In parts of the Colorado River basin, Bolinger said climate change has caused conditions on the ground to bump up against the designated drought categories. The water levels behind the Colorado Rivers biggest dams are fast-approaching or already at record lows. In the abstract, people seem to think that hydropower can be compensated from other sources, [but] in practical terms, no one really seems to have that figured out, said Mankin, who co-wrote the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Drought Task Forces annual report in 2021. "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would.". 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. The Lower Basin states have already agreed on two short-term programs to reduce their take of water from Mead. The first warning sign would come if a drought pushed the lake below 3,525 feet, almost 85 feet below where it is now. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. They both use water from the Colorado River. I'm not sure a lot of Las Vega. So water from the Colorado River is now pumped across the state of Arizona via the Central Arizona Project (CAP). We called several of them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current state of the Colorado River basin. LUKE RUNYON: Yeah, and this is a question that has been of intense interest to climate scientists. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. We don't know if we can release water to meet downstream requirements. That leaves a sizable deficit and little time to turn things around. The Bureau's projections show a 3% chance that Lake Powell's water levels fall below the minimum level necessary for the lake's Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydroelectricity next year. 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. Are experts looking at this saying, its just going to get worse in the Colorado River basin? Luke, well continue to follow your reporting. 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. 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. For the authoritative record of Science Fridays programming, please visit the original aired/published recording. 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. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. The latest data shows the reservoir at 3,523 feet above sea level. 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 . Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Together, these reservoirs, fed by the mighty Colorado River, provide the water 40million Americans depend on. "It's tough to see," Levy told 12News. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. 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. This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC with financial support from the Walton Family Foundation. The dryness is currently off the charts in parts of the watershed. They've been ignoring the problem coming for decades and decades. And that group includes the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute tribe, the Quechan Indian tribe. As of Thursday, Lake Mead was at 1,045.79 feet. Water managers across the region are on the clock to come up with new rules for how to share Colorado River water before 2026, when the current guidelines expire. 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. It does not store any personal data. 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. 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 . The dry years are what force the really important steps forward in the policy community.. The latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation show there's a. The nations second-largest reservoir is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low. What is the long-term future of Lake Powell? That is incorrect. 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. More than four scientific studieshave pinned a large part of the decline on human climate change. Balken said depositing the lake's water in Lake Mead, which isn't made out of sandstone,. California broke from six other Western states in proposal to cut Colorado River use as water levels reach historic lows. 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. Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter, Latest climate change news from USA TODAY, Western water crisis looms as California complicates critical water deal. What would constitute that? Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide. Hes a reporter at KUNC, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. This cookie is used to detect and defend when a client attempt to replay a cookie.This cookie manages the interaction with online bots and takes the appropriate actions. Lake Powell has been called "Jewel of the Colorado" by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. 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. Because of that, its expected that the Department of the Interior'sBureau of Reclamation, which oversees water management, will mandate onesometime next year. The shoreline it creates, in a red rock desert, is longer than the entire U.S. West Coast.. Give us an idea, if you would, just how low the supply is in the basins reservoirs right now. 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. water level is too low to flow downstream, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. "Its hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.. The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering a plan to keep extra water in Lake Powell. Today its about half full, Kuhn said. With the reservoirs approaching their lowest levels in modern history, that brings us to our final number: 2026. In a wetter year, it will release 9 million acre feet to Mead. The water in Lake Powell is low because the amount of water in the Colorado River has been falling for decades. Without wet hydrology to replenish the reservoirs, the basin finds itself in an all but certain shortage condition for the first time." . Lake Powell is the town's lifeline. Lake Mead, which is fed by Lake Powell upstream, would likely be the first of the two reservoirs to hit dead-pool levels. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. Water managers in the four Upper Basin states and the federal government are expected to start monthly planning calls this year to consider options for propping up the reservoir if needed. When its needed its released to Lake Mead and the three Lower Basin states. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. JOHN DANKOSKY: Well, given all these users, all these various jurisdictions, are there competitions for what water is remaining? Page mayor: Lake Powell is not drying up. And thats a word that youre hearing a lot more, is megadrought, not just this temporary state of drought. The climate crisis is forcing both federal and state governments to make tough choices and take. 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. Its 90% of the water supply to Las Vegas, 50% to Phoenix, effectively 100% to Tucson and 25% to Los Angeles, said Udall. This cookie is native to PHP applications. If the water level continues falling on its own, below minimum power pool, the dam is physically incapable of releasing a lot of water. The April-July forecast for Colorado River runoff into Lake Powell is 74 percent of average. 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. Even though conditions may be evolving and getting even worse, we dont really have a way to depict that, because D4, thats that ceiling, she said. Water levels dipped below 3,525 feet the last major milestone before a serious threat to hydropower generation at the Glen Canyon Dam. Lake Mead the largest reservoir in the Colorado River Basin is losing water at record speeds, dropping . This is when were supposed to be gaining and accumulating water in the form of snowpack, and thats not happening, Selover said. 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 . And its split into two watersheds. 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. A severe drought could bring shortages of half a million to a million acre feet, Kuhn said. But even some creosote is dying, unable to take the one-two punch of both the hottest and driest conditions on record last year in parts of Arizona. Its not quite as bad as 2002, she said, but it could easily get there. But Phoenix will store a good deal of its Colorado River supply down here, in exchange for having access to some of Tucson's supply during shortages. 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. And its easy to put them off if you get a wet year. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, for water. Lake Oroville, a key component of California's water supply, also benefited from the early-winter storms, as . Both reservoirs have troublingly low water levels at 1,054.79 and 3,524.22 feet above sea level, respectively. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. The water level at Lake Mead is sitting at just 39%, while Lake Powell is at 36%. "The West might look different," said Hasencamp. The third would transfer some water stored in the smaller Upper Basin reservoirs to Lake Powell. Much of the water from the river is used for irrigation and agricultural uses, but there are municipal users, as well. 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. If levels dropped below 3,490 feet, there wouldnt be enough water flowing through Glen Canyon Dams turbines to generate power. At the time of publication, Lake Powell was sitting at only 3,529 feet only four feet above this important threshold. Work on the dam that created Lake Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966. 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. Created by Bluecadet. Last week, the lake reached a disturbing new. 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? In coming years, it's going to get worse and worse and worse.. So the question is, how bad is it going to get? As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. A years worth of rain and snow is missing from Utahs ground. 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. 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. Lake Powell generates power for about 5.8 million households and businesses in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It doesn't strain the mind to imagine us losing power within a year. YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. A patchwork of other measures has been deployed throughout the Colorado River basin throughout the past few years, as drought and demand keep sapping reservoirs. Why is Lake Mead drying up? 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. People should definitely not feel like the agencies managing the Colorado River have it under control, he said. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. Lake Powell has been called Jewel of the Colorado by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966 or already at speeds... 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