Geoff: A megadrought is choking
the western and southwestern
regions of the U.S.
It's the worst drought in over
1000 years in this country.
This week, local officials in
southern California started
restricting water use, including
watering of lawns to once or
twice a week, for about six
million residents.
It's also having a major impact
on lake mead, a major source of
water for agriculture and for
millions of people in the west.
The mega drought is connected
intimately with climate change
of course, and our story is part
of our ongoing coverage of the
tipping point.
The Colorado river basin, a
lifeline of the American
southwest, is shrinking.
And with it, the country's two
largest reservoirs are going
dry.
Just 30 miles east of Las Vegas
sits lake mead on the border of
Arizona and Nevada.
It's the largest manmade
reservoir in North America.
Lake mead pumps water from the
Colorado river to nearly 25
million people.
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.
>> About 75% of the water goes
to irrigation for agriculture.
That supplies about 60% of the
food for the nation that's grown
in the United States.
Geoff: Nearly 40% of Arizona's
water supply comes from lake
mead.
But the lake has been declining
for decades due to rising
temperatures and climate change.
Cracked Earth and mud where
water used to be.
Now it's only 30% full, a
historic low.
Over the years, rusted debris
and sunken boats have emerged.
More recently, some darker
discoveries, human remains, lost
for decades.
Around the lake, a bathtub ring
exposes receding water levels
over time.
This is what it looked like in
1983.
Fast forward nearly four
decades, lake mead is now 178
feet lower, and continuing to
shrink.
Below lake mead, the Hoover dam
provides hydro-electric power to
1.3 million people across three
states.
But the dam is operating at 67%
of its capacity.
If the reservoir's elevation
falls below 950 feet, the dam's
turbines will stop spinning.
>> People ask me like, hey, what
do we need to do to fill up lake
mead again?
I need over a decade of above
average snowfall in the Colorado
rockies to make that happen.
Geoff: Lake mead gets water from
lake Powell, the second largest
reservoir in the country.
Its water supply is around a
fourth of what it used to be.
States in the southwest have
started limiting some of their
use of the Colorado river basin.
And last month, federal
officials took unprecedented
action to temporarily keep
enough water in lake Powell, one
of the country's largest
reservoirs, to continue
generating hydropower for a
million homes.
For more on all this, I'm joined
by Alex Hager.
He covers the Colorado river
basin for northern Colorado
public radio.
It is great to have you with us.
What does this all mean that
these two huge reservoirs are at
critically low levels?
It is a lifeline for the
American southwest, but really
for all of us, given that it is
key infrastructure for big ag.
Alex: It is truly a sign of how
critical the drought is.
We are in year 22 going on 23 of
drought, and a lot of scientists
are saying this is not just a
drought, it's a writ of acacian,
a sign that the baseline for how
much water we should expect in
the American west is going to
look very different than it has
for a long time.
And that will have implications
for 40 million people who depend
on the river for an awful lot of
agriculture that a lot of times
is the only reason we see leafy
greens on the table and most of
this country in the winter.
And what we are talking about
with these two reservoirs is
storage.
We're talking about a safety net
to make sure that water can keep
flowing.
Reservoirs are the means by
which humans can take a natural
resource and kind of control for
fluctuation to make sure they
have some consistency in the
timing, location, and quantity
of where the water goes.
You lose that ability when you
lose volume.
Geoff: What measures are being
taken to preserve and protect
these reservoirs?
And are they working so far?
Apparently they are not.
Alex: Across the west, there
have been a number of programs
reduce water use.
From cities to farm fields.
And we are starting to see more
as this gets more critical.
In a very direct sense there
have been measures taken to
leave more water in lake mead,
but even the people who designed
those measures will tell you is
not a silver bullet.
That they are temporary
holdovers until we can come up
with something more permanent
until the situation with the
water turns around.
Allow climate scientists will
tell you there is not a good
reason to expect the water
situation will turn around.
Folks have their eyes on the
next round of negotiations for
operating guidelines which are
due by 2026.
A lot of measures we are seeing
right now including numbers from
this year, they are to hold
things over until the states and
the tribes that use the river's
water can come to the table and
figure out the new rules for how
to get a slice of the pie that
is shrinking.
Geoff: I was going to ask you
about that.
In a world where there is less
water to go around I imagine
there is a lot of focus on who
will be first in line to lose
it.
How are those early
conversations unfolding?
Alex: A lot of the states and
tribes that do get to use it,
they do not want to be the ones
to lose more.
So there is definitely a spirit
of making sure that people can
protect water for the folks in
their jurisdictions.
There is also a lot of talk
about collaboration.
Whenever you talk to water
managers, the top people in
states across the west, they say
we cannot move forward.
There is no path forward unless
there is some sense of
compromise and collaboration.
Time will tell as to whether or
not they can actually do that.
There is generally a good spirit
of conservation and a lot of
spaces.
Cities will tell you they have
been able to stretch 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.
And there is some of that spirit
in the world of agriculture as
well, keeping crops alive with
less water.
Geoff: As you do your reporting
and talk to people, I imagine
they grasp the sense of urgency.
Do you pick up in your reporting
a sense of panic, a panic that
sets in when you see a headline
that these two major reservoirs
are dangerously low levels?
Alex: In all honesty, there are
times I would expect to and do
not sense panic.
There have been a lot of
measures taken over the course
of the last decade and few
decades to safeguard against
some of this.
This is a crisis referred to a
lot of times is a slow moving
train wreck.
So, in places like central
Arizona, which was the first
place to lose some of its water
allocation in last year's
federal shortage allocation,
they say on the user end, a lot
of folks will not notice for
maybe a decade because they have
been storing water underground,
they have been shuffling access
away into the reserves.
The same is true into other
areas where there have been
measures to remove grassy lawns
and savior acacian water that
they can put back -- save
irrigation water they can put
back in the system.
Geoff: Alex Hager, thank you for