The Colorado River Basin, a lifeline of the American Southwest, is shrinking. It was ratified by both states and Congress, making it federal law. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports its lowest levels in 17 years. Cars loaded with folding chairs, umbrellas, kayaks and piles of food must navigate the bumpy off-road ride to the shore, their wheels grinding over delicate white shells that stud the dry lakebed. Image of the Day Barb Naramore, deputy commissioner with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, says Water Train was a wake-up call to better protect all Minnesota groundwater from potential export. The receding waters have shuttered recreational boat ramps and threatened hydropower production. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/persistent-drought-causes-perilously-low-water-levels-at-lake-mead, Californians could see mandatory water cuts amid continuing drought, More human remains found in Lake Mead amid water level drop, As California gets its final winter rains, drought is setting up a water battle, Drought-stricken California imposes new round of water cuts, Wests megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years. It also brings about an interesting question: If someone wanted to divert Minnesota groundwater to the thirsty Southwest, could they? Drought. hide caption. As you do your reporting, as you talk to elected officials, as you talk to water regulators, I imagine that they sort of grasp the sense of urgency, but do you pick up in your reporting a sense of panic, the sort of panic that sets in when you see a headline that these two major reservoirs are at critically low, dangerously low levels? In the reservoirs northern Overton Arm, the heavy frame of a bomber plane has rested on the lakes floor for 74 years after a critical miscalculation of the planes altitude sent the B-29 Superfortress crashing into the surface and sinking to the lakebed. The long craft has been partially gutted, its engine removed. Studies show that since 2000, about half the reduction in the Colorado River's flow has been due to warmer temperatures. Since California's last drought from 2012 to 2016, residential water use has remained lower than it was before the drought hit. Perhaps the greatest symbol of water use in the west is the Hoover Dam and the massive reservoir it creates, Lake Mead. Around the lake, a bathtub ring exposes receding water levels over time. When water supplies get so low, some states are required to cut back on use. Cuts may be coming but far more is needed to sustain the system as conditions intensify. And it needs an immediate response, water by rail is that immediate response, said Rangel. At the lakes southwestern Boulder Beach, shorelines have retracted so far that roads built to meet the waters edge end abruptly several hundred yards from the water line. Stark images of the bathtub ring around Lake Mead have come to symbolize the devastating effects of drought at Americas largest reservoir. Plagued by extreme, climate change-fueled drought and increasing demand for water, Lake Mead on More than 64 million people are directly affected by drought in the Southwest and Southern Plains, and far more are indirectly affected because of the vast number of farms, orchards, and ranches that supply the rest of the United States. I mean, in a world where there is less water to go around, I imagine there's a lot of focus on who will be first in line to lose it. Land Lake Mead Lake Mead That water also flows to the Central Valley and other agricultural areas, which grow two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts. As its shoreline shrinks, Lake Mead will be a smaller lake, but it should hold steady at a level sufficient to generate power and deliver water through its outlets. The Washington Post reported that in the future, the Hoover Dam may no longer be able to Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources, half the reduction in the Colorado River's flow, the river's flow is expected to shrink by 9%, it's shrinking and melting earlier in the season, have claimed more water than is available on average. No further information is available at this time, the National Park Service stated in a press release. He also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC political contributor. By the end of September 2022, the agency expects the river to bring 8.3 million acre-feet of water into Lake Powell, the reservoir on the Utah-Arizona border that Another sleek vessel attracting visitors rockets out of the ground at a seemingly gravity-defying angle. Updated on: July 27, 2022 / 8:20 AM Lake Mead could still tank in 2023, despite all we've done to sa As Lake Mead drops, Arizona and Nevada face cutbacks first. Water For more on all this, I'm joined by Alex Hager. Flight Center. In the years that followed, the couple had a front-row view as many of their beloved spots became unrecognizable. NASA images shows drought conditions at Lake Mead in US And reservoirs are really the means by which humans can take a natural resource and kind of control for fluctuation to make sure that they have some consistency in the timing, location and quantity of where that water goes. At the sole remaining launch ramp in Hemenway Harbor, the water is still too shallow for bigger boats to enter. Ifthese predictions hold,there will come a point at which the guaranteed Article III(d) flows intoLake Mead could so severely limit water use in the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming thatthe entire law of the river, including the Colorado River Compact, will be up for discussion and reconsideration. A 14-year drought has caused the water level in Lake Mead to shrink to its lowest point since it was first filled in the 1930s. I mean, this is a crisis that's referred to a lot of times as a slow-moving train wreck. Arizona's reductions will primarily hit farmers. But in a hotter climate, it's shrinking and melting earlier in the season. Those are due by 2026. The ivory ring sits flush with the top of the hulking Hoover Dam, which holds back water from the reservoir. Drought has struck a huge reservoir on the border Zambia and Zimbabwe, reducing the hydro power supply from Kariba dam . Now, newly released satellite pictures from Nasa offer a new view of how dramatically water levels have declined over the past 22 years. The investigation is ongoing. Lake Mead is a massive reservoir on the Colorado River created by the Hoover Dam. Feds will release more water downstream into drought-stricken By Emily Mae Czachor. As the result of a decades-long megadrought across the region, Lake Meads water level has dropped around 170 feet feet since 2000, causing its shoreline to recede dramatically and exposing huge swaths of dry lakebed. "Over the last 22 years or so, there's been quite a bit of bad luck because precipitation totals have on average been low," says Park Williams, associate professor of hydroclimatology at UCLA. Human Presence The DCP is a collection of agreements among the seven basin States to boost the storage levels in Lake Mead and Lake Power to prevent NASA Goddard Space If the reservoir's elevation falls below 950 feet, the dam's turbines will stop spinning. The Upper Basin states haveyetto curtailany of their water uses in order tosend flows to the Lower Basin. It's a major water source for residents and tribes in Arizona, Nevada, California, and parts of Mexico, and some of the country's most productive agricultural sites. If water levels continue to fall, other states such as California will also face restrictions. October 27, 2022, 8:23 AM 0:58 Lake Mead's water levels have reached historic lows due to a drouRead More ABC News Climate change and a historic drought Now that moving large quantities of groundwater is protected in Minnesota, you might be wondering about Lake Superior. Drought Lake Mead It continues a 22-year megadrought that may be the regions worst dry spell in twelve centuries. This is not something we can wait out. For Bob, its a painful reminder of what the lake used to be. The state's snowpack in the Sierra Nevada up north is a vital source of water. The Colorado River is a magnificent and wildly unpredictable resource. In five decades they've never seen the water levels as low as they are now.If you get into an area where you are beside a sheer cliff, when you look up, you say Wow! Turns out its already been tried. hide caption. To manage this decline and stabilize the lake is not rocket science. The nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead, is headed to its lowest level since it was first filled in the 1930s. From the vantage point of today, the best alternative for a new agreement in 2026 will be to extend the existing DCP for another 10 years. Cities will tell you that they have been able to stretch their water supplies over the past three or four decades using the same amount of water to supply cities that have grown by hundreds of thousands of people. Geoff Bennett serves as co-anchor of PBS NewsHour. So, what steps what measures are being taken to preserve, to protect these reservoirs? It is a systemic shift that must be prepared for and adapted to. Images taken on April 28 and May 14 were used to fill in gaps in the data. According to state research, California's water supply, which reaches 25 million residents through two state and federal water projects, will shrink with every degree of warming, even if the state gets more rain than average. This is not a drought, this is aridification, Rhett Larson, a water law professor at Arizona State University, told the Denver Post, reflecting on the decline of the Colorado River. Long-term climate records taken from tree rings reveal that patterns of drought are common in the southwestern United States. For the 2022 water year, which begins October 1, Mexico will receive 80,000 fewer acre-feet, approximately 5 percent of the countrys annual allotment and Nevadas take will be cut by: 21,000 acre-feet (about 7 percent of the states annual apportionment). Getting a boat onto the water, however, is becoming more of a challenge. The second largest reservoir in the United States now stands at its lowest level since it was filled in the mid-1960s. The I think there have been a lot of measures taken over the course of the last decade and few decades to safeguard against some of this. A five-year drought in the 1950s left many regions in the southwest so devastated that they were declared federal It's still a really great lake for boating and enjoying yourself recreation wise.. Its level has dropped 170 feet (52 meters) since reaching a high-water mark in 1983, leaving a bright white line of mineral deposits on the brown canyon walls that looms over passing motor boats as high as a 15-story building. For many, those rights are considered untouchable, and any effort to curtail them spawns numerous lawsuits. Image of the Day And as in the Colorado River basin, less of that snowpack is turning into water supply. The park service is unsure how or when the boat was deposited there, but the shallow spot has become a sort of pilgrimage for curious explorers. Reclamation announces 2022 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Lake Mead, crucial water source in West, tips toward crisis - Los Whats known as the "bathtub ring" vividly shows where water levels used to be, and how far they've dropped about 160 feet in 20 years. Over the past few years, however, rain and snow have been scarce, and water levels in the reservoir are steadily dropping. Fires When Alan ONeill was superintendent of the park from 1987 to 2000, the park maintained as many as nine ramps for people to pull boats in and out of the lake, he says, remarking that having only one ramp available at the park is tragic., "It breaks my heart to go out there, he says. According to the NPS, an unidentified person uncovered the body while visiting a portion of Lake Mead National Recreation Area called Swim Beach, located in the reservoir's boulder basin area about 30 miles east of Las Vegas. With the Lake Mead reservoir at 35 percent of capacity, Lake Powell at 31 percent, and the entire Lower Colorado system at 40 percent, the Bureau of Reclamation announced on August 16 that water allocations would be cut over the next year. As a severe and ongoing drought caused the water level at Lake Mead the largest reservoir in the United States, spanning roughly 120 miles between eastern Nevada and western Arizona tosink to its lowest point in nearly a century, human remains were found near its new shores multiple times this year. So how are those early conversations unfolding? In a very direct sense, there have been some measures taken to leave more water in Lake Mead, to release more water from upstream and put it in Lake Powell. Snowpacks melt earlier, which in turn boosts that evaporation, because without the reflective surface that snow creates, soils heat up faster. It stands today at its lowest level since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. Asked why hes made a career farming hay in the middle of the desert, Van Dyke responded, I'd have to say, if you look at LA I hate to say it, but the farms were here first.He's right. But it has been a century in the making. Shown in this Landsat composite image, Lake Mead is one of the largest reservoirs in the world and one of the most important water sources in the western United States. Alex Hager of Northern Colorado Public Radio, thank you for your reporting on this critical issue. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, is shrinking amid the widespread drought conditions across southwestern North America. This valley is grandfathered the first water rights of the Colorado River in all of California.But not everyone in the southwest has water running past their front door. "California's water system was designed for a climate we don't have anymore," says Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. "Once the commissioners negotiated the compact, which was very difficult, they just didn't want to hear that they'd overstated the amount of water supply.". It is called human caused global warming. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. California has its own system of rights where water users have claimed more water than is available on average. States will need to negotiate another plan that would start in 2026, and reservoirs are projected to keep dropping over the next two years. The negotiators will surely need to make adjustments to the amount and timingof DCP reductions. Decades of soaking in the lakes depths have left the planes aluminum body quilted with colonies of invasive mussels. The The original idea was to drill into railroad property that sat above this aquifer.. We've been in this particular house for five years and it's amazing to just see the water continue to disappear from our front yard," she says. The reservoir stands at its lowest level since the 1930s. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Historic Lake Mead drought leads to disturbing discoveries on If the water level drops another 100 feet, it would no longer power the dam. Lake Mead By June 2021, the reservoir's elevation was below 1,070 feet and some states were allocated less water from "I feel really bad looking out and seeing that, knowing how many people from our community were out enjoying not only the lake but the adjacent shoreline, ONeill says, recalling the park buzzing with activity. The true scale of water loss is visible from almost every vantage point at the reservoir. This is the new world we live in., As drought shrivels Lake Powell, millions face power crisis, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. But even with these huge and costly adjustments, the park has been forced to close all but one ramp. The low water level comes at a time when 95 percent of the land in nine Western states is affected by some level of drought (64 percent is extreme or worse). NPR Water Train partnered with Progressive Rail, a railroad company in Dakota County, and applied for an assessment to pump 500 million gallons a year out of the ground to be shipped by rail to paying customers in need out west. This minimum flow guarantee is contained in Article III(d) of the Colorado River Compact,the basic law governing the river. A grueling drought in the American west has depleted the lake, a crucial water source for 25 million people, drying out tributaries, threatening hydropower production and Megadrought causes perilously low water levels at Lake Mead