JOHN DANKOSKY: So obviously, people are preparing for worse times. The southwestern US has been dealing with drought conditions for years, and thats had a big impact on the Colorado River basin. The lake was just under 24 percent full as of last week, and had lost 16 feet in the last year. What happens if Lake Powell runs out of water? This is the highest percentage of land in the rivers Upper Basin since 2002, which stands as the regions driest year on record. 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. Such is the nature of the climate change beast that we have unleashed.. As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge. Forecasts dont paint a pretty picture for snowpack either. Having a reliable Lake Powell to back up Lake Mead is crucial especially during a period of uncertainty, Lower Basin users say. Explain that a little bit for us, Luke, and just how dire the situation is for the groundwater in the region. The Santa Cruz River is now a giant bed of dust and sand. At full pool, Powell's water line lies 3,700 feet above sea level, and at 3,370 feet, it will reach deadpool levels. 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. "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would.". The increase in temperatures means the atmosphere is thirstier. "I've been here since 2007 and obviously this is way lower than I've ever seen it.". Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin. Officials say the lowest level at which Glen Canyon Dam can . If Lake Powell recedes much further, one of the nation's largest reservoirs could be at risk of no longer generating hydropower for the region. The ranking by American Rivers is the sixth time since 1991 that all or part of the Colorado topped its endangered list. But the warming temperatures that were seeing make it considerably worse than it would have been. Drought Conditions Affect Two-Thirds of the U.S. Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. A drying climate and withering heat in recent years have pummeled the region: water cuts to farmers, dry wells, mass fish and bird die-offs, and depleted reservoirs that have decimated hydropower output. 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. 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. For context, on the scale of no drought to worst drought, theres no category that captures conditions more dry than exceptional. So the question is, how bad is it going to get? Science Friday transcripts are produced on a tight deadline by 3Play Media. 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Scientists say the current status of Lake Mead is a stark illustration of climate change and a megadrought that could be the worst in the U.S. West in 1,200 years . The big question is how water managers will divvy up a shrinking supply to feed a growing region. Youre hearing a lot more now, especially because the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, is herself a member of a Native American tribe and has put a lot of emphasis on bringing tribes to the table, making tribal consultation a big part of the Biden administrations priorities. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". It is forecast to have a new record low next summer, saidHasencamp. This is prompting a lot of people to ask whats going to happen next. That leaves a sizable deficit and little time to turn things around. The water levels in Lake Powell are dramatically lower than they were in 2021, which in turn were lower than they were in 2020. But while Lake Mead . Why is Lake Mead drying up? Climate change is driving more than two decades of drought across the region, and making it increasingly unlikely that Lake Powell will ever climb back to previous levels. 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. 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. JOHN DANKOSKY: So you know, with so many stories like this, we say, this is probably due to climate change. Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. 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. YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. Every year, it stores water that flows downstream from the four Upper Basin states. 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. Balken said depositing the lake's water in Lake Mead, which isn't made out of sandstone,. The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering a plan to keep extra water in Lake Powell. 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. Climate scientists call it D4. This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. The . Theyre already low, because the entire watershed has been experiencing above-average temperatures and below-average river flows since the year 2000. With the reservoirs approaching their lowest levels in modern history, that brings us to our final number: 2026. If allocations from the Colorado River dip below the levels necessary for some customers to receive hydropower, the real question [becomes] what can our grid accommodate from a hydropower perspective in terms of compensating production losses from Glen Canyon? said Justin Mankin, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. The Lower Basins legal share is 7.5 million acre feet a year. water level is too low to flow downstream, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. And what does that mean for the users on the river? All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. 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. It wascreated by blocking the Colorado River atGlen Canyon in southern Utah and northernArizona. Tony graduated from Northwestern University and started at the Star in 1997. He and his wife have four cats, thousands of bees, and a yoga studio in the sleepy Northwest hills of Connecticut. The story has been updated to reflect this information. According to the National Park Service, contaminants from the newly exposed shorelines are reentering warm, shallow areas and becoming more concentrated. The year as I write is now 2018. One acre-foot generally provides enough water for one to two households for a year. Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. In the second stage of Fill Mead First, the reservoir's level would near 3,374 feet, near the river outlet works. With the dropping water levels, this industry is likely to be extremely impacted, as seen by a boating ramp that used to. And thats because some of these past agreements have put that state in the most vulnerable position for cutbacks. 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. Thats about the amount of water that our soils are behind in terms of what they normally would have, Meyer said. Shes a big fan of stories related to strange animal facts and dystopian technology. LUKE RUNYON: So seven US states make up the Colorado River basin. 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. This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. 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. But there is still this fundamental supply-demand imbalance in the Colorado River basin. The level has risen over the winter months due to rainfall and particularly cold weather to hit parts of the U.S. The Glen Canyon Dam, D'deest'in Htsaa, marks where the water level in Lake Powell on the Colorado River, reaches. The studys computer models didnt factor in rising temperatures expected in this region due to climate change. 30 Broad Street, Suite 801 Copyright 2021 Science Friday Initiative. JOHN DANKOSKY: When you use the term megadrought, that sounds like a newer term. And its split into two watersheds. 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. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. The Lower Basin fares worse, with 93% of the land area in those categories. "It's tough to see," Levy told 12News. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. Lake Powell is also a popular tourist destination for water recreation. Conditions have been deteriorating across the river basin since the summer of 2020. So, what would happen if Lake Powell dried up? Are experts looking at this saying, its just going to get worse in the Colorado River basin? The first warning sign would come if a drought pushed the lake below 3,525 feet, almost 85 feet below where it is now. She said the very fact that officials in Washington, D.C. are getting involved underscores the urgency of Lake Powells crisis. They both use water from the Colorado River. In the desert of California lies another manmade lake condemned to death, the Salton Sea. So Luke, I dont know is this all just because of climate change? More than four scientific studieshave pinned a large part of the decline on human climate change. We're most likely witnessing the end of this reservoir. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better experience for the visitors. The Glen Canyon Dam forms Lake Powell and the Hoover Dam forms Lake Mead. More. Some of Americas largest cities depend on the water from Lake Mead. She compares the current drought conditions to 2018, another record-breaking hot and dry year just a couple years ago. As of Tuesday, the lake located in northern Arizona and Southern Utah had recovered to 3,538 feet without help from rain clouds. The river also crosses over the US-Mexico border and two Mexican states, Baja California and Sonora. But the last time it was anywhere close to that level was 1999. This cookie is used for load balancing purposes. Institute Executive Director Eric Balken said taking such a step would better position stakeholders to address the drought on their own terms rather than simply running out. Water management requires planning for the future. At 3,522 feet, Lake Powell's water surface elevation is at its lowest point since it was first filled in the 1960s, per a statement. The cookie does not store any personally identifiable data. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or the amount of water that will flood an acre of land to a depth of one foot. 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. Luke Runyon is the water reporter at KUNC in Greeley, Colorado. The water level at Lake Mead is sitting at just 39%, while Lake Powell is at 36%. Lakes in the Colorado River Basin are drying up and losing water, with severe water cuts now expected across four states - the start of a water crisis in the West. 2020. At the time of publication, Lake Powell was sitting at only 3,529 feet only four feet above this important threshold. Lake Powell has been called Jewel of the Colorado by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation. 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. JOHN DANKOSKY: Luke Runyon is a reporter based at KUNC in Fort Collins, Colorado. 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. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. 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. With modest reductions in flow, they would be meaningful.. Lake Powell is in crisis. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. We don't know if we can release water to meet downstream requirements. Thats important for the entire region, Fleck said, because the backdrop of an impending crisis will set the tone for those negotiations. VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. The combined reservoirs in Utah are below 50% full. 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 . For the authoritative record of Science Fridays programming, please visit the original aired/published recording. This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC with financial support from the Walton Family Foundation. The Hoover Dam is therefore also at risk of declining hydroelectric power generation as Lake Mead approaches deadpool levels. Azure sets this cookie for routing production traffic by specifying the production slot. what little rain and snow has fallen dries . We don't know if the dam will operate as expected. But Lake Powell's current water level is the lowest since it was first filled almost 60 years ago. And so this creates a lot of potential problems downstream in the Grand Canyon, it creates management problems for the reservoir itself in Glen Canyon, and most importantly, it jeopardizes the upper[Colorado River]basins ability to meet its delivery obligation downstream, Balken said. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. If the reservoirs reach dead-pool levels, more than a million people using the electricity could be required to find new power sources. Lake Powell hasn't been this low since June of 1965, just two years after it began to fill with water. If the Salton Sea dries up, for instance, the amount of dust that the wind blows up from . Lake Powell is supposed to buffer water supply during times of drought [and] it is not performing that function now. 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? In addition to the power the lake generates directly, it is a major source of grid resilience when full, serving as a quick backup source in cases where solar or wind power cant meet demand. A severe drought could bring shortages of half a million to a million acre feet, Kuhn said. "Based on the best climate data that's available, it's really unlikely that this reservoir is going to be around in the decades to come," Eric Balken of the Glen Canyon Institute told 12News. Weve seen declines in snowpack at the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. "Its hard to overstate how important the Colorado River is to the entire American southwest.. So when Lake Mead declines, certain policy triggers are put in place. I would say less than 20 percent, Ostler said. 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. He covers the Colorado River basin. But if the regions dry period repeats itself, he said, youll need fundamental change. His uncle, Stewart Udall, voted to create Lake Powell as an Arizona congressman in 1956 and shepherded construction of the Glen Canyon Dam that holds back the lake while he was interior secretary in the early 1960s. The Colorado isn't running low on information about water supplies. Despite the storms that brought heavy rain and snow to California and other Western states in January, experts say it would take years of such weather to replenish the West's water resources. These ICS uses, at the high end, amount to two and a half feet of elevation in Lake Mead. He spent two years at Aspen Public Radio, mainly reporting on the resort economy, the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. "This is apparently a decent (water) year, but still, if it turns dry again there are some pretty big reductions on tap and every state could be affected," saidHasencamp. 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. Work on the dam that created Lake Powell began in 1956 and was finished in 1966. If levels dropped below 3,490 feet, there wouldnt be enough water flowing through Glen Canyon Dams turbines to generate power. The southwestern states have been gripped by drought for over 22 years, experts say. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. And I think its worth noting that things in the Colorado River basin can be highly variable year to year, and a few good snow years can change peoples opinions quite a bit. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet a possibility still years. However, the receding water levels have already greatly reduced the reservoirs generating capacity, to about 800 megawattsabout 60 percent. 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. Because of that, its expected that the Department of the Interior'sBureau of Reclamation, which oversees water management, will mandate onesometime next year. JOHN DANKOSKY: So its not just the reservoirs, though, where you see these dramatic pictures of just how low the water is. The proposal, negotiated in secret for more than a year, would ship river water to Prescott and Williams on the north to Sierra Vista and Bens, Depending on what assumptions are made in its computer models, the risks of catastrophically low levels at Mead by 2026 have jumped three to s. This drought will only be exacerbated by climate change, as the increased global temperatures are expected to increase the severity of drought weather and frequencies of wildfires, as well as influencing a vast range of other extreme weather events. 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. Broadly speaking, dropping levels have created a lot of unanswered questions about the future. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Monsoon rains didnt arrive. This cookie is native to PHP applications. Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. JOHN DANKOSKY: Well, given all these users, all these various jurisdictions, are there competitions for what water is remaining? 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. He has mostly covered environmental stories since 2005, focusing on water supplies, climate change, the Rosemont Mine and the endangered jaguar. 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. 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. 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