how the user uses the website, for tracking and targeting. Secondly, Phoenix does not get it's water from Lake Powell. 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. 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. Nearly all of Utah, New Mexico, . AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. Reservoir storage is the best single number that captures two things: how much water nature provides and how much water humans are consuming out of that provision, Fleck said. We know that well lose hydropower, and they wont be able to make hydropower below 3,490, she said. Keep reading with a digital access subscription. "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. Why is Lake Mead drying up? The shoreline it creates, in a red rock desert, is longer than the entire U.S. West Coast.. Thanks so much for joining us. "The federal government generally prefers to let the stakeholders work things through, Sorensen said. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. Without wet hydrology to replenish the reservoirs, the basin finds itself in an all but certain shortage condition for the first time." . Asthe latest round of federal forecastsfor the rivers flow shows, its plausible, maybe even likely, that the situation could get much worse this year. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. When its needed its released to Lake Mead and the three Lower Basin states. In an average year, Lake Powell gets enough water that it can release a bit more 8.23 million acre-feet a year. 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. 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 . VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. So water from the Colorado River is now pumped across the state of Arizona via the Central Arizona Project (CAP). In an emergency request issued in June 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation urged states relying on the Colorado River basin to reduce their water usage by between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet over the next 18 months. The Nature Conservancy receives some funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which also provides funding to KUNC for reporting on the Colorado River. 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. 2020. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. "It's tough to see," Levy told 12News. The lake ended at a sediment-choked delta, where Balken jumped out into the muck for a hike up the canyon. Falling water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell have been concerning for several years. The lower basin is made up of Arizona, Nevada, and California. 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. "That means that due to climate change, it is more likely that we will see [more] extreme heat waves". And its staring down the possibility of losing access to a third or more of its water in the next year. 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. The latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show there's a. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Its important to differentiate between Lake Powell running dry versus Lake Powell dropping below elevation 3,490 [feet], Taylor Hawes, Colorado River program director at the Nature Conservancy, told The Hill in an interview. In this column provided by Writers on the Range . Those cutbacks are likely to grow steeper in 2021. Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. 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. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, for water. With the reservoirs approaching their lowest levels in modern history, that brings us to our final number: 2026. Legions of climate scientists have produced evidence that less snow is falling, its melting more quickly, and thirsty soils along the way are soaking it up before it reaches rivers and streams. Water levels have been getting lower and lower, and for the first time ever, a shortage seems almost certain. 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